What's up everybody and welcome to another edition of the Falcons final whistle. I'm Scott bear alongside Tori McElaney and Chris rim And as we do each week we are going to answer a question of our own shoe Okay, of Tori McElaney's choosing let's be honest And we're gonna offer great perspective. We're gonna offer rationality We're gonna bring all the things you hope for in sporting discourse You're probably not gonna generally find on talk radio. God bless y'all, but it's true Nonetheless, we are going to tackle a big one this time one where I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of different positions Or a lot of different opinions and that is what is the Falcons biggest need? Now the one thing is there's plenty of positions to choose from on this roster You can go a number of different directions You can definitely prioritize and I think it brings into greater scope one absolute unquestionable fact is that This Falcons roster as it works its way through the salary cap needs a lot of work man It really does needs a lot of work and a lot of different areas and you can't dispute that now What you can dispute is how you would rank things, right? And I think that's kind of what we're going to get into over the course of the next half hour And we're gonna kind of break this thing down But before we start saying which positions we feel like are the biggest need and can we address it or can the Falcons address it through? Fragency or the draft or both Tori I want to go back to something that Terry Faunno said and the story that you wrote shortly after the end of the season press conference something like that After the senior ball after the senior ball that basically said When he was talking about best player available some people freak out because they think Falcons have so many needs Well best player available will always address a need Yeah, well especially for yeah No if you look at this Falcons roster and this is kind of the gist of what I was saying in that article that you're referring to is that when Terry Faunno says that they're gonna draft a best the best player available for the Falcons that essentially means that you are also Drafting for need because that's how many needs this specific Falcons team has in 2022 And so when you're looking at it you're more likely than not it doesn't matter what direction they go in It's gonna be a need and something that I thought Terry Faunno said that I think a lot of people maybe think is like a cop out and saying it But I do think it's very true considering where the organization is. He's like If he's like essentially like you're always drafting for need because you think about it like at any point in the next two Three years you're always gonna come back around and need a different type of player and a different type of position And I think like but in this specific case with the Falcons in 2022 It's like there's a lot of needs like a lot as you alluded to like there are just so many And I think you can go up and down this roster and pick Any area honestly that you want to and you could make an argument that it's a need and that it will be either this off season or Next off season and I do I do kind of believe that I do just believe that's just where this organization is right now All right Chris, I'm officially going off script. We've been in this podcast for five minutes So that seems brand. We're talking a lot about a lot of needs Right and a lot of things that if you're looking at it as a GM or as a personnel person that okay, they have You know a severe need here or there are there any positions Outside of you know punter or some of the obvious kind of specialist ones Are there any needs that you would take off the table something that isn't worth? Consideration not just at a but is there an area of this team where you feel really comfortable It's okay if the answer is no, but I'm curious what you think I would probably say Jake and Chris are pretty solid. I mean Jake, Jake Matthews makes a lot But Jake Jake Matthews and Christian are pretty pretty solid Yeah, I'll say outside of that Yeah, but she's doing you need another tight end in this offense. I would say that's not a need I was kind of aiming you towards towards that like interior linebacker spot But then I was thinking okay. No because then foyer is a free agent, right? So then you get an application there Yeah, yeah, I don't do anything. I'll take off the table really I think it's all it's like Torrey said, I think it's I mean in general I think best player available is the way to do it, you know And what they think I think is is definitely the way to do it But yeah, especially with this team best player available is feeling a need like Torrey said. Yeah Well, something that I think is interesting and you know when Terry and Arthur first took over here in Atlanta Like they said that everything's kind of on the table and that no player is Essentially safe to a certain degree. That's not the words that they use but that's essentially what they meant and I Think there are a lot of times when new regimes come in and they say that like they sometimes don't mean it I 1000% believe with Arthur Smith Terry font now and they're a whole crew that when they say That every option is on the table. I really do believe that I really do. Yeah, and I think that's key And I think prioritizing Needs may be the way that you go or you just build up the roster slowly Understanding that it's going to take more than one year to get the talent base to where it needs to be So over the course the next half hour ish we're gonna Go over a number of different topics that Torrey has laid out for us Which is where is the Falcons most glaring need and of the position group that you choose chose Can't read today who are a few players You believe could be a good fit for the Falcons and of the players you named is one You wouldn't pass up on if he's there at number eight overall in the NFL draft But before we get to that let's offer as we always do a big. Thank you to our sponsor Microsoft Windows 11 the official operating system of the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons The all-new Windows 11 is here to bring you closer to what you love like, you know Falcons final whistle podcast learn all about the awesome new features of Windows 11 at windows.com so question number one within the grander question is Torrey let's start with you since we did before Since it's your question you might as well have the first opportunity here What is the file? Where is the Falcons most glaring need? This is Torrey asking Torrey a question for Torrey to answer That's pretty meta at this point. Yeah, it's meta. What is uh, yeah, no, it definitely is. I love it No, but to answer my own question that I posed to myself I Just okay, so I'm a I'm a backtrack so Scott's been on vacation for the last couple days and while he was on vacation Chris and I ran baremail and We were getting questions and we were answering and one of the questions I don't know who wrote it. I just kind of saw it, but it was like Torrey Um, I hope you're not like Scott and trying to shove an edge rusher down our throats like Yeah, and I was just like That's exactly what I'm about to do I'm about to shove and I in our written portion of this question of the week Segment installment, whatever you want to call it I said that I'm gonna sit here and say like I'm gonna shove the idea of drafting multiple edge rushers Down your throat until draft night like there will be I personally I just cannot Look at this roster Especially now that they've released Dante Fowler, which I think we all assumed was coming I can't look at this roster and not have Edge rushers pass rush at as a number one need I can't I can't do it And I think it's one of those things where this Question of how the Falcons can develop a pass rush is one that's going to hinge and Dictate the success of this regime and I 100% believe that because in the past in years past This organization has missed so much on edge rushers and we're not just talking about Dante Fowler I'm talking about a bunch of other people who came before him And I think like they there were so many times where the money that was given to these edge rushers Didn't pan out and they didn't they they didn't do enough With the money that they were given and I think because of that you that's why you saw the Falcons get into a few situations Where they honestly were losing money. They're paying these players a lot of money and then they weren't doing a Gosh darn anything with it like and I think like that if you're a Falcons fan and have been for a very long time That's frustrating and I think that the one way that this organization under this new leadership Can say that they are different is to actually go out and develop a past rush And I'm not saying that this is going to change in one draft class But it's something that you would hope to see change in two three four years To where they can go back and say like this was a glaring need that we saw in the organization and we changed that So that's a long spiel and I will continue to hold on to that until draft night And and you will hear and I will not be putting any other need before past rush period No one's going to be able to change my mind and the beauty of you going first, right? Is that you've taken edge rusher and it's okay to stay in that realm though. It absolutely is because It's such a glaring thing, right?  Where do you land? I mean, um, I Yeah, I think that's the most glaring need I think everyone like I said, I think everyone on Twitter tells me that my replies Think Cobb and Zion was in there the other day saying that so Everyone everyone is has said that and I think that's you know 18 sex I think now I was looking back. I think the bangles had 17 last year and then Scott, I don't know if you were in Oakland 2018, but they're 13. So if you're you might be the problem here But yeah, so when you have like players, you know, I was second year and you know your entire defense That's definitely an issue and I think also with a pass rush, right AJ Toreau looks a lot different Your secondary looks a lot different if you're the second best guy in the league and you look at the other pass rushes there when you look at You know, Jayla Ramsey is playing with Aaron Donald and Vaughan Miller You look at the the amount of interceptions Trayvon Diggs had is because he's playing with the defensive line It's getting after the quarterback. So yeah, I think it's the biggest need but I think The issue is when you when you have a need like this is if you reach and you miss it's not It's gonna be it's not a good thing to do. So that's why again, I'm big on I'm big on Derek Stingley I like I like I like Saul's gardener, too, but I'm big on Stingley. I mean he what he did He's injury concerns and and you know quarter having two locked down cornerbacks. I mean Stingley was a freshman when the year AJ Toreau went in the draft and he was an all-american that year He did Toreau was a first-round pick and and but Toreau wasn't an all-american So it's like this guy was 18 years old playing in the SEC and he Led the conference and interceptions and he ran a 4-3 in high school as a 42-inch vert and he's 6-1 195 it's like this guy is kind of I don't know why you just look at his measurables and what he's done He's he's a guy like I was like that, you know, Kyle Hamilton and like we said before I think the past rush is the most glaring knee But again, if you're sitting there and you are not in love with the guy if Kavon is not there If if there's not if there's not if you like the guy from Purdue George Carl Aftis Or you like the edge rusher from Georgia or like the guy from Michigan whoever you're in love with That's who you should take if you're not in love with an edge rusher there I think don't reach because like Tori said in the past they've missed on that There was you know Vic Beasley who had a good season but kind of went down there And it's just a slippery slope if you try to reach for that big knee Yeah Right UCLA Love there. Sorry. Sorry Scott We can talk about the UGA guys in the draft and make you feel better Oh my goodness the amount of bare male