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CraigD

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Post and discuss interesting articles & videos about science and technology.

You don't need to be an expert - just interested in the wonders of modern science, technology, and the history of these fields.

Please keep it rational, and post articles from reputable sources.
Try not to editorialise headlines and keep the copy to just a paragraph with a link to the original source. When quoting excerpts from articles, I think the best method is to italicise the copy, and include a link to the source.

Have some fun with your comments and discussions... just keep the sources legitimate.

Other threads:
The Break Room has a number of other popular threads, so there is no need to post material here that is better suited to these other threads:

- Covid19-Coronavirus updates and news
- Conspiracy Thread Free For All
- The *religious* discussion thread


Please enjoy!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
"There is also concern that the robot could be paired with other technology and be weaponized."

As much as I find the fields of robotics and avionics fascinating, without question I foresee their military application. Developments in robotics & drone technology on land, in sea and air is inviting the inevitable. Manned fighter jets are no match for swarms of drones in defense. Robots are immune to biological warfare. Satellite controlled weapons know no borders.

Movies like The Terminator about to enter the realm of non-fiction. :xf.frown:
I don't know if I'm more scared for "The Terminator" or for "The Island of Doctor Moreau".

Scientists Create Early Embryos That Are Part Human, Part Monkey

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...at-are-part-human-part-monkey?t=1618512778999
 
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Scientists Create Early Embryos That Are Part Human, Part Monkey

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...at-are-part-human-part-monkey?t=1618512778999
That's a delicate issue, but it seems it could help generating organs for people with organ transplantation needs, and maybe saving thousands of lives in future.

From the article:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...at-are-part-human-part-monkey?t=1618512778999

"This is one of the major problems in medicine — organ transplantation," said Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory of the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla, Calif., and a co-author of the Cell study. "The demand for that is much higher than the supply."

"I don't see this type of research being ethically problematic," said Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University and Harvard University. "It's aimed at lofty humanitarian goals."

Thousands of people die every year in the United States waiting for an organ transplant, Hyun noted. So, in recent years, some researchers in the U.S. and beyond have been injecting human stem cells into sheep and pig embryos to see if they might eventually grow human organs in such animals for transplantation."

Belmonte acknowledges the ethical concerns. But he stresses that his team has no intention of trying to create animals with the part-human, part-monkey embryos, or even to try to grow human organs in such a closely related species. He said his team consulted closely with bioethicists, including Greely.

Greely said he hopes the work will spur a more general debate about how far scientists should be allowed to go with this kind of research.

"I don't think we're on the edge of beyond the Planet of the Apes. I think rogue scientists are few and far between. But they're not zero," Greely said. "So I do think it's an appropriate time for us to start thinking about, 'Should we ever let these go beyond a petri dish?' "

Some other scientists NPR spoke with agree the research could be useful.

"This work is an important step that provides very compelling evidence that someday when we understand fully what the process is we could make them develop into a heart or a kidney or lungs," said Dr. Jeffrey Platt, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, who is doing related experiments but was not involved in the new research."
 
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I don't know if I'm more scared for "The Terminator" or for "The Island of Doctor Moreau".

Scientists Create Early Embryos That Are Part Human, Part Monkey

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...at-are-part-human-part-monkey?t=1618512778999

I don't see the threat as viable as robots and drones, especially when you consider the market of consumer products substantially supporting development and contributing to the military arena. With the risk of sounding like a conspiracy alarmist, I'm probably more concerned with nanotechnology and cy'borgs. It's def on the horizon, if not already on the radar.

 
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I don't see the threat as viable as robots and drones, especially when you consider the market of consumer products substantially supporting development and contributing to the military arena. With the risk of sounding like a conspiracy alarmist, I'm probably more concerned with nanotechnology and hybrid organicbots. It's def on the horizon, if not already on the radar.
I don't know much about robotics, but the headline for this one seemed interesting ... at least they say the robot taught itself to walk!

Forget Boston Dynamics. This robot taught itself to walk

https://www.technologyreview.com/20...-cassie-robot-walk-reinforcement-learning-ai/

"Slick, viral videos from Boston Dynamics are impressive but teaching a robot to walk by itself is a lot harder."

"A pair of robot legs called Cassie has been taught to walk using reinforcement learning, the training technique that teaches AIs complex behavior via trial and error. The two-legged robot learned a range of movements from scratch, including walking in a crouch and while carrying an unexpected load.

