杭州夜生活

You’ve got to see it to be it. A heightened sense of red color vision arose in ancient reptiles before bright red skin, scales and feathers, a new study suggests. The finding bolsters evidence that dinosaurs probably saw red and perhaps displayed red color.

The new finding, published in the Aug. 17 Proceedings of the Royal Society B, rests on the discovery that birds and turtles share a gene used both for red vision and red coloration. More bird and turtle species use the gene, called CYP2J19, for vision than for coloration, however, suggesting that its first job was in sight.
“We have this single gene that has two very different functions,” says evolutionary biologist Nicholas Mundy of the University of Cambridge. Mundy’s team wondered which function came first: the red vision or the ornamentation.

In evolution, what an animal can see is often linked with what others can display, says paleontologist Martin Sander of the University of Bonn in Germany, who did not work on the new study. “We’re always getting at color from these two sides,” he says, because the point of seeing a strong color is often reading visual signals.

Scientists already knew that birds use CYP2J19 for vision and color. In bird eyes, the gene contains instructions for making bright red oil droplets that filter red light. Other forms of red color vision evolved earlier in other animals, but this form allows birds to see more shades of red than humans can. Elsewhere in the body, the same gene can code for pigments that stain feathers red. Turtles are the only other land vertebrates with bright red oil droplets in their eyes. But scientists weren’t sure if the same gene was responsible, Mundy says.

His team searched for CYP2J19 in the DNA of three turtle species: the western painted turtle, Chinese soft-shell turtle and green sea turtle. All three have the gene. Both birds and turtles, the researchers conclude, inherited the gene from a shared ancestor that lived at least 250 million years ago. (Crocodiles and alligators, close relatives of birds and turtles, probably lost the gene sometime after splitting from this common ancestor, Mundy says.)

Next, the scientists turned their attention to the gene’s function. Mundy’s team studied western painted turtles, which have a striking red shell. As in red birds, CYP2J19 is active in the eyes and bodies of these turtles, the scientists found, suggesting that the gene is involved in both vision and coloration.
Because most birds and turtles can see red, but only some have red feathers or scales, the researchers think the great-granddaddy of modern turtles and birds probably used the gene for vision, too. Whether that common ancestor was colored red is unclear.

That very old reptile would have passed CYP2J19 down to its descendants, including dinosaurs. Mounting evidence has pointed to dinosaurs as colorful, with good color vision. But the specifics of their coloration have been elusive. This study points to red as one color they could probably see, and perhaps display.

“If you would have asked me 10 years ago, ‘Will we ever know the color of dinosaurs?’” Sander says, “I would have said, ‘No way!’” But studies like this one are a new lens into dinosaur color. Seeing can mean displaying, and this study is solid evidence that dinosaurs saw red, Sander says. In the past, “we couldn’t really say that.”

Condensing billions and billions and billions of years into a 45-minute film is a tall order. But director Terrence Malick took on the challenge with Voyage of Time. The film, now playing in IMAX theaters, surveys the 13.8-billion-year history of the universe and even looks eons into the future when we — life on Earth, the planet and the entire solar system — are gone.

Starting with the Big Bang, Voyage of Time progresses through highlights of the past, with a central focus on the evolution of life. Malick, best known for directing visually rich dramas such as The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life, presents breathtaking cinematography, using locales such as Hawaii’s lava-oozing Kilauea volcano as stand-ins for the past. Stunning visualizations and special effects bring to life the formation of the planets, the origin of the first cells, the demise of the sun and other events that scientists can only imagine.
The film marks Malick’s first attempt at documentary filmmaking. If you can call it that. Viewers hoping for a David Attenborough–style treatment of the subject matter will be disappointed. The film is more evocative, with moody scenes that provide little explication. And what narration (by Brad Pitt) there is tends to be philosophical rather than informative.

Serious science enthusiasts may find some reasons to quibble with the movie. For one, it’s hard to grasp the true immenseness and scale of cosmic time. With so much screen time devoted to the evolution of life, many viewers may not realize just how relatively recent a phenomenon it is. After the Big Bang, more than 9 billion years passed before Earth began to form. It took many hundred thousand more years before the first microbes emerged.
Malick’s treatment of evolution may also rankle some viewers. At times, the narration seems to imply life was destined to happen, with the young, barren Earth just waiting around for the first seeds of life to take root. At other times, the narration imbues evolution with purpose. Pitt notes, for instance, that perfecting a leaf took eons. Yet perfection is something evolution neither achieves nor strives for — it’s a process that lacks intentionality.