questions I get about Georgia defenders and why there aren't very many here As part of the Falcons staggering volume and I've been thinking about this and look at the past rush is It's it's apparent how bad they need it and when Chris brings up That was the year 2018 was after they traded Khalil Mack they cut Bruce Irvin. They had nothing, right? But there were times where they were last in sacks with Khalil Mack They had like 22 sacks and he had like 12 or something and and I agree with you wholeheartedly that the past rush can impact everything you do You know front to back back to front right complimentary football what every coach on the planet earth has ever said And I agree with all those things and I'm not saying that you address this need at number eight but And people will not love this right because you it seems like there are two camps There are edge rusher camps and then they are protect your quarterback. Please camps, right? Yeah, I'm not going in either one. Okay Um, I forget Forget all those things right? Um There's only one receiver Who who finished last year with the team under contract? That's frank darby. Kyle. Kevin Ridley is the other one and Even though I mean owner owner arthur blank said it they would like to have him back It's possible that calvin wants a fresh start. There's a level of uncertainty there. Okay. He doesn't come back. They got nothing Nothing, I'm glad that you're bringing this up because I feel like we need to talk about this Yeah, and I think this is a need that the falcons have not had in years at wide receiver Because they've used a lot of high picks on wide receivers hulu calvin Even what you know that and pile is a pass catcher, right that they're but they've also hit Almost every time with these guys Like there. Yeah, who do you like there? At number eight. Yeah, the guy from usd Your right. You're gonna take the guy from usd That would make my heart. I do really like him My wife is from arkansas. So trail on berks may have a certain affinity But uh, I do like the drake london kid out of usd. Nonetheless, I just see Wide receiver that so when I covered that I covered the raiders and then the 49ers and they made up shirts George kittle and diva samuel and kyle use check that said yak bros. Okay, because everybody on their team Kendrick born did the same thing they were they took pride in turning a five-yard pass into an 815 yard game Right, and I think if you look at the success that aj around had with arthur smith and vice versa That I think that that type of player needs to get injected into this offense And at times those guys are another one of those premium spots. So yes, they need to protect matt ryan. He's not He's maddie wheels, but he's no gazelle, right? That's a given But I just think that you need more players who are tough more guys who can catch the ball I think too often. Yes, this this offense stalled because He he wasn't protected enough it also stalled because he didn't have anywhere to throw the ball, right? There's no separation russ was having to make crazy acrobatic catches while covered on third and blank So ultimately I'm going to go. Yeah in that direction. I'm going to say Receiver is an issue whether calvin comes back or not. I think the level of uncertainty Who knows when that will get remedied if when the falcons and calvin will have a good idea of what will happen next But that's a huge question that needs to be answered Moving forward. I don't care what that answer is. I still think wide receiver is huge Um, and that obviously doesn't discount everything chris was saying about stingy means that they need everybody needs a player like that I'm a stingy guy too, but A quarterback issue, right offensive tackle. We're not blind. That's an issue left guard. That's an issue. There's Who knows maybe off the ball linebacker is an issue so many different places Um can cause problems and just by me saying receiver doesn't mean that I don't I can't also acknowledge Again rational discourse. I can't also acknowledge that pass rusher is a huge problem Um, so nonetheless, let's move on here to topic Numero dose of the position group you chose who are a few players that you believe could be a good fit For the falcons. I I assume that would mean free agency draft or what have you? Yeah, I I went draft. I'm glad that chris went free agency. Um Because I think well, I think you went free agency. Yeah Yeah, okay. I'm sorry. We're for those that are listening. I'm legit just like looking at what we wrote I forgot already. Um Yeah, no, I mean, I think like for me if I'm just looking at the draft I think You're happy with the way that this draft class looks um when it comes to edge rushers, I I think like Aidan Hutchinson is going is not going to be there at eight. Um, I think cave on tibido, I think Could maybe be there at eight maybe I'm that's a hard maybe that's not like oh, maybe it's that's a hard maybe Uh, I don't if he's there Here's the thing and you can this is where you can get into so many different Topics of conversation in the draft. Let's say tibido falls to eight Let's say that also For some reason that a guy like Kyle Hamilton or Uh, Derek Stingley Are also there at eight. I don't think that would happen, but this is just me spitballing I would love to know where the Falcons like put their like wish list Of players and because if it's the best player available, it's really hard to discern for those three Who you would put over who because All three are kind of a need for the Falcons and significant needs, especially cornerback and edge rusher so If they're all there, who are you putting over who but that that that's probably definitely not going to happen I'm just kind of throwing that out there because I think it's interesting, but I I personally really like Cave on tibido, even though I know a lot of people are kind of like hot and cold on him And then of course there's a trade on walker. Um, go dogs So I had to throw that one in there. Um, but I think like down prospect As a trade down honestly, I think the uh, the falcons should just like trade down Continuously and just pick up all the Georgia defenders And and that and that be it whenever I make my drafts like for funsies like and publish it. That's what I'm actually gonna do Just find a way to get everybody walker kind Dean you name it All of them. I'm not I'm not you think I'm joking. I'm not joking. I'm going to do that and I'm going to publish it Yeah, I mean for me, I think that I kind of mentioned it earlier from the the draft standpoint and then from free agency I think if you look at the guys who are free agents they're Probably going to be out of price. Um for the falcons. It's like, you know, vod Miller, Chandler Jones, clowny List Randy Gregory. I mean, there's the two guys I kind of looked at were They don't they might not make sense because it's Melvin Ingram Who's I think he's 37 who you could maybe get on on a one-year deal I think a pro football focus projected that he might sign a one-year eight million dollar deal And then there's Jerry Hughes and Melvin Ingram had two sacks the playoffs. He was productive this season There's Jerry Hughes from the bills who he had the 15th highest pff past rush of grade He didn't have the the gaudy kind of second number. I think he had three or two sacks But those are two guys I looked at as far as free agency where the focus could go But I think building through the draft in a particularly deep as draft will probably be the best route Yeah, I also think there's something to be said about what Scott was saying about like trading down I I think like we could probably do a whole podcast on the potential of trading down I think most certainly will there are a lot of these podcasts. There are a lot of off season weeks Um, I was looking at the wide receivers right and we talked some in my earlier spiel about players that could be available there at eight, right and it's one of those things because You go back and forth with it and I'm taking a look at free agency because the problem is they have so many needs at premium positions Guys in for agency that are going to be expensive Quarterbacks expensive edgars expensive right tackles expensive expensive everything has a huge price tag I'm going to go get like an instant established fix And there's only one first round draft pick there Some second rounders. They got to fix that I had some very many people say there's a curse of second rounders in Atlanta too that they need to get fixed as well But nonetheless, I'm taking a look at it and I'm talking about building a Some yak bros. I really think Mike Williams Clemson guy who played for the Chargers for a while he average five yards after the 5.5 yards per reception after the catch big dude powerful guy has some injury history obviously but not really recently But the thing is is just one of those deals where I could say yeah, go get them and his market could Could spin into a stratosphere that the Falcons can't hope to compete with and there's nothing to say that that wouldn't happen people may roll their eyes at me saying That's not possible and that it's pot You know that you just don't know until you look at the volume of what I think is a pretty good crop of Wide receivers, right? I mean who knows who's going to hit the market But you could take a flyer on a guy like will fuller who's been who hasn't played very much a manual sanders to lead A couple of drafted players in here That there are some auctions guys who can be team leaders I've I've been around a manual a little bit, which is why he jumped out at me. I know he's a couple years older at the end of his career But the guy can command a meeting room. I think those things are important So when you look at you know things like that, you think okay, can you go find that type of player? Again, it does hurt to have to say all right. Well That that the kid out of usc looks like a big Tough physical wide receiver. I think there's Five six guys who could be considered first round You know targets or and you can bleed into the second round There's a bunch of really good examples of guys that have been taken in the second rounds especially recently Chase claypool with second round pig. There's a guy from Indianapolis whose name is escaping me, but There's some opportunity there Yeah, I was gonna say like the guy from usc is six five two hundred ten pounds Yeah problem. Yeah, he's yak brown and he doesn't move like that though. He moves like he's not that so he's like Like a he's a guy who like you said that I think that he would fit right in we look think about what AJ Brown does and yards after catch so Yeah, and in the second round too. Like you said, I mean T Higgins was a second round guy He was a second round guy. So yeah, you could you could definitely feel through there Yeah, so we so we just I mean if we're it's tough because it's like we're talking a lot about edge rushes work We're talking about wide receivers We just How do we fix the offense of mine then can we do that in three minutes and 45 seconds? There's no okay I So I know a lot of people are like go after an offensive tackle in the first round and while I don't hate that idea I just I find it really hard to you just You guys should see Tori's like the stress on her face normally you can I have no poker face Tori is like Massaging her temples trying to work out the stress. I'm saying right tackle isn't an issue. It's great I'm not saying the right tackle is an issue right tackle is an issue I'm just saying that you think about it like jake matthews has two years left on his contract and Caleb McGarry is not probably performing at the clip that you want him to So both of those positions are kind of up in the air over the next couple of years and then you have left guard and like I just don't know I don't know how to piece this group together and I don't know I'm glad I don't I'm not paid to do it because I God I'm I'm really stressed out about it um And I don't like what you're talking about too like If you look at the free agency market like offensive linemen are pretty expensive and then like you you need a difference maker now and you like You don't like you have so many other needs too. And