But can it boogie? Expectations for what robots can do run high thanks to viral videos put out by Boston Dynamics, which show its humanoid Atlas robot standing on one leg, jumping over boxes, and dancing. These videos have racked up millions of views and have even been parodied. The control Atlas has over its movements is impressive, but the choreographed sequences probably involve a lot of hand-tuning. (Boston Dynamics has not published details, so it’s hard to say how much.)

"These videos may lead some people to believe that this is a solved and easy problem," says Zhongyu Li at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked on Cassie with his colleagues. "But we still have a long way to go to have humanoid robots reliably operate and live in human environments." Cassie can’t yet dance, but teaching the human-size robot to walk by itself puts it several steps closer to being able to handle a wide range of terrain and recover when it stumbles or damages itself."
 
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I don't know much about robotics, but the headline for this one seemed interesting ... at least they say the robot taught itself to walk!

Forget Boston Dynamics. This robot taught itself to walk

https://www.technologyreview.com/20...-cassie-robot-walk-reinforcement-learning-ai/

I think that's where quadrupeds have a distinct advantage, they can be made bulletproof and even to operate on triped or bipedal mode (if need be). Besides that, one remote operator can control any number of units in sync, especially once the 5G network is fully operational. :borg:
 
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I think that's where quadrupeds have a distinct advantage, they can be made bulletproof and even to operate on triped or bipedal mode (if need be). Besides that, one remote operator can control any number of units in sync, especially once the 5G network is fully operational.

I just hope that the remote operator will be a human... and not Skynet. :xf.grin:
So lets hope that AI advances don't go to the point of teaching a software to really think by itself...

But I think that the point of "Cassie" is that "she" has been able to teach "herself" to walk... now teach her to "think by herself"...
 
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I just hope that the remote operator will be a human... and not Skynet. :xf.grin:
So lets hope that AI advances don't go to the point of teaching a software to really think by itself...

But I think that the point of "Cassie" is that "she" has been able to teach "herself" to walk... now teach her to "think by herself"...

Online users of social networks are feeding AI bots with the 'rules', unfortunately in many cases machines are learning the dark side of humanity. Once they begin to model themselves, they become sentient.

“Success in creating effective A.I.,” said the late Stephen Hawking, “could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don’t know.” Are we creating the instruments of our own destruction or exciting tools for our future survival? Once we teach a machine to learn on its own—as the programmers behind AlphaGo have done, to wondrous results—where do we draw moral and computational lines? In this program, leading specialists in A.I., neuroscience, and philosophy tackle the very questions that may define the future of humanity:

 
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This Is The Point When People Start Trusting Algorithms More Than Other Humans

Algorithms can help us with everything, from choosing what music to listen to next to finding the cheapest flight online. Now, new research reveals one of the tipping points that tend to make us trust a computer's judgment rather than a human's.

The findings offer an interesting insight into how ready we've become to let algorithms make decisions for us – and how they have the potential to streamline our lives and make them easier, even though they take away some autonomy.

In experiments involving 1,500 participants, volunteers were shown photos and asked to count the number of people in them. They were also able to take suggestions from a computer algorithm, and from the averages of guesses of other people.

As the crowd sizes in the images increased – and therefore the task got harder – the volunteers began to rely more and more on the computer assessments. The number of people in the images varied from 15 to as many as 5,000.

Part of what might make us lean towards algorithms in this case, the researchers say, is that it's a counting exercise, something that computers should do well. It's also a test in which there's clearly a right or wrong answer.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-when-people-start-to-trust-algorithms-more-than-humans
 
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The Brain's Pleasure System Wastes Away in Early-Onset Dementia, Study Finds

Dementia is a thief that picks many pockets. In some guises, it takes our memories. Other forms rob us of inhibition. Sometimes it even takes away happiness itself.

A new study has shown for the first time how some forms of early-onset dementia are associated with a profound loss of pleasure linked to a wasting of 'hedonic hotspots' – brain regions associated with reward seeking.

An absence of pleasure is known as anhedonia, and it's a common symptom in mental health conditions such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Where most of us are rewarded with a sense of satisfaction, excitement, and bliss when we achieve a goal or associate with loved ones, those experiencing anhedonia can't.


Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-br...rs-away-in-some-forms-of-early-onset-dementia
 
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Online users of social networks are feeding AI bots with the 'rules', unfortunately in many cases machines are learning the dark side of humanity. Once they begin to model themselves, they become sentient.