These critiques aside, Malick sought to tell an accurate story, enlisting an accomplished group of scientists as advisers, including Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. Smolin says he was impressed with the end result. “It’s a very unusual film,” he says, likening it to a visual poem or piece of art.

And that’s probably the best mindset to watch Voyage of Time: Just sit back, soak in the dazzling visuals and contemplate the wonders of nature.

SAN DIEGO — Society’s record for protecting public health has been pretty good in the developed world, not so much in developing countries. That disparity has long been recognized.

But there’s another disparity in society’s approach to public health — the divide between attention to traditional diseases and the resources devoted to mental disorders.

“When it comes to mental health, all countries are developing countries,” says Shekhar Saxena, director of the World Health Organization’s department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Despite a breadth of scope and depth of impact exceeding that of many more highly publicized diseases, mental illness has long been regarded as a second-class medical concern. And modern medicine’s success at diagnosing, treating and curing many other diseases has not been duplicated for major mental disorders.

Saxena thinks that neuroscience research can help. He sees an opportunity for progress through increased interdisciplinary collaboration between neuroscience and mental health researchers.

“The collaboration seems to be improving, but much more is needed and not only in a few countries, but all countries,” he said November 12 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

By almost any measure, mental health disorders impose an enormous societal burden. Worldwide, direct and indirect costs of mental disorders exceed $2.5 trillion yearly, Saxena said — projected to reach $6 trillion by 2030. Mental illnesses also disable and kill in large numbers: Global suicides per year total over 800,000. “Indeed, it is a hidden epidemic,” Saxena said. That’s more deaths than from breast cancer and probably more from malaria, according to a new comprehensive analysis of global mortality.

Mental illnesses encompass a wide range of disorders, from autism and Alzheimer’s disease to substance abuse and schizophrenia. Saxena acknowledged that there have been advances in the scientific understanding of these diseases, but not nearly enough. No easily used diagnostic test is available for most of them. And no new class of drugs for treating major mental disorders has appeared in the last 20 years, with the possible exception of dementia.

“We need increased investment in research, increased public, private and philanthropic investments,” Saxena said. “We need increased connection of research with public health gains.”
He called on the community of neuroscientists to establish a “grand challenge” to researchers to address these concerns.

“There have been many grand challenges in neurosciences — perhaps we need one for finding out mental health interventions,” he said.

Many neuroscientists are, of course, aware of the important link between their research and mental health. Some progress is being made. One promising avenue of work focuses on synapses, the junctures through which nerve cells in the brain communicate. Typically synapses form where axons, the long neuronal extensions that transmit signals, connect with dendrites, the neurons’ message-receiving branches. Most of the axon-dendrite connections occur at small growths called dendritic spines that protrude from the dendrite surface.

Several sessions at the neuroscience meeting described new work showing ways in which dendritic spines may be involved in mental disorders. One session focused on the protein actin, a prime structural component of the spines.

Actin activity depends on a complicated chain of chemical reactions inside a cell. In mice, blocking a key link in that chain reduces the number of spines in the front part of the brain, Scott Soderling of Duke University School of Medicine reported. Those mice then exhibited symptoms reminiscent of schizophrenia in people.

It seems that losing spines in the frontal cortex alters nerve cell connections there; with spine shortages, some axons link directly to the dendrite shaft. Bypassing spines, which play a filtering role, can intensify signals sent to the ventral tegmental area, which in turn may send signals that increase production of the chemical messenger dopamine in another brain region, the striatum. “We think that this is actually what is driving the elevated dopamine levels” in disorders such as schizophrenia, Soderling said.

Some antipsychotic drugs (known as neuroleptics) for treating schizophrenia work by blocking sites of dopamine action in the striatum. But such drugs do nothing about the loss of spines that initiated the problem.