I just don't know I don't know where to go first with this offensive line and It's unfair of you to ask this question of me I Especially when they like ticking clock on it Again, I cannot emphasize enough chris and I just watched tourie melton to a puddle of stress. Yeah, she's very stressed You can talk to me about bond receivers and cornerbacks and ed rushers all day long But as soon as you bring up the offensive line, I'm like good for nothing I don't know how to fix it and someone else needs to fix it for me because I can't do it Yeah, I mean I I just have you know, this is sort of just generally speaking Do you want to crack at the best cornerback on the board? Do you want to crack at the fourth best edge rusher? Do you want to crack at the fourth best offensive tackle? Maybe at Number eight Do you want the best at that position that you can find or do you want three other teams leftovers? I don't know. I mean it all depends on the depth of the class and there's a lot going on there But so I guess just real quick as we wrap this thing up at number eight There's a good edge rusher on the board Just like what you were talking about the the the hamilton tibido exercise, right? You just take the best player even if edge rusher is your best need and kyle hamilton is above him on the board You take that guy. You take the Notre Dame kid, right? Yeah, I am Yeah, I feel like that's what we do Yeah, I mean I watched the guy run from the He was on the opposite hash and then he he made it to the other side of the field in like 0.1 seconds So And from right there. I said, all right. I'm taking them taking them. That's I didn't need to say anything That's my pick And and that I think is our great truth, right is that we've identified some major needs I think we can all agree that edge rusher is the biggest one But when it comes down to it, there are so many needs on this team You take the best most talented player that you can find But still having to address that primary need at some point in the draft or in free agency to help you immediately end in the long term


Well, thank you so much for inviting me. I wish I could be there in person. It seems like a great discussion going on, and I'm happy to take part virtually. So I was invited a few years ago and kind of introduced this topic of trait-space species selection in a broader context and thinking about resilience-based ecosystem management. And I kind of wanna go through it in a little more detail today to show really the types of things that trait-based plant species selection can really help us with in restoration and reclamation specifically. And so I'll kind of go through it broadly and talk about the theory behind it, and then maybe dig into a couple of the studies that I have going on and show how this relates to not only reclamation, but it can be really important for understanding disturbance and stressors like drought. So I think it ties in well with our topic today. So historically, most restoration efforts focused on either single species populations or community composition, which is traditional in our reclamation field as well of ecological communities, but it's been recognized more and more in the restoration field that ecological processes, such as nutrient turnover, hydrological fluxes, they're critical components of this restoration outcome. And so the understanding has also been paralleled by this upsurge in ecological research that's really exploring how ecological structures like plant diversity and structural heterogeneity are related to ecological function, like biogeochemical processing and disturbance regimes. And I think reclamation has been a bit at the forefront of some of this in that there's always been this push to understand what the underlying soil communities are doing and how we need to minimize erosion and increase biogeochemical functioning before we can get our plant species established. But it's maybe a little more behind in this from the terms of the biotic understanding. So we still have that strong idea of a reference community where we have communities surrounding the pipeline or the well pad or the mine, and we wanna mimic those, but that's not always the most desirable case because of some of the changes that have been going on in the ecosystem. And then we also have some new and potentially very complicating factors such as invasion. And so some of the work that I'm gonna talk to you about talks a lot about increasing invasion resistance because we do have a problem where we have disturbances that create invasion highways or create invasion spring off points for invasion to go into more intact ecosystems. And so identifying these reclamation processes that are the biotic component of it that also speak to ecosystem structure could be key to understanding this invasion resistance, decreasing secondary invasions or re-invasions if we remove invasive species from an area where we've done reclamation and then also identifying reclamation strategies or management over the long term because these things don't exist in a vacuum. They go on over time and a lot of times we forget about the processes that maintain these ecosystems. So quantitative traits based approaches have emerged as an important tool for predicting responses in community composition as a result of disturbance and stressors across a wide range of environmental conditions. The interesting thing about them is they're linked to ecosystem functioning. So traits are measurable properties of individuals and they relate to their functioning and they're modulating of their fitness traits such that we can capture the interactions between organisms and their environment, both the biotic and the abiotic components of it. And there are things like photosynthetic pathway, leaf area, plant growth, phenology type, leaf nitrogen, all of these different types of traits. So here I just have an example of the different functions that go on for a plant population. And so this is an example of how those functions relate to traits. And so in understanding the fitness of a plant we would think about its fecundity, its dispersal, its recruitment. And then the traits that I have listed opposite there kind of show you what types of traits we would look at if we were interested in understanding the potential to be fecund and disperse widely and have good recruitment. So we would look at things like seed mass, reproductive height and reproductive phenology. And then there are all sorts of other functions that occur in a plant community, light interception. It changes the competitive environment. We think about vegetation height when we wanna measure those sorts of things. Resource acquisition and growth, of course, is a big one in competition, especially with invasive plants because if you can't acquire resources then they will be taken by invasive plants. And so we think about traits of the leaves, photosynthetic capacity, that sort of acquisition of light and resources and turning it into plant parts and reproductive parts and vegetative parts. And then letter decompositions often looked at by the near infrared spectrum where they can determine the litter composition by looking at different ratios of infrared spectra. And then things like absorption, carbon fluxes, underground competition. We think about plant soil interactions and how the plant interacts with different the microbes and the nutrients there. And then we can measure traits like root density and root diameter. So those are some of the traits and how they relate to functions. So when we're thinking about this, we have functional traits and that's the broad idea of a trait. These are the ecological attributes of the species. They relate to the resource capture and reproductive components of the plant, but they also affect the pool of resources and the ecosystems. So when we're thinking about traits, we can break them down into these response traits and effect traits. And effect traits are the traits that influence the ecosystem processes. And this is why plant traits high our understanding of community assembly to ecosystem process because we have these suite of traits that influence productivity, nutrient cycling, trophic transfer. We also have response traits. And these traits describe the species responses to biotic and abiotic factors like resource availability, competition from invasive species, herbivory pressure, how it deals with stressors. And so these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. We can have a response trait that's also an effect trait, but when we think about these together, then we're starting to understand how ecosystem services and functions and community assembly are tied together through plant traits. And so this is just an example from my research on thinking about how quantitative trait based analyses can help us understand a plant's response to the environment. So we have this idea of traits has been around for a long time. Grime developed his CSR model in the late 70s, early 80s. And basically it suggests that increasing competition, increasing disturbance and increasing stressors are three axes of responses where a plant will respond to each of these things. And so we'll fall into a certain area of this triangle. So competitive species are on the high end of increasing competition on the low end of disturbance.  So what we were able to do in this research was to look at traits. We developed two axes. So on our X axis here, we have a morphology index and that speaks to the traits of different trees. So this was in studying Appalachian Mountains and we looked at different tree species and what their morphology was. And we were able to look at all of the species in relationship to each other and plot their differences in morphology by this axis. And then on the Y axis, we took the same species and we looked at an index relating to their relative growth rates and their growth constant. So this was a suite of traits that were speaking to how quickly the plant grew. And so when we look at a combination of this morphological index and this growth index, we're able to look at these tree species individually and see where they fall out on Grimes triangle or his CSR model. And so we have some species that are ruderal, some that are competitive and some that are stress tolerant. And the reason we wanted to do this was because we thought that this might be an important step in explaining their response to disturbance. So in this case, we looked at their response to an ice storm and it turned out that stress tolerant species were more robust to ice storms and tended to have less mortality and competitive species tended to have some mortality but not as much as ruderal species. And so we can really see how these traits can help us think about the species that are gonna respond in certain ways. And the thing that's nice about this is that although it's parameterized at a specific location, these species exist across the Eastern United States. And so we're able to apply this understanding broadly based on their traits to other species and these species in other locations and other environments. So this is just kind of a theoretical framework that was developed by Leveril and Garnier. And it kind of speaks to that understanding that traits simultaneously explain plant responses and ecosystem effects. So we have in letter A up here, this is how our traits are filtering our communities. And so we have some environmental factor, doesn't have to be a change but environmental factor like a soil type or a competitive structure. And you will have a response tree and the response tree determines how a plant will respond to that environmental change. But there's a suite of different environmental conditions that plants are responding to. And so these response traits are said to filter the community. And then that goes further through this filter of competition to develop our community structure. And so when we think about community structure in response to global change drivers like drought, we have biodiversity and richness interacting with that global change environment. And that shows how our effect traits come about. So how does the different flecks in this community