Finch

• LONDON, Dec. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- IFS , the global cloud enterprise software company, today announced that it has made two senior appointments with Max Roberts and Belinda Finch joining the company's executive leadership team as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer respectively.
• Max Roberts joins IFS from Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, where he was CEO of the UK business and latterly led the EMEA organization through significant growth.
• Roberts will take responsibility for IFS's Industry, Service Management and Enterprise Asset Management business units, and support IFS global sales and customer success teams in customer engagements.
• IFS CEO Darren Roos commented: "I am delighted to welcome Max and Belinda to IFS.

• It's the first full-metal smart feeder on the market, designed to attract many species of birds and provide an immersive birdwatching experience.
• The Birdkiss S1 is available starting at the super early bird price of $189 USD and early bird price of $199 USD on Kickstarter .
• Our goal is to provide bird lovers with an unparalleled experience, enabling them to connect with nature and gain a deeper understanding of the bird species around them.
• The feeder is equipped with a high-definition 1080P HD lens and a 135 grand wide-angle, enabling Birdkiss S1 to capture crystal-clear footage.

• The government’s decision to approve this loss shows a continuing disregard for nature, cultural heritage and the legacy our descendants will inherit.
• The battle to protect Binybara – as it is known to its Traditional Owners – has galvanised the local community.
• Read more:
  97% of Australians want more action to stop extinctions and 72% want extra spending on the environment

What’s at stake?

• The shoreline near the proposed housing is a globally significant site on the flyway of many shorebirds that migrate from eastern Asia to Australia each year.
• These birds face threats from habitat loss and degradation across their range.
• The project’s environmental impact statement acknowledged it would also have a significant impact on another endangered species, the black-footed tree-rat.
• Read more:
  Land clearing and fracking in Australia's Northern Territory threatens the world's largest intact tropical savanna

A deep cultural significance

• The Larrakia people’s deep and rich cultural ties to this area stretch back millennia.
• The birdlife, from the migrating shorebirds to the owls, kites, eagles and Gouldian finches, is integral to the ecosystems and to the cultural fabric and story of this place.
• Erythrophleum chlorostachys (delenyng-gwa) leaves are used for smoking ceremonies and the inner bark for medicine to treat sores and deep wounds.
• They ask for a management plan to protect their cultural heritage to be developed with their input and that of experts and Darwin locals who value this place.

A(nother) failure of national environment law

• What those offsets are – or whether they are even possible – is not yet known.
• By the time the difficulty of finding a suitable offset site becomes clear, it is often too late – the habitat is gone.
• The case of Binybara exemplifies many of the failings of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act identified by the Samuel review.
• Read more:
  Get the basics right for National Environmental Standards to ensure truly sustainable development

  John Woinarski receives has received funding from the Australian government's National Environmental Science Program.

• Unlike sparrows, finches and most other birds, hummingbirds can taste sweetness because they carry the genetic instructions necessary to detect sugar molecules.
• Like hummingbirds, we humans can sense sugar because our DNA contains gene sequences coding for the molecular detectors that allow us to detect sweetness.
• Neuroscientists like me are working to decipher how this intricate interplay between genes and diet shapes taste.

The role of genes in sensing taste

• The interactions between taste receptors and food molecules give rise to the five basic taste qualities: sweetness, savoriness, bitterness, saltiness and sourness, which are transmitted from the mouth to the brain via specific nerves.
• While the presence of genes encoding for functional taste receptors in our DNA allows us to detect food molecules, how we respond to these also depends on the unique combination of taste genes we carry.
• Like ice cream, genes, including those for taste receptors, come in different flavors.
• What is certain is that while genetics lays the groundwork for taste sensations and preferences, experiences with food can profoundly reshape them.

How diet influences taste

• Some molecules from the mother’s diet, like garlic or carrots, reach the fetus’s developing taste buds via the amniotic fluid and can affect the appreciation of these foods after birth.
• Although we researchers are still working out the exact how and why, studies show that high sugar and fat intake in animal models dampens the responsiveness of taste cells and nerves to sugars, modifies the number of taste cells available and even flips genetic switches in the taste cells’ DNA.
• In my lab, we’ve shown that these taste alterations in rats return to normal within weeks when the extra sugar is removed from the diet.

Illness can also influence taste

• Researchers have found that about 40% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 experience impairment in taste and smell.
• Although researchers don’t understand what causes these sensory alterations, the leading hypothesis is that the virus infects the cells that support the taste and smell receptors.

Training taste buds for healthier eating

• By shaping our eating habits, the intricate dance between genes, diet, disease and taste can affect the risk for chronic diseases.
• Beyond distinguishing food from toxins, the brain uses taste signals as a proxy to estimate the filling power of foods.
• Since diet shapes our senses, we can actually train our taste buds – and our brains – to respond and prefer foods with lower quantities of sugar and salt.
• Reformulating foods tailored to our genes and the plasticity of our taste buds could be a practical and powerful tool to enhance nutrition, promote health and decrease the burden of chronic disease.