“These neuroleptics largely treat these symptoms, but they’re not a cure,” Soderling said. “We think that this is good evidence … for the idea that these drugs are treating a downstream consequence of a primary insult that’s occurring elsewhere in the brain.”

This insight from neuroscience — that antipsychotics treat downstream symptoms, not the problem at its source — may help the search for better treatments.

Soderling suggests that many other mental disorders may have their roots in problems with actin in dendritic spines. Another speaker at the neuroscience meeting, Haruo Kasai of the University of Tokyo, emphasized how fluctuations in the numbers of spines, related to actin activity, could play a role in autism.

Such results from neuroscience should be of great value to fighting mental disorders. But science alone won’t enable the discovery of effective treatments without a broader scope of scientific investigation of mental illness as a global problem. Too much of research to date focuses on too small a portion of the worldwide population. As Saxena noted, more than 90 percent of scientific studies on mental illness are from — and about — high-income countries.

“We are ignoring a very large number of people living in this world,” he said. “And this can be, and is, a real impediment to science. If we don’t know what is happening in the brains of the majority of the people living in this world, can we really advance science in the best possible manner? Can we still say that we know the human brain? And at least my answer would be: No.”

A newly discovered particle is dishing out a double dose of charm.

The newcomer is a baryon, meaning that it’s composed of three smaller particles called quarks — in this case, two “charm” quarks and one “up” quark. Detected by the LHCb experiment at CERN, the European physics laboratory near Geneva, the baryon is the first to be discovered with two charm quarks, LHCb scientists reported July 6 at the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics in Venice, Italy. Scientists produced the particle by ramming protons together at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and sifting through the aftermath.
Baryons can be composed of a variety of quark combinations, two up quarks and one charm quark, for example, or one “strange” quark and two “down” quarks. Because the charm quarks are a particularly heavy variety of quark, scientists should be able to use the new particle to perform different types of tests of their theories of particle interactions.

Although the particle, called a doubly charmed Xi baryon, is the first of its kind, its appearance is no surprise — physicists’ theories predicted its existence. The particle’s mass — about four times that of the proton — agreed with expectations.

Data from a previous experiment had hinted at the presence of a similar doubly charmed particle, but the results were disputed. In 2002, scientists with the SELEX experiment, located at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., reported that they had discovered a particle composed of two charm quarks and a down quark (SN: 7/6/02, p. 14). But the particle’s properties didn’t align with theoretical expectations, and other experiments couldn’t confirm the results. The new particle further casts doubt on SELEX’s results, because the two baryons should be close in mass, but instead they differ by a significant margin.

A genetic “crystal ball” can predict whether certain people will respond effectively to the flu vaccine.

Nine genes are associated with a strong immune response to the flu vaccine in those aged 35 and under, a new study finds. If these genes were highly active before vaccination, an individual would generate a high level of antibodies after vaccination, no matter the flu strain in the vaccine, researchers report online August 25 in Science Immunology. This response can help a person avoid getting the flu.

The research team also tried to find a predictive set of genes in people aged 60 and above — a group that includes those more likely to develop serious flu-related complications, such as pneumonia — but failed. Even so, the study is “a step in the right direction,” says Elias Haddad, an immunologist at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, who did not participate in the research. “It could have implications in terms of identifying responders versus nonresponders by doing a simple test before a vaccination.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that vaccination prevented 5.1 million flu illnesses in the 2015‒2016 season. Getting a flu shot is the best way to stay healthy, but “the problem is, we don’t know what makes a successful vaccination,” says Purvesh Khatri, a computational immunologist at Stanford University School of Medicine. “The immune system is very personal.”
Khatri and colleagues wondered if there was a certain immune state one needed to be in to respond effectively to the flu vaccine. So the researchers looked for a common genetic signal in blood samples from 175 people with different genetic backgrounds, from different locations in the United States, and who received the flu vaccine in different seasons. After identifying the set of predictive genes, the team used another collection of 82 samples to confirm that the crystal ball accurately predicted a strong flu response. Using such a variety of samples makes it more likely that the crystal ball will work for many different people in the real world, Khatri says.