and their traits, community of traits feed into ecosystem functioning? And this is kind of the model that they ultimately came up with by putting these two things together where you have environmental conditions or changes and they can be biotic or abiotic and they feed into this traits box. And those traits are response traits and effects traits and maybe those interlap or overlap in some areas or maybe they're separate. And those response traits tend to determine our community structure and diversity, effects traits, our ecosystem functioning and those two things feed back to each other. So this is how plant traits tie our community composition to our ecosystem functioning and therefore could be essential in understanding reclamation from a process-based approach. So just as an example, I'm gonna talk a little bit about study that I'm setting up right now. This is one that we were hoping to start a few years ago but seeds were limited at the beginning of the COVID crisis and then throughout everyone knows impacted our ability to get this out in the field last year. So hopefully we're moving to the field phase of this year. So I don't have results for you but I'm just gonna go through the design of this so you can understand how these plant traits might contribute to our understanding of restoration or reclamation. So we wanted to determine the strategies for effective reclamation of an oil and gas pipeline and invaded grasslands. Colleagues of mine at the Sydney ARS here determined that crested wheatgrass was one of the worst invaders into pipelines in the region. They found several invasive species increased during pipeline construction immediately thereafter and crested wheatgrass was the only one that really stuck around and kind of spread down those pipelines. So this is why we picked it as a focal species for this study. So I hypothesis is that its invasion rates are influenced by the functional traits of the species selected for seeding reclaimed pipelines. And so just to kind of understand trait space I went over it a little bit in that ordination of the trees but this is maybe a more theoretical approach. So we have our native species here in this blue box and our invasive species here in this yellow circle.  And if we look at traits like leaf mass per area leaf nitrogen, water use efficiency, photosynthesis we can look at where did these two groups of species overlap? So if we were interested in understanding the traits that define the native species and the invasive species and how similar they are we can put the different traits into ordination space which is what these PCAs are which just basically shows the similarity or dissimilarity among these species based on a multivariate suite of traits. And so we did that with our Cresta wheatgrass study. And so we basically have these two theories of community assembly that have been implicated in invasion dynamics and limiting similarities has been shown to be really important in some situations. Competitive hierarchies has been shown to be really important in other situations. And basically what these two theories suggest is the theory of limiting similarities based on principles of competitive exclusion. So it holds that species coexist because of niche differentiation. So given this a mix of species that are functionally similar to our invasive species would potentially keep it from establishing. Competitive hierarchies is based on theories of competition. It holds that there are some traits that are very important to competition. And so species with traits and trait values that are higher than our invasive species for those super competitive traits would always win in a mix. And so since sometimes limiting similarities is an important theory and sometimes competitive hierarchies is and ecological theory hasn't really sussed out when one is more important than the other. We decided to apply both of these in our study. And so basically what we did was we took the traits of all of the different species of grasses and a suite of species of forbs that we were interested in that are suited to the area that grow alongside crested wheat grass and that we could get seeds of. And we pulled these traits from the tri-plants traits database which is a big database that has hundreds of thousands of plant entries in it. And scientists will submit their traits that they've measured. And so you can get these measured traits for all of the species of interest pretty much. There was only one species that we didn't get to include because we didn't have a good range of traits for that species. And so these are the traits that we had data for for all of the species that are important traits as far as resource acquisition goes and reproduction and competition. And we've ordinated them. And so we have here the numbers represent the species. This black dot number one here is our invader crested wheat grass. And so according to limiting similarities we would want to pick species that were very similar in trait space to our invader. So we picked species like seven, five, four, 32. And I did write down what these were. So Psydotes, Gramma, Lepticulo, Fusca which is Wrangletop, Sixpike wheat grass and Tummelgrass ended up being the ones that were very close to crested wheat grass. And then for competitive hierarchies we picked species that came out really high in this. So this axis here represents 15% of our variation whereas this one is 29%. So the ones that are way out on the end of these axes are the ones that show the most variation. And these turned out to be photosynthetic traits. So we had photosynthetic rate here and specific leaf area or stem model conductance. And those are very important to resource acquisition and competition as is specifically leaf area which talks about how much area there is for photosynthesis to occur. And so we, for competitive hierarchies we picked winning species that were beating acrystatum on these axes, which was pretty easy because most of them were, but we picked the winningest.  And so we wanted to compare these seed mixes directly. We did also do a similar ordination for forbs to select a suite of forbs because it's important to have different functional groups in our mixes because that increases the ecosystem functioning and processes that are provided by these. So we added, we did a similar ordination for forbs and selected forb species as well. And so we're starting now the greenhouse trial where we have complete control over external conditions. And so this is well-watered environment where we're measuring the plant trait responses and the growth of all of our species that were selected under our two different theories and the spread of Cresta wheatgrass and its mixture. And then we're moving that into the field where we're going to simulate pipeline disturbance by removing topsoil, putting it back and then planting these species in different small plots. And that way we can replicate and we have a similar environmental controls. We can also layer on different disturbances. We're going to do grazing. We might do drought at some point. And then eventually we'll move this up to a field base where we have a broader scale. We have the seed mixes interacting with their environments. We have different climates, different soil types. And so we can start to see how all of these different functional trait interactions might break down or hold up under different conditions like drought or different soil types where one might be winning and another might be not as well and not doing as well. And so just in a few quick other applications of a trait-based approach, we just did a study where we modeled fire spread through green strips. And green strips are used out west a lot to stop cheatgrass fires because cheatgrass will carry fire very readily. It's a lot of fine fuel and people are, and the BLM especially is putting a lot of money into how do we create fire breaks that won't cause ecological damage. So they want to use native species but we need to know what types of species will actually change this spread of fire. And so we did a trait-based selection of native species for effective green strips. And we compared the traits by altering different parameters of the fire spread model. And so total fuel load is related to productivity. You see that up here. Fine to coarse fuel ratio is related to stemming us. How much leaves versus how many stems. Live fuel moisture content, that's a trait of plants where if they stay green for a long time or they dry out and senesce. And then live dead fuel ratio also speaks to that senescence. So something like crested wheat grass when it hits a droughty period will drop a lot of its leaf or senesce a lot of its leaves in order to have some drought tolerance. And so we looked at that. And so basically we were able to use these plant traits to determine what combination of traits a species needs to have to effectively halt fire into these cheap grass dominated areas. And then also starting a collaboration with Drew Scott and Mandan to look at trait-based selection of species for prairie strips between row crops. And this is to increase ecosystem services. So they want to plant a lot of pollinator species in here to slow some of the runoff and erosion but it's in a Kentucky bluegrass dominated area. So the fear is that these prairie strips will be seeded and then Kentucky bluegrass will just take over. So we're looking at what kind of traits based selection for the grass species can we do that might slow the Kentucky bluegrass invasion into these areas. So this could also be applied to drought. And I kind of alluded to that but I want to talk about it a little more specifically since that's what this conference is focusing on. So we talked about plant functional traits there determining their response to the environment. So this includes moisture availability and that's kind of the obvious point. And these are linked to ecosystem functioning. So resilience to drought stress is actually an important ecosystem function that's an emergent property of the traits in the community. And so we can assess the community resilience to drought stress by looking at these traits. And so quantifying co-variation among the traits just means what traits are integrated what traits come together and how are they context dependent? So what's the environment that makes those adaptive? So when we think about this we can think about co-variation among traits that are related to drought strategies and I'll talk about drought strategies and what this looks like more specifically in the next slide. And then does the expression of these relate to the drought regime, the timing, the intensity, the frequency. So there's three strategies that have been identified in ecological literature that plants use for coping with water stress. Drought escape in which plants flower and reproduce early and complete their entire life cycle before drought conditions worsen. Drought avoidance, they invest in resources that reduce water stress. And this is an example of drought avoidance here with the roots you can see the native species from this suite of species selected have really long roots. And so they're able to tap into some soil moisture that has not yet been depleted by a drought. Whereas these non-natives, they have as much shallower root system. So they do really well when their water is available but they won't be able to tap into that extra water later in the season. And then drought tolerance is lower the metabolic activity and growth rates so that you're reducing your demand for water during a drought. And that's something like the skeet tree which has very dissected leaves, very small leaves. So it doesn't do as much photosynthesis during drought because it doesn't have a very large leaf area but it's also not losing so much water through transpiration because leaves are much smaller. And this teacrass is the example of drought escape where it flowers and reproduces early in the season. And it's been shown to even do that more so under drought conditions than under well water conditions. And so these are just the traits that tend to be associated with each of the strategies. So we have rapid growth, early