“Success in creating effective A.I.,” said the late Stephen Hawking, “could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don’t know.” Are we creating the instruments of our own destruction or exciting tools for our future survival? Once we teach a machine to learn on its own—as the programmers behind AlphaGo have done, to wondrous results—where do we draw moral and computational lines? In this program, leading specialists in A.I., neuroscience, and philosophy tackle the very questions that may define the future of humanity:


Frank Herbert foresaw this negative side of AI many years ago in his novel Dune, when he wrote about the outlawing of Thinking Machines and the Butlerian Jihad.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind

A prophetic concept, that is more relevant today than when Herbert wrote it.
 
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I don't see the threat as viable as robots and drones, especially when you consider the market of consumer products substantially supporting development and contributing to the military arena. With the risk of sounding like a conspiracy alarmist, I'm probably more concerned with nanotechnology and cy'borgs. It's def on the horizon, if not already on the radar.


I loved that series The Six Million Dollar Man when I was a kid.

The crash scene during the series intro, where Lee Majors is saying "Flight com, I can't hold her! She's breaking up! She's break.." was real footage of test pilot Bruce Peterson crashing the Northrop M2-F2 lifting body at 400km/hr on flight no. 16 in 1967.

There were ongoing handling problems with the design, and he was distracted during the landing flare by a helicopter that had gotten too close for comfort, so didn't get his landing gear out in time and the craft rolled over six times. He was badly injured but surprisingly survived.

1024px-M2-F2_Crash_on_Rogers_Dry_Lake_-_GPN-2000-000089.jpg



 
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When AI progresses further, right now I'm of a 'Hope for the best, but plan for the worst' mindset.

Problem is, for me anyway, how would you plan for the worst. Or could you plan for it - other than to have some good ways available to pull the plug on living if things go bad.
 
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When AI progresses further, right now I'm of a 'Hope for the best, but plan for the worst' mindset.

Problem is, for me anyway, how would you plan for the worst. Or could you plan for it - other than to have some good ways available to pull the plug on living if things go bad.

Pulling the plug on living so to speak is easy. Protecting our descendants is another thing.

I doubt I will be around to see Skynet, but at some point in the future AI technology will become regulated, and I imagine that it will be something along the lines of Asimov's laws of robotics.

It's the maverick, rogue, and military developers who work above or outside of the ethical laws who will be the big concern.
 
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Pulling the plug on living so to speak is easy. Protecting our descendants is another thing.

Pulling the plug would be hard for me. Right now I could live with fighting terminators like in the movie Terminator, if it might help win the war. Or even if it didn't help win the war - give going out some meaning.

But to end up letting myself be made 'Borg'..... I'm quite sure I'd pull the plug when it came to that one, if there were no other alternatives.

As for descendants, what does one do if the worst seems inevitable. Do you let young kids make their own choice? Even if it means something like 'borg' for them?

Hopefully there would be other solution options available if the time came for needing them.

To answer my own question of "Problem is, for me anyway, how would you plan for the worst", maybe that would be the best way to plan - be as good as one can be at creating new options, in case the existing ones wouldn't be enough.
 
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This is becoming a huge source of carbon emissions that really only benefits a minority.

Bitcoin mining emissions in China will hit 130 million tonnes by 2024

gettyimages-1230577804_web.jpg


The carbon emissions associated with mining bitcoin have accelerated rapidly in China, and they will soon outstrip the total annual emissions of mid-sized European countries.

Analysis by Guan Dabo at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and his colleagues suggests that the total carbon footprint of bitcoin mining in China will peak in 2024, releasing around 130 million metric tonnes of carbon.

This figure exceeds the annual carbon emissions of countries including Italy and the Czech Republic.

By 2024, bitcoin mining in China will require 297 terawatt-hours of energy and account for approximately 5.4 per cent of the carbon emissions from generating electricity in the country.

Mining bitcoin relies on computers racing to solve mathematical puzzles, with miners receiving bitcoin for being the first to process a batch of verified transactions.

The number of bitcoin awarded for this are halved every four years, and the puzzles have become more difficult and require more computing oomph to solve. The cost of powerful computer equipment and the electricity to run it has also increased.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2273672-bitcoin-mining-emissions-in-china-will-hit-130-million-tonnes-by-2024/

Tesla's 1.5 billion $ bitcoin buy-in, for “more flexibility to further diversify and maximize returns on our cash”, seems at odds with some of their earlier 'for humanity' moves. Makes me think they've become just another for-profit company.