The nine genes make proteins that have various jobs, including directing the movement of other proteins and providing structure to cells. Previous research on these genes has tied some of them to the immune system, but not others. Khatri expects the study will spur investigations into how the genes promote a successful vaccine response. And figuring out how to boost the genes may help those who don’t respond strongly to flu vaccine, he says.

As for finding a genetic crystal ball for older adults, “there’s still hope that we’ll be able to,” says team member Raphael Gottardo, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Older people are even more diverse in how they respond to the flu vaccine than younger people, he says, so it may take a larger group of samples to find a common genetic thread.

More research is also needed to learn whether the identified genes will predict an effective response for all vaccines, or just the flu, Haddad says. “There is a long way to go here.”

As the chill of autumn encroaches on Siberia’s grasslands, Richard’s pipits usually begin their southward trek to warmer latitudes. But a growing number of the slender, larklike songbirds seem to be heading west instead, possibly establishing a new migratory route for the species.

This would be the first new route known to emerge on an east-west axis in a long-distance migratory bird, researchers report October 22 in Current Biology. The finding could have implications for how scientists understand the evolution of bird migration routes over time and how the animals adapt to a shifting climate.

Richard’s pipits (Anthus richardi) typically breed in Siberia during the summer and travel south for the winter to southern Asia. Occasionally, “vagrant” birds get lost and show up far from this range, including in Europe. But as a Ph.D. student at the Université Grenoble Alpes in France, evolutionary biologist Paul Dufour noticed, along with colleagues, that described sightings and photo records of the pipits wintering in southern France had increased from a handful of birds annually in the 1980s and 1990s to many dozens in recent years.

So, Dufour, now at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and his team started monitoring the pipits in France and Spain to see where the birds were coming from, and if the birds were visiting Europe on purpose or just getting lost.

The researchers captured seven pipits in France during the winter of 2019–2020, tagging them with a sensor that estimates the birds’ geographic positions based on light levels and length of day. The team then released the birds. The next winter, the team successfully recaptured three of them. Those sensors showed that the birds had all flown back to the same part of southwestern Siberia for the summer before returning to France.

The researchers also examined images in citizen-science databases of 331 Richard’s pipits that were photographed in Europe and North Africa, categorizing the birds by apparent age. Among songbirds, Dufour says, vagrants are always young birds. Songbirds tend to follow a route based on instincts written into their DNA, replicating the trip their ancestors took. But storms or mutations that create faulty wayfinding abilities can send young songbirds off target.
Wherever it arrives, the songbird’s first migration creates a mental map for every migration after, so any adult birds in Europe have made the trip more than once. Since more than half of the birds in southern Europe and nearby northwestern Africa documented in the winter were adults, Dufour and his colleagues think that many of these pipits are seasonal migrants.

Contemporary shifts in migration routes are more common in species that travel via the cues of a traveling group, like geese or cranes. Songbirds usually migrate alone, following their instinctual route when young, Dufour says, so changes to migration patterns are rarer.

What’s more, east-west migration is unusual in birds. Most species that travel this way are ones that migrate short distances within the tropics, says Jessie Williamson, an ornithologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque who was not involved with the research. “It’s exciting that an understudied migratory behavior like east-west migration is in the spotlight,” she says.

If the pipits’ European trek is in fact now an established route, it’s possible that the detour was facilitated by climate change, which may also be meddling with birds’ migrations in other ways (SN: 12/17/19). Dufour and his team used computer models that estimate climate suitability for the pipits in Europe based on variables like temperature and precipitation. The researchers compared two periods — 1961 to 1990 and 1990 to 2018 — and found that warmer temperatures in the latter period have made most parts of southern Europe a better wintering location for the birds than they were before.
The selection of European wintering grounds may also involve the deterioration of ancestral, southern Asian sites, but the researchers haven’t investigated that yet. Climate change could be affecting that too, Dufour says. But “we suspect that habitat modification in Southeast Asia — increasing urbanization, less open areas — may also be part of the equation.”

Ginny Chan, an ecologist at the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach who was not involved with the research, says that the types of environmental changes that could be hurting bird populations “are happening very quickly in the traditional wintering range [for Richard’s pipits] in South and East Asia.” In India, the Richard’s pipit population has declined by more than 90 percent over the last couple of decades, Chan says.

Other Siberian bird species that typically migrate south but have recently shown up in Europe in growing numbers, like the yellow-browed warbler and Siberian chiffchaff, may also be making their own westward routes, Dufour suspects.

If other Siberian songbird species are also establishing new western migration routes, this could mean that migratory songbirds are more flexible travelers than scientists previously thought, Dufour says.

That could have hopeful implications for some birds as species worldwide deal with a changing climate. But the new research, he adds, shouldn’t overshadow other studies of migratory birds — like barnacle geese and the European pied flycatcher — which show that some of these species are not as able to cope with climate change.

Kyle Rittenhouse has been found not guilty.

A jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday found Rittenhouse not guilty of homicide and other charges.
On Aug. 25, 2020, Rittenhouse shot at four men, killing two and wounding a third, with a semiautomatic rifle. Rittenhouse was in downtown Kenosha to protect a car dealership during unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Blake, a Black man, had been shot multiple times by Rusten Sheskey, a white police officer, in Kenosha, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Sheskey was ultimately not charged by state or federal prosecutors.

Rittenhouse, then a 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., joined a group of other armed people in downtown Kenosha. He shot Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz, the latter of whom survived. Rittenhouse turned himself in to police in Antioch on Aug. 26, and was extradited to Kenosha, where he was charged with the following:

First-degree reckless homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
First-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon
First-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
Attempted first-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
First-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon
Possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18 (later dismissed)
Failure to comply with an emergency order from state or local government (later dismissed)
Most of the incident was captured on video, and the subsequent trial became heavily polarized. The prosecution in the case argued that Rittenhouse provoked protesters before shooting at them, while the defense argued that Rittenhouse acted in self defense.

The Milwaukee Bucks are scheduled to play at home tonight at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT. The Bucks, who play 40 miles from Kenosha, were the first NBA team to boycott following the protests in the summer of 2020.

Following the verdict in the case that captured national attention, the sports world responded to the news that Rittenhouse was ruled not guilty.
Sporting News will continue to monitor and update news from around the sports world as it unfolds.

Leading up to the 2018 NBA Draft, Luka Doncic dominated the discussion.

A standout in Europe for years as a kid playing against men, Doncic seemed to be a surefire future NBA star.
Debuting for Real Madrid as a 15-year-old, it took all of two seasons as a professional before he led the team to the EuroLeague title, claiming EuroLeague MVP honors in the process.

Four years on, Doncic is a legitimate MVP candidate, with many wondering how and why he slipped through the Suns' fingers.
Predraft
Despite flashing the obvious talent of a potential No. 1 overall pick, ESPN's Jonathan Givony highlighted some of the potential challenges that International prospects face.

"With as small as the world has become, and even though we have more film and information at our fingertips than ever, I still believe that international players are at a disadvantage in the NBA draft process compared with their NCAA peers," Givony wrote.

"There is simply a comfort level and a familiarity for NBA teams in scouting college players that internationals don't enjoy. Most NBA execs will get over to Europe once or twice, and what if you happen to fall on one or two bad games?"

Of course, America has produced endless top picks that have failed to reach expectations, but perhaps the international prospects are more memorable. Andrea Bargnani comes to mind, the No. 1 overall pick from the 2006 Draft. Or even Ricky Rubio, who similarly to Doncic, had carved out an impressive resume as a teenager in Europe. Now in season 11 in the NBA after being taken with the No. 5 pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, Rubio has had a successful pro career without doubt, but he hasn't reached the All-Star level that many once hoped he would.

Prior to the Draft, there were some question marks whether or not Doncic would want to play for Sacramento, Atlanta or Memphis, who held the selections immediately after Phoenix. Of course, Doncic would have the option to continue playing in Europe after Draft night and not make his way to the NBA.
Draft night
With Phoenix firming on selecting Deandre Ayton with the first overall pick and Doncic reportedly distancing himself from Atlanta, the Hawks began conversations with the Mavericks.

What followed was a blockbuster trade that saw Doncic end up in Dallas, with Trae Young heading to Atlanta.

Of course, Ayton would go No. 1, with Marvin Bagley II heading to Sacramento with pick No. 2 and Jaren Jackson Jr. heading to Memphis with pick No. 4.

"[Dallas] been talking to me," Doncic told the ESPN/ABC broadcast on Draft night. "They were so nice to me. And I'm glad, you know? Just happy to be in the NBA. Just happy to be a part of that."

Adding to the intrigue was the presence of Phoenix head coach Igor Kokoskov, who had close knowledge on Doncic's talents as the head coach of the Slovenian national team. Kokoskov was fired in April of Ayton's rookie season. After returning to Europe for a stint, he is now on the staff in Dallas…once again working with Doncic.

Why did Phoenix select Ayton?
While the obvious guard comparison between Doncic and Young will be equally evergreen, the biggest question that remains is why the Suns chose a center in an era where the traditional big man's importance has seemingly waned?

Givony was on the money with his pre-lottery analysis, reporting that Ayton was firming as the likely top selection.

"After canvassing most of the league in recent weeks, there seems to be somewhat of a consensus forming around Ayton as the 'safe pick' at No. 1," Givony wrote.

"Which team ends up getting the pick will obviously play a role, but Ayton's sheer productivity combined with his freakish physical tools are making it increasingly difficult to keep Luka Doncic up top, especially after a somewhat lackluster month of February by his standards."

It's no knock on Ayton, who was a premier prospect, but for a Phoenix franchise that had been out of the playoffs for several years, the idea of taking the 'safe pick' feels like a disappointing approach. At the time, the Suns lacked a franchise point guard, with a mix of players from Tyler Johnson, Isaiah Canaan and Elie Okobo picking up starts throughout Ayton's rookie campaign.

Interestingly enough, international prospect Okobo, who was once thought of as a potential first-round selection was taken with the 31st pick out of France. He is no longer in the league.

Is it possible the Suns were shying away from using another top selection on an international player given just two drafts earlier they had used the fourth overall pick on Croatian talent, Dragan Bender?

Bender would play just 171 games with the franchise across three seasons, averaging 5.3 points and 3.8 rebounds.

Speaking with Basketball Network, former scout, Antonio Williams discussed part of the decision-making process when it came to moving towards Ayton ahead of Doncic or Young.

“With Deandre, one of the things was, you look at the things that he does, at his size when you combine the athleticism and the dexterity and the agility there are just things he can just roll out of bed and do," Williams said.

"Of course, we knew Luka and Trae Young were going to be great, but when we’re looking at Deandre again, there are just things that we felt he inherently can just roll out of bed and do that we didn’t have on our roster.”

The early returns
In many ways, the comparison between Ayton and Doncic was always going to be skewed. Doncic had the ball in his hands from opening night as a ball-dominant guard, while Ayton would ply his trade battling in the paint, working as a screen and roll man with Booker.

The young Suns finished Ayton's rookie campaign with a 19-63 record, though the big man impressed by averaging 16.3 points and 10.3 rebounds.

Doncic was box office from game one, finishing the season tallying 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.1 assists on a Dallas team that finished 33-49.

From night one it was clear Doncic is a franchise-changing talent, immediately sparking the discussion on how he slipped through the fingers of multiple franchises.

The Suns would eventually find their point guard, trading for Chris Paul in a move that sparked a surprising run to the 2021 NBA Finals. Ayton was at times spectacular through the postseason run, producing a monster 22-point, 19-rebound effort in Game 1 of the Finals against Milwaukee.
Ayton's emergence on the biggest stage is further indication that Phoenix got a really, really good player on the night of the 2018 NBA Draft, which led many to believe he was in for a major payday.

What's next?
On the back of that breakout playoff run, Ayton loomed as the next player from the 2018 class to cash in with a major payday.

Doncic signed a five-year, $207 million supermax rookie extension as soon as possible this offseason.

Young also inked a five-year extension that can climb up to a value of $207 million with an All-NBA extension in the allotted time frame.

Jackson Jr. agreed to a four-year, $105 million dollar extension in Memphis.

Ayton on the other hand, could not come to an agreement with Phoenix on an extension, with ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reporting that ownership does not believe he is on the same tier as Doncic, Young, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and other classmen that have received big-time contracts in the offseason.

"I mean, obviously, we're disappointed that we couldn't reach an extension agreement this offseason," Suns General Manager James