flowering, high leaf nitrogen level and high photosynthetic capacity allows the plant to grow to reproductive age quickly so it can do this rapid reproduction. And this is adaptive and usually occurs in species that experience frequent drought at the end of growing seasons like teacrass that grows in arid areas where we have droughts in the summer months. Drought avoidance, they tend to have high water use efficiency, low stomatal conductance so they're not losing water into the atmosphere and then these dense dissected or succulent leaves. And these are pretty, these are adaptive in a lot of different drought conditions but more so in mild or moderate drought than severe drought. And then the drought tolerant species tend to have a lot of plasticity in their osmotic adjustments so they can stop losing water and stop photosynthesizing when the drought stress occurs. And then also they accumulate sugars in their roots so they grow more roots, longer roots so they can maintain that dormancy over the long term while they're not photosynthesizing and not growing. And those are more adaptive in severe drought situations. And so thinking about this with regards to our crested wheatgrass study if we wanted to think about how do we account for drought during our trait selection? So crested wheatgrass is one of the types of species that expands its leaves rapidly during the spring and then senesces during drought. So it kind of has a drought escape strategy but also a bit of a drought tolerance strategy and then something like a teacrass or our other annual invasives they do this drought escape where they reproduce really early. They have high photosynthesis and reproduce a lot and then they are done with their life cycle during the drought. And so how would we apply our theories to this? So we could account for the drought by choosing species with similar strategies if limiting similarities is the theory that works in our system. But if competitive hierarchies is we would wanna choose species that do better. So higher photosynthetic max rates so that they can escape drought better or more tolerant longer roots if they're drought avoiders. And so basically you wanna pick the best of the drought competitors in the competitive hierarchies. And so we also have to think about this in terms of trade offs because for all of this these are trade offs between resource conservatism and rapid acquisition. So obviously rapid acquisition is great for competition when conditions are really good, well water conditions but resource conservatism becomes more important when our resources are reduced during water stress. And so to try and get at some of this we set up a drought study where we're looking at the traits that are related to drought tolerance strategies for both native and invasive species. Conducting the study at Fort Keough with Lance Vermeer and we're looking at drought imposed during different parts of the growing season. And he's been doing this drought imposition for a long time where he has spring drought, a summer drought and a fall drought. And so he's seen some plant community compositional shifts but hasn't really understood the whole mechanisms behind that. So we're assessing some of the plant traits especially looking at things like photosynthesis and resource capture and stomatal conduct and some water use efficiency to try and understand how the different species are responding to drought in the way that they seem to be in such that they're creating a compositional shift and why that compositional shift is occurring given the traits and the interactions among the traits. And so we're also overlaying a burning regime on that where we assess whether prescribed burning interacts with drought to impact these drought responses. And so we're able to look at all the traits how they shift with drought and fire and how that creates a competitive advantage or disadvantage for the different species that are in this ecosystem. So understanding these traits that confer resistance and resilience I think can really help us in that we're able to understand focus on the ecosystem processes that are necessary to maintain these negative feedbacks. And then also it increases transferability across systems because if we can identify suites of traits that are common to common invaders and suites of traits that are common to native species that are important in increasing invasion resistance then we can use this theoretical approach to transfer that to a different ecosystem and we'll know which types of species because of the trait based approach that we need to incorporate in our restorations. So understanding the traits that confer resilience can help us not only understand how plant communities are going to respond to different disturbances and processes which helps us design management for these reclamations, pick species that are gonna persist over the long term but it'll also help us identify how these species are contributing to ecosystem function and that's that process-based approach that we talked about at the beginning. And so not only do we have a process-based approach when it comes to the biotic factors like thinking about soil amendments and soil microbial communities but we can also take this process-based approach with our biotic factors when selecting our species and that'll help us in having effective reclamations that minimize the amount of invasion that happens and then also can increase the resistance and resilience to different stressors such as drought and grazing and fire and all of the things that our rangelands are subjected to over time. And hopefully I have time for questions. I enjoyed your talk. I was just wondering if you have any specific examples of plant species that you were talking about in a given situation? Yeah, so, well, we haven't gotten any results from our tests yet but the species that seem to come out as being competitive with crested regress were those with the similar traits and it's gonna differ depending on what your goals are. So if your goals are drought tolerance, then you can kind of pick those traits for drought if your goals are a resisting invasion of Kentucky bluegrass it's a different set of traits because Kentucky bluegrass has a different set of traits. And so I guess there's been some examples where limiting similarities has been useful in reducing the amount of invasive annual grasses. A lot of those examples came out of California where they have grasses similar to cheatgrass, a lot of invasive annuals and they were able to reduce their prevalence by picking species that had similar high reproductive output and high photosynthetic rates. And then competitive hierarchies showed to be really pretty important in shrub communities in a couple of studies where they were able to pick shrubs that grew faster and were able to resist drought and fire more than the invasive species were. But for our system, we don't, we'll be sharing results with you as soon as we get some but we're not too sure yet which whether competitive hierarchies are gonna be more important or limiting similarities and that's something we hope to tease out and that'll determine which species come out as being really important. But again, it's context dependent and depends on which invader you're trying to confer resistance against if you have a suite of invaders and you have to think about a suite of traits if it's just drought stress that you're trying to increase the tolerance to and then it's an entirely different suite of species. So it's gonna be pretty context dependent depending on the goals of your reclamation.


Anxiety disorders affect nearly 20% of adults in North America. That's about 40 million people. When we're feeling anxious or stressed, sometimes it just feels good to go home and indulge in some well-deserved vices. We've all planted our butts in our couches and binge-watched our favorite shows while eating pizza. But as tempting as that sounds, is it really the best thing for us? And as it turns out, some of our guilty pleasures may be agitating our anxiety instead of reducing it. Here are eight everyday habits that may be stressing you out more than you know. 1. Being a couch potato When you spend all day huddled up in bed or on your sofa, you give up the chance to decrease your tension, improve your sleep, and stabilize your mood. Yes, your daily activeness has a direct effect on your mood. Regular exercise is important in maintaining your mental health because it reduces stress. Just 10 minutes of exercise a day can improve your alertness and concentration. 2.  You're only causing your body stress. When you don't have enough to eat, your blood sugar levels take a dive, making you feel anxious, sluggish, and irritated. Want to feel calm and happy? Eat foods like berries, spinach, and fish. All these foods and their nutrients work toward the elevation of mood and the warding off of depression. 4. Coffee addiction Caffeine is no friend to anyone who is prone to anxiety. Caffeine stimulates our fight-or-flight response centers, mimicking our physiological reactions to dangerous or scary situations. This makes us feel alert and energized. But this simulation also means we have to deal with fight-or-flight symptoms. Increased heart rate, sweaty palms, an upset stomach, and shaky hands. A good alternative that can wake us up in the morning is a cold glass of water with a lemon or cucumber. Or both if you're feeling festive. 5. Scrolling through social media It's a common habit to scroll through Instagram or Facebook in our free time. But being on social media can take time away from other more important things, like being present at work or getting tasks done. The realization that you've spent 20 minutes looking at your Instagram feed can lead to regret and anxiety for not using your time more productively. Being able to look at the best parts of other people's lives online can often make us feel jealous and upset about our own lives. Unplug for a while.  Those are the kinds of interactions that help you feel happy. 6. You don't get sleep You need at least 7 hours of sleep in order to feel healthy and energized in the day. Anything less and you will feel the effects of sleep deprivation. These effects include heightened stress, mood destabilization, poor cognitive functioning, and lowered immune system. Sleep deprivation can also cause anticipatory anxiety, which is the anxiety you feel right before events like hitting into work, having to speak publicly, or taking a test. Are you a habitual pre-sleep computer or phone user?  Try reading a book before bed or better yet, pre-sleep breathing meditation. 7. Spending too much time alone This might not seem productive for someone who suffers from anxiety, but spending time with other people can actually help to alleviate symptoms of anxiety. Spending time with supportive friends and developing healthy, positive attachments can help to improve social functioning and increase happiness. Alone time is important every once in a while, especially for all of you introverts out there, but it's just as important to get out there and to see your friends. 8. Listening to moody music Yes, sad songs can affect your mood. The emotion and effect of the songs you listen to have direct effects on your current emotions. If you're already feeling anxious or sad, it's probably not in your best interest to play your breakup playlist on your beat. That sad tune will exacerbate the sadness and anxiety you may already be feeling. The next time you're feeling sad or anxious, listen to something happy. Make a playlist full of calming or positive music that will help you find your happy place. Now remember, these habits are not sure fire anxiety triggers for everyone. Doing any of these things will not guarantee a bout of anxiety, but they will increase your chances of it. What do you think? Any anxiety inducing habits you've been guilty of? Are there any habits you know of that should have made it on the list? Let us at Psych2Go know in the comments section down below. Want to read more about the topic? Visit Psych2Go.net using the link down below to view the original article. And don't forget to subscribe for updates on new videos.


Second Saturday, Sacramento, tertiary barbell, here's d.co, saw him like I'm here. Saturday is just my back and bye day, or optional day. So because the gym's jamming, I'll catch a quick light back where everyone's slamming out. And Abby's got a little yellow day. So she just won the Arnold a week ago. And I think she's going to come in and pull something big on a deadlift bar, which she's never done. So we'll see what that is. Welcome to the video. Like, subscribe, turn on the notives. We're about to do new content every single day. So Vic, why do you come to Second Saturdays? Because it's fun and I love the vibe and the people here are amazing. Are you lying to me? You're amazing. Oh, I'm amazing. What is your favorite lift, squat bench or deadlift? You're not a TikTok girl, I'm proud. All right, continue. How do you like Second Saturdays and why do you come? I like Second Saturdays because it gives everybody an opportunity to come out, experience the lifting community here in Sacramento firsthand. Now I got a question. How many times did you rehearse that in your head? Two, maybe, maybe like five times? Are you lying?  So you just pull 500 pounds. How do you feel about it? There's some light, you know, easy one, no. It's only 500, right? 525. Oh, 525. 525 with like a 1.6 with the clip, right? 526. And then if you round up, it's more like 550. RPE7, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, some light stuff. You're the 500 kilo club. Yeah, Jamal Browner, I'm coming for you now. You better hop on gear. What are you listening to? What song is that?  I got a question, are you natty or not? Like, yes, that's in between. Would you ever hop on gear? Don't lie. You sure? That's a really big bench. So are you sure you're natty? Comments, let me know about that one. Very low. I think she cabin, I think she cabin. Did you think this outfit was a good idea? No. At least we all acknowledge it. Have a good workout, man.  Hey, yeah. Bloopers, bloopers, that's cut tech. I got the limited edition in there, too. We did not hold that one back. This is XXX. Warming up for a big deadlift. How are you feeling? I'm fine. What was the last time you put on a deadlift bar? But I don't know if I pulled it in. I pulled a deadlift bar, Sumo. We're going to go crazy, then. We're going to go crazy. 500 pounds. At least. Some light, some light. I think she keeps up with Dan. We're being very official today.  And two, for parking in Hecatec. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  We told, like, three people. Oh, I'm not lying.  You got to move your car.  Please move the whip. So, Jerry, you're from Lodaw. It's really, really far. The bar is hell. Well, how do you come all the way from Lodaw? For the energy, because it's worth it. This is worth it. This is worth it every week. This energy is worth it every week. Every single week. Yes, it is.  Because it's too far. The gas. Energy out of 10. What would you rate it? 10 out of 10 every time. Every time? Every time. Every time I'm here. That's why I come here. One more question. Natty or not? Not Natty, man. Not Natty. Not Natty's from Burd. I've been at a volley. Try anything is possible. Try anything is possible. Don't believe him. You heard it here. USAPL, he is not Natty. Eat plan and train hard. How do you like Second Saturdays, Mike? It's your first time being here. What's your experience like? Second Saturdays are a great time for the environment, for the people, for the community. A lot of new faces, some old faces. And the coolest part for me is that you can see Third Street's community welcome the brand new community. That's probably the coolest part. Well, we're glad to have you here. I hope we see you here more often. Thanks, man. Yeah, no problem. New guys, gotta love them. So I got a question. Where'd you get those purple pants from? We definitely did not release those. They're the Seeker release. I did a little favor for Mike and he gave them to me. What did that mean? What does this, why are there, what is this? I don't, I'm going home. I don't even come into Second Saturdays. I think I've seen you here a couple of times. How'd you hear about it? Almost every month since last year. So almost like we missed a month here and there. But yeah, and then I've been following Third Street, Mike, since, I don't know when, before the gym was built and then Mike on JNK News, Barbell. You're an original supporter, all the way. Yeah, here and there and then following, just keeping track, always watching. Bart Kwan, you heard him, he's an OG supporter. Hit him up. Yeah. How do you like Second Saturdays? I love it. It's always a vibe here. It's better than any commercial gym you already know. And then it's worth the hour drive that I drive here. So it's fun. You drive an hour? Where are you from? From Lathrop. Dude, respect. Thank you, bro, for supporting us. Love it, love coming. Every Saturday. For sure, bro. What do you do? Squat day, just getting started. You know, there's a lot of people here. So you gotta wait a little bit, warming up. All right, bro. Why don't you get it in there, bro? Appreciate it. I've been here before, but how do you like Second Saturday? It's really full of people. I just want to work out. Is that your first impression of this place? I come here all the time. Why are you lying? I've never seen you before. Like we said, not Natty.  What RP you have? What RP was that?  Why are we lying? Why are we lying? She is for surely on gear. D-Ball, Trennacy, the nines, you name it. So Abby's pulling on a deadlift bar with pound plates.  If she don't sandbag, she'll probably pull 465, 475. Realistically today, at least 455. Or if she don't get dinner, buzz race. Can you do 455? Yeah, I just did 545 for your triple's beltless. Stiff bar. One hand tied behind my back. One hand? On a rainy day, no sleep. No food. Was the wind blowing in the direction? Heart broken. Dogs limping. No beer in the fridge. Car got a squeaky tire. Yeah. I probably couldn't actually. What's your best? 315. No. Realistically, I failed 330 and 315. I failed 315 like three times. I don't talk about it. How are we feeling? To pull that. Deadlift bar, jump, hitching. Gym bro, certified. Gym bro certified. Like she said certified, certified. As a bodybuilder, how do you like being in this powerlifting environment? It's nice. Honestly, it makes me want to squat, bench and deadlift like every second. But honestly, just hitting my accessory works is nice. It's super motivating. You're not from here, so how does this gym compare to like where you're from? I mean, it's a little bit smaller. But the thing is, is that everyone knows each other. I feel like if I went to like back in the Bay with like a bigger gym, everyone's kind of just gonna like give each other looks and not really like talk to each other or us here. Like I can meet everyone, like at one moment. So you like the culture? Yeah, the culture's a lot better here. So you're gonna hit a PR squat today, am I telling? Yeah, maybe, maybe four or five today. See how I'm feeling? We won't, cut that, don't show Joe, cut that. There's second Saturday, fam. Hopefully you got a little taste of the energy of the people, the thirsty barbell, Sacramento, California, Northern California for a round, come stop by. I'm gonna go chill, then eat and rest. It's raining out. So I appreciate your new video every single, basically every day, man. We got new content flowing.  We over me, 3sb.co. So I'm like, catch you next one.


All right y'all All right, so we're all live now. Hey, so why I stopped the ketogenic diet So this would be fun and feel free to ask questions if you want to or hit me privately, but basically When I was in my early 20s, I got sick real sick. I autoimmune disorder ahead. What's up? What's up, Fiona? How are you? So I was sick in my early years and I Stumbled into a ketogenic diet through a long fast and I felt better it kind of woke me up So for 15 years I was following a pretty regimen regimenly following a ketogenic diet or modified low-carb diet through exercise I would be in ketosis continuously and when every time I slept out. I just didn't feel very good and so It it worked it worked absolutely wonderful if you can commit to the journey of it all but then fast for 15 years And I'm actually even 10 years. What's up, Liz? How are you? Fast forward I met my wife and my wife didn't know the old me like she didn't know Like the sick me or the all the person she she's like, why are you on this diet? This is like not good for our relationship. It was almost a deal breaker for us And um, but she didn't understand how bad I was struggling before like how much everything Were hurt how much everything was hard to do how it was hard to get out of bed like it was tough Um, and I she only knew the person that had been in ketosis. So that was feeling better And so we really had a struggle for a long time like I would have to back back 15 years ago Y'all just so you know, there wasn't keto foods out there.  It's not it's not easy I'm just gonna tell you if you like to have an adventurous traveling life doing a strict diet And any kind of diet is not easy to do it really controls your parameters, especially if it's health related and so I um Lo and behold eight years ago. I met a guy in birthing class and he introduced me to drinkable ketones I'm actually gonna make one up this morning. So you've never seen this before you're gonna see it here in just a minute of like how it actually works and He introduced it to me and I was just like in my brain I'm like if this works this would be huge because I don't actually want to follow kijink that I love watermelon I love fruit. I'm weird. I'm really kind of like a paleo natural paleo guy like I love Sweet potatoes and I like all those things I like desserts, but they're not like uh desserts aren't a driver for me like they don't I don't obsess about about it Oh, even if it's their kind of thing, but I'm not really it's not my it's not my thing right meat and meat is my thing, right?  I did the kijink diet for almost the first three years And finally I just realized like you know, we're ready to have our third child and I'm like, what if I if I just cannot do the diet and I just drink ketones and I See if it works like let's try that So that's what I've been doing for almost the last five years is I drink ketones. I do not follow kijink diet I still follow a very healthy diet. I'm very conscious of my of my health choices. I encourage that Um, I primarily I would say more of a paleo diet and I have fun That's what I like to say. I have a paleo diet guy and I have fun But I do drink ketones twice today And the reason why is because the ketones have a huge benefit on my body They help me with sustained energy. I don't have dips. I mean When I look around most people think I'm in my 30s at school Um, and I'm as old as they are just to kind of put that in purpose perspective, right? Um, I I had four major surgeries. I did not Uh gain any weight from those surgeries. I was able to maintain everything. Um, I'm not able to exercise like I used to So I just want to put in parameters people, you know that this this works like in such a huge way So now I get to drink ketones. I get my ketones because that's important to me because of my my health challenges in my past Um, and I was the health guy. Y'all, you know, sometimes your body just breaks down And so because of my injuries my my my head injury my health challenges Ketones are really important for me. So if you're struggling with just life Having ketones is going to help you. It's it's it's not going to solve every one of your problems But it's going to help you So what I did is I decided that I'm not going to follow a kidney diet. Um, I do do I do do I just said do do Liz I just said do do but what I do do is um, I I do some intermittent fasting not all the time. I do it a few times a week Um, I might do a couple prolonged fast in those situations. I'm deeper in ketosis I still follow a relatively low carb diet. My exercise isn't back up after my hip replacement So I'm not getting like crazy exercise. So I'm not using exercise as a way to To drive down my glucose levels so that I can produce more ketones Um, I would say I probably still wake up in ketosis every morning to some level probably not therapeutically But to some level um in most cases And then I just drink ketones twice a day sometimes three times a day And I enjoy my day and I just eat moderately. I enjoy life. I exercise when I can I am exercising more As my I'm recovering from all my surgeries, but um, do do. Yes. I said do do but basically it's simple you know, it's funny because I actually, uh The at school everybody thinks I'm a keto diet guy and I'm not like I even when we launch prove I never said that you have to engage in a diet I encourage low carb living because I think most people do better with less carbohydrates We already know that that's already scientific. Like you don't need as many carbohydrates. There's no essential carbohydrates There's essential fatty acids and essential amino acids We know that people need a certain amount of protein in their diet and that's kind of a constant So if Liz needs 120 grams of protein a day that isn't changed from now Um or in six years from now like it's the same So we know those things are the same but glucose or carbohydrates can vary fat can vary to some extent Um, basically the rule is is that if the more carbs you eat the less fat you should eat The the the more fat you eat less carbs, right? So that's how it should that's how usually how it works But you still need fat because the fatty acids are really really important You don't need a ton of carbohydrates at the same time Is as if you've got a healthy diet you're relatively active You probably can tolerate more carbohydrates than most if you've already broken your system down and been really Broken down and really unhealthy. You may need to stay in a low carb or keto style diet To maybe heals your body a little bit while drinking ketones to get to your end result To be able to have that flexible did I got so This is how you do it. It's pretty simple. It's a I have ice and water my ice is almost melted This is one of my favorite flavors. This has a little bit more ketones in it than um Then our regular ones. So this one has This is they're basically the same. This is has this one has more ketones in another extra little fun ingredient in there But it's a powdery mix of water and literally in within an hour I'll have a therapeutic level of ketones in my body. So that's like Most of you do in the kid drink diet For three five days if you're skilled at it to get the level of one of these So when people go, hey, that's cheating or that stops ketone production. That's just all ignorance. It's not true Our product doesn't stop anybody's ketones from being produced If anything it's going to help you be more more compliant more consistent feel better and help you sustain at long term and produce more ketones because of all the other benefits of it So, uh, you know, unfortunately some people just get mis-consumed Misinformation and they we want to believe what they want to believe or I think some people want to do the hard way They don't they don't want to shortcut. I used to be like that like, you know, hey, let's go this way to the mall I'm like, no, let's go this way. It's a hard way because I had to prove myself to somebody to myself, I guess And so this is just a shortcut. It makes life easier. It's a supplement to your lifestyle So you're supplementing something that's very healthy. That's very natural. That's very good for you That's never been done before in history but backed by the top scientists in the world and you're supplementing it So that you can find a lifestyle that you're willing to live and sustain and some people need to go more extreme low carb Some people may need to go on a ketogenic diet. Some people maybe can do more of a just a healthier diet more of a Standard american. What's up carry american diet? Maybe you want to call it with health food versus with crappy food Um, but it's been really interesting. I've been digging into some new science recently and it's it's pretty fun So with that said in done, I'm gonna drink my ketones up. Uh, if you're drinking ketones currently, uh, drop me a little What's your favorite flavor and your favorite benefit? I would say my favorite benefit This is my favorite flavor. It's called ruby rush I like it a lot. It's so good I would say my favorite benefit of drinking ketones Is I don't have to do the ketogenic diet That's my favorite benefit because that was my alternative I think it's funny because like my friends these are friends of mine, but I don't uh at school I don't over pitch what I do. Uh, I just have conversations with people because it gets I can get pretty excited about what I do and they're like Aren't you like aren't you a fraud? You don't follow ketogenic diet. I'm like, no, I drink ketones You don't understand like I don't have to this is what I do and I teach I know the ketogenic diet. Well, if you want to learn it I can teach you a world class at that but I don't have to follow it My brother-in-law has to follow it for his situation. So we're in different situations I work with vegans around the world that do not follow ketogenic diet And it's extremely hard to have your vegan. Uh, it's very very hard to so Um ruby rush is my a favorite. Oh Uh, Liz likes the craving controls helps keep the pounds off. That's good.  I have not had one of those in a while Blue ocean strawberry benefits focus and the community awesome That's the other thing about this blue ocean. Look at this.  So, um, let's just say that uh, she was the biggest skeptic in the world There's nobody out there. That's a bigger skeptic. I'm not all my world-run out expert doctors We're not nearly the skeptics that my wife was And when she started smiling Uh into this day when she drinks her ketones, you can see a smile from on her face It just has an impact on her mood and it's cool. If you look at the science of all that it actually shows you why it's it's kind of it's kind of neat, but um Over the next year or the rest of the year, I'm going to be doing more talking about That you don't have to follow kizzenka. Although I believe in the kizzenka I think a well-formulated kizzenka can be very helpful for a lot of people But it's not always the end game that people have to be living by and I think there's a hybrid to it all And so at the same time, I don't think this is an excuse to go treat yourself like a garbage truck either Just saying like I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to exercise I want you to think clear. I want you to sleep better.


Hey guys, what is up? Welcome to my channel. So for today's video, I'm going to be doing a Sephora VIP holiday sale recommendations So if you guys want to hear what I think is really good and you should spend your money on then just watching All right, so the dates for the sale if you are a VIP rouge You are able to shop for 20% off October 26 till October 29th If you are a beauty insider starting November 2nd to November 5th Are the dates that you will be available to shop this sale So anyways 20 off. This is the perfect time to buy those new holiday releases as gifts or even for yourself So for this specific recommendation video, I'm only going to be focusing on the new holiday releases I do have two other VIP sale recommendations. So for things that aren't holiday releases I suggest you go check those out because I'm talking about really genuinely good things in those videos But for this one, I only just wanted to focus on the holiday releases because I want to talk about gifts for other people Or just the new things that are worth picking up. So, uh, yeah, let's get into it.  They are $80. So they are freaking Expensive, so make sure you can get the 20 off while you can So one of the palettes that came out with this year was the ambient edit unlock I do have a review on this palette. So if you want to hear my in-depth opinion about this palette I will link it down below and in the cards. So this is one this one. I really really like it's all brand new powders All of these are limited edition. This is amazing. They also came out with the ambient unlocked volume 4 It is beautiful pink lilac packaging on the outside and some of their marbled blushes a couple of highlighters It's really beautiful. I just happen to have like Almost all of the colors that are in that palette. So I didn't pick that up But they both are amazing personally I would recommend this just because this is truly limited edition these products were made specifically for this Palette so this one is the more special one to buy. So if you want to get one I would recommend this one But also the other one is very very pretty and they're $80. So get them on sale while you can they are amazing Let's talk about pat mcgrath for a second. I don't want to talk about it for too long But the mother ship five bronze suggestion palette is my favorite palette that she has ever come out with I don't want to talk about it again for too long, but I do have a full review on it. So check it out. I'll link it down below and in the cards This is $125 and if you're going to get one palette get this one also her new opulence collection She has three palettes a bunch of lipsticks. They're online at sephora right now I mean pat mcgrath has the best eyeshadow formula in the world It's my favorite brand when it comes to eyeshadows. So I picked up all three I couldn't wait to get them on sale So I ordered them online at the pat mcgrath website already because I want to get a review up You guys have been asking it's coming in the mail on tuesday. Hopefully Stripping's taking a lot longer this time for some reason, but anyways, I haven't tried those yet But those are expensive and if you do want to try pat mcgrath try those out because they're 55 dollars But you can get 20 off if there's one that catches your eye. Definitely check them out I'm assuming her formula is going to stay consistent in that palette and it's the best and Those are also a really great option for you to check out without completely breaking the bank I haven't talked about this one on my channel, but this is a really good palette. This is the two-face Gingerbread palette. This is 49 dollars, but this is beautiful. It screams fall And two faces very hit or miss especially with their holiday stuff, but this is amazing This is such great quality. It's about as good as the chocolate bar palette the chocolate gold I love that palette this formula reminds me of that formula a lot So this was a definite hit from two face I never ever recommend their holiday releases because they're normally trash, but this is actually super good It's 49 dollars. You get it for 20 off and I just Thoroughly enjoy this palette and I haven't talked about it yet But I do recommend you pick it up in the sale if you're interested again I have a full in-depth review on this palette I'm not going to talk about it too much But the natasha denona gold palette if you want to pick up something from natasha denona This sale you need to pick up this guy. This is the best palette.  This is awesome. Bobby Brown came out with a couple of eyeshadow palettes recently that caught my eye Bobby Brown is one of those brands that under the radar. They are so good. They're actually one of my favorite brands I use them all the time on myself and my everyday routine and also in my kit I just think they come out with super good products They aren't a very trendy brand, but they have some staples in my eyes and low key. They're one of my favorite brands I don't talk about them that much But like I love bobby brown so they came out with two eyeshadow palettes They aren't super popular releases, but they are at $39. The first one is the infrared eyeshadow palette I did purchase that it came in the mail. It came broken I went to exchange it and they didn't have it in stock So I just never got around to picking it up just because it wasn't completely unique for my collection But honestly, it is so beautiful. I watched Michelle Wong's review. I will link that down below on it She liked it. I think I want to pick it up for the sale because I can get it for 20% off I just think it's really beautiful and I also picked up the ultraviolet shadow palette. This is $39 It's not the most amazing quality I've ever used But I'm such a sucker for purple eyeshadows and I really just do like this color theme It's very good for Halloween. I have to say it's what I'm wearing on my eyes right now Which side note when I was getting ready for this video I was just going to do a super simple pretty look and then I ended up With a purple smokey eye purple lips and purple highlighter. If you're into purple palettes This is a really nice one to add to your collection. It's not super popular, but low key I've been using this and really liking it. Also super duper quickly Also super quickly Charlotte Tilbury stars in your eyes palette. This is a very pretty palette I think it's going to be great for a lot of people. It's $75. So it is expensive So you should pick it up while it's on sale. I do have a review on this Link it up link it down. Blah blah blah But I mean this is just such a pretty palette And I feel like so many different women are going to love it for every day for work This is just a user friendly palette and I think this would be a great gift for somebody honestly Okay, so I do not have this palette I didn't pick it up because it didn't look like a color scheme I was very interested in but everybody's giving it a huge thumbs up and they're creating such pretty looks Well, I might have to pick it up is the Anastasia Beverly Hills Sultry Palette. It is 45 dollars It just when I saw it. I wasn't that interested in the colors in it, but I think I want it now. I'm like really I'm having this FOMO moment where I just I just want it Because everybody likes it So I might pick that up or or I'll put it on my Christmas list But I just want to get it while it's 20 off, you know The time of the holidays Is the time that all the sets come out And my favorite time of year's with the set now These are just things that stood out to me things that I believe are going to be great quality There are so many sets on Sephora that you can check out based on your wants and your needs Like I said, these are just things that stood out to me that I think would be really a good bang for your buck And a really great gift for somebody else or even to treat yourself. I don't know. So the Sephora favorite sets They have a bunch, but these are awesome. They give you so many good products in small sizes and some in full sizes It's a great way for you to try out things if you don't have this huge makeup collection I really like small sample size things because I own so much makeup that I can never go through a whole product So that's why I like these sets and I mean they're selecting these products for a reason Most of the time they're pretty good and I think everybody can appreciate these sets So if there's somebody who isn't quite a makeup lover, they do have a perfume set Everybody loves perfumes. This is 65 dollars. You can get it for 20 off. It's a really really awesome set They also have a lip set, which is 68 dollars originally So many great lip products in this so many great colors. All these are really wearable great for everybody Awesome set. They have a lash stash, which is a bunch of mascaras, which is 48 dollars. This especially is great because mascaras are Expensive for no reason because drugstore mascaras are just as good But this is a great way to try out different mascaras and sample size mascaras are really good because mascaras don't last that long So definitely look into that one actually They have a lot of different other favorite sets that I would recommend you check out and just see what you like But these would make awesome awesome gifts. So honestly like Buy them. They're a great value to begin with but if you can get even more off Go for it the beauty blender sweet indulgence set in this set You get four beauty blenders and four little soaps to clean it with 65 dollars That's a good deal to begin with for beauty blenders But then if you can get an extra 20 off you're getting such an amazing deal For beauty blenders. I'm just throwing it out there. I'm personally not buying it because I don't use beauty blenders too often But if you are a beauty blender user, this is an awesome set Okay, again, if somebody is not into makeup the soldate genero bum bum carnival extravaganza kit is so awesome It has a hand I'm looking it has the bum bum cream Which is the most amazing lotion ever the hand cream shower gel and the spray of the scent It is 59 dollars to get 20 off and it has some of the most amazing body products. It's my favorite scent I love that scent. I think this would make a great gift for so many different girls Just because not only does it smell really good, but the products themselves Are so good that lotion just sinks into your skin the spray just I'm adding this into this video because this is just a genuinely really good set that I think would make a great gift The benefit magical browsters block buster set. This is an amazing deal It is 59 dollars. I was gonna buy it for myself But unfortunately it only came in two colors three and five and i'm a color four so I'm like actually very upset by it.  They don't have my color if you are a three or a five get this set I haven't tried all of these products, but I have heard from many sources. They are very good I've tried the brow pencil that is awesome. It's an awesome brow pencil. I don't know I'm just like I don't even want to talk about anymore because I'm really salty that they don't have it in my color This amazing set the last thing I have on here is the stela 3d dazzle mini glitter and glow set This is really cheap to begin with it's 25 dollars, but to get an extra 20 off of it Those eye glitters are my favorite eye glitters ever I use them on everybody that wants glitter whenever I do makeup because it is just the best quality ever for glitters. I Please just get it. They are expensive individually So get it in a set for cheap and then use the sale Take advantage of the sale to get them for even cheaper because they are amazing and you will not be disappointed I mean that is all I have written down very Allegibly on this paper. There's so much more holiday releases that I want you to check out These are just things that stood out to me that I have confidence in that they are freaking awesome But please check out all the other sets in sephora take advantage of the sale This is my favorite vib sale because they legitimately have new products out that you can actually get for a discounted price Because usually for the other vib sales, I feel like they do it in an off season where the products aren't that new and exciting This legitimately is a good time to get products. It's a good time to buy gifts I'm still mad that that benefit doesn't come in my shade If you know of any other great gift sets that sephora has that you think people should check out Comment down below. Let me know. Maybe I'll check it out. I don't know. Probably not. No, I probably will Anyways, I will see you guys in the next video. Remember to subscribe to my channel like this video comment down below I think that's it. Anyways, I'll see you guys in the next video. Bye


Well, I hope you're all getting as excited about Armada as we are still learning for that is them and The battle lions, what do we know about them? Well, we know they are the kind of central power in the middle of Panathor They're the ones that think they're in control of anything and they are right no matter what They're actually the police force out in the out in the Armada seas They are the ones that are keeping the roots open making sure trading is going on and bashing back everybody else who's misbehaving on their water These are kind of the archetypical classic fleets. You've got the Eloi you've got the Abbas Lion ships you can then expand the range out with their gunships and so on and so forth go Panthers and so on and so forth But if you want the kind of classic human fleet This is the kicking off point As you can see they look beautiful. They paint up excellently. They're in resin obviously Part of the game is about how you use the wind and make sure you can Take take that direction and they've got these big sails and they're susceptible to that Heavy firepower general all-round great play if you like the humans, that's the lander for you


Okay, so let's try this problem. Two-methyl, two-propanol, reacts with strong acid to give this alkene shown here, right? Two-methyl, one-propane, and water. So what kind of reaction are we seeing here? Elimination, right? And what do you think it would be, E1 or E2 reaction? E1. E1, why is that, do you think? Because it's a tertiary alcohol, that's very good, okay? Because it's a tertiary alcohol. And so what's going to happen, you know, when we propane that tertiary alcohol, we're going to get the leaving group leaving, and we'll get a tertiary carbocation. That's what it'll be, E1. Okay, so I just want to go over the mechanism for you all, right, with cocaine. So everybody hopefully have written all this stuff down. So whenever you're doing the mechanism, remember, draw the structures out. It's much easier to figure out what's going on, okay? So remember, I should have asked you, right? So strong acid gets deep-propanated by the base, right? Yeah, just like you were saying earlier, right? The base is the alcohol because it's the longer term. So hopefully everybody would do both of those errors for the first time. So now what we have is that protonated alcohol. It's the step where you're asking, is it any one or any two, okay? Since it's tertiary, that leaving group is going to leave by itself, okay, to make that tertiary carbocation, because that tertiary carbocation is very stable, okay? So we're going to do primary or something like that, secondary. You would think maybe secondary, maybe E1, maybe E2, primary, always E2, okay? So we got that carbocation that we were talking about, like that. And now we got that water molecule that was shown in the products. Okay, so remember that H3O plus was a catalyst for this reaction, okay? So we've got to reform that. So catalysts, remember, they participate in the reaction, but they have to be regenerated, okay? Catalysts doesn't get used up in the reaction. So that's specified one hydrogen there, but we all know there's three of them there. So what's going to happen is we're going to keep that we were looking for, right? So there's your water, there's your algae, and that's okay. So that thing can go and do another one of those same reactions, okay? So what's going to happen if you were thinking about setting this up in the lab, right? Excuse me. You'd have the alcohol, maybe it would be neat or in a solvent, and you'd only put, like, a drop or two of, you know, a strong acid in there, like sulfuric acid or something, and this reaction would occur. You wouldn't need a molar ratio of the acid if it's a catalyst, okay? Are there any questions on this reaction? Yeah. Any questions? Okay, cool. Good job.