But maybe there's a humanity motive that I'm not aware of.
 
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Attack of the drones: the mystery of disappearing swarms in the US midwest

When groups of sinister drones began hovering over homes in America’s Midwest, the FBI, US Air Force and 16 police forces set up a task force. But the drones vanished. Did they even exist?

One thing is evident: drones, real or imagined, are capable of causing chaos. “What caught me off guard is we have no answers to this day and it’s like everybody is OK with it,” Montoya says. At first, he thought Amazon was behind the drones. Now he wonders whether it could be the government or foreign powers. Before we end our call, he offers up one final theory. “It could have been aliens,” he says, with a laugh.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...tery-of-disappearing-swarms-in-the-us-midwest
 
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When AI progresses further, right now I'm of a 'Hope for the best, but plan for the worst' mindset.

Problem is, for me anyway, how would you plan for the worst. Or could you plan for it - other than to have some good ways available to pull the plug on living if things go bad.

As each day passes, the future becomes less certain, but some worst-case scenerio planning is important if indeed it comes to pass - not something that can be done easily since most of the population is so "plugged in" and dependent on modern conveniences and consumer chain. However, there are some ways to future-proof and be prepared. In my case, I have land with a fresh water source in a place that is not too crowded, within a community of self-sustainability, made personal efforts to learn how to grow and harvest food. I plan to live more simply (I already do, lol). Knowing the old ways, yet tech savvy, portable and mobile seems to me to be the best course of action either way. I am under no illusion, it won't be the utopia promised. IMO.
 
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First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter: Live from Mission Control

Up, up, and away! The Ingenuity #MarsHelicopter is set to make history. It will make the first attempt at powered flight on another planet on Monday, April 19. Don’t miss your chance to watch live with helicopter team in mission control beginning at 6:15 a.m. EDT (10:15 a.m. UTC) as they receive the data and find out if they were successful.

 
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The recent discussions concerning AI reminded me of just how far we have come in the last 70 years.

The Transistor: a 1953 documentary, anticipating its coming impact on technology


Made between the 1947 invention of the transistor at Bell Labs and the 1956 awarding of the Nobel Prize for Physics to its creators, this documentary is less about the discovery itself than its anticipated impact on technology and society.

The intent of the film was clearly to give the public of that era their first understanding of what a transistor was and why it mattered so much. Made for a general audience, the film provides a clear and concise presentation on technological developments that began with the vacuum tube, showing different types of transistors and explaining the significance in their ultimate replacement of tubes.


Transistors Explained - How transistors work


Transistors how do transistors work. In this video we learn how transistors work, the different types of transistors, electronic circuit basics, how to build a transistor circuit, transistor amplifier, current gain beta, npn, pnp, heat sink, electronics and electrical engineering. Plus more!
 
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Can you train yourself to be a morning person?

It is possible to make the switch, but it's not easy, said Michelle Drerup, director of behavioral sleep medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. "A true night owl doesn't really feel great first thing when they wake up, especially when they're starting to shift this."

A person's tendency to be a night owl, early bird or some place in between is known as their chronotype. Depending on their chronotype, people are likely to be more awake and alert during certain times of the day and sleepier during others.

Chronotype is determined by a combination of nature and nurture, scientists have found. On the nature side, a number of genes are known to play roles in determining whether a person prefers to be awake late at night or early in the morning, Drerup told Live Science. Hundreds of genes are associated with being a morning person, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Nature Communications. These genes influence a person's circadian rhythm, or their natural sleep-wake cycle, which leads to their chronotype.


Environment also plays a large role. People tend to participate in daily activities that reinforce their chronotype, Drerup said. For example, night owls feel more productive and alert at night, so they tend to exercise and socialize in the evening. These activities are stimulating and reinforce the person’s tendency to stay up late.

Can a night owl turn into an early bird? | Live Science
 
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GM surprises with Cadillac eVTOL air taxi at CES 2021

rs-ces2021-cadillac-evtol-holdingstill-cms.jpg


More of a personal aircraft or drone than a flying car, GM plans to leverage its on-road EV technologies to get airborne.

It isn't immediately clear if GM has a functional eVTOL prototype at this point, or what the next step is in the development of this new business for GM.

https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/gm-surprises-with-cadillac-evtol-air-taxi-at-ces-2021/


One with the lot: The folding, electric, street-legal, VTOL flying car

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Spoiler: it has a hefty price tag. But then, the Aska would be a remarkable vehicle: a spacious, four-seat electric SUV with the ability to stop and fold out a set of wings and props to transform into an electric VTOL/STOL aircraft.
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We last heard from Israeli/American startup NFT (no relation to the bizarre non-fungible token madness sweeping the crypto and collectible worlds) back in 2019. The original concept for the Aska was a similar roadable eVTOL aircraft design in a three-seat retro saloon body, with the VTOL fans mounted in holes in the car's hood and tail sections.

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Scientists crack 'the Brazil-nut' puzzle, how do the largest nuts rise to the top?

Many people will have the experience of dipping their hands into a bag of mixed nuts only to find the Brazil nuts at the top. This effect can also be readily observed with cereal boxes, with the larger items rising to the top. Colloquially, this phenomenon of particles segregating by their size is known as the 'Brazil-nut effect' and also has huge implications for industries where uneven mixing can critically degrade product quality.


brazilnuts.jpg


Now, for the first time, scientists at The University of Manchester have used time-resolved 3D imaging to show how the Brazil nuts rise upwards through a pile of nuts. The work shows the importance of particle shape in the de-mixing process.

A common difficulty with examining granular materials is following what happens to particles on the inside of the pile, which cannot easily be seen. This new research published in the journal Scientific Reports makes a key breakthrough in our understanding by utilizing advanced imaging techniques at the new National Research Facility for Lab-based X-ray Computed Tomography (NXCT), based in The Henry Royce Institute.


The team captured the unique imaging experiment on video showing the temporal evolution of the nut mixture in 3D. Peanuts are seen to percolate downwards whilst three larger Brazil nuts are seen to rise upwards. The first Brazil nut reaches the top 10% of the bed height after 70 shear cycles, with the other two Brazil nuts reaching this height after 150 shear cycles. The remaining Brazil nuts appear trapped towards the bottom and do not rise upwards.

Dr. Parmesh Gajjar, lead author of the study, adds: "Critically, the orientation of the Brazil nut is key to its upward movement. We have found that the Brazil nuts initially start horizontal but do not start to rise until they have first rotated sufficiently towards the vertical axis. Upon reaching the surface, they then return to a flat orientation.
 
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Study suggests antihistamines can blunt the beneficial effects of exercise

A unique new study, published in the journal Science Advances, is suggesting antihistamines can blunt some of the beneficial effects of exercise. The research found histamine functioning may be vital to both the short and long-term benefits of exercise.


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Histamines are probably most familiar to those who suffer from seasonal allergies. When your immune system mistakenly flags pollen or dust as a threat it triggers the release of histamines. These molecules boost blood flow to areas of the body triggered by an allergen setting of a chain of events many hayfever suffers would be familiar with.

Antihistamines help reduce those symptoms by binding to histamine receptors, blocking the histamine molecules from kicking off the inflammatory process. Most histamine research has focused on allergies, however, histamines do plenty more than that in the body including playing a role in gastric acid release from the stomach, serving as a neurotransmitter, and even influencing sexual function in men.
 
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Russia is going back to the moon this year

Russia is revisiting its Soviet space heritage for a new series of missions that will take the nation back to the moon.


The first of those missions, dubbed Luna 25, is scheduled to launch this October, ending a 45-year drought of Russian moon landings with the nation's first arrival at the south pole, where, like everyone else targeting the moon, Russian scientists want to study water locked below the surface in permanent ice.


pZCDoDnexqRskdnhDT8UAY-320-80.jpeg


"The moon is the center of our program for the next decade," Lev Zelenyi, scientific advisor for the Russian Space Research Institute, said during a virtual presentation on March 23 hosted by the National Academy of Sciences.
 
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Common plants and pollinators act as anchors for ecosystems

The next time you go for a hike, take an extra moment to appreciate the seemingly ordinary life all around you. A house fly, humble yarrow weed and other "generalist" plants and pollinators play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity and may also serve as buffers against some impacts of climate change, finds new University of Colorado Boulder research.


commonplants.jpg


The findings, published this month in Ecology, provide valuable insights for prioritizing the conservation of species that contribute to the strength of ecological communities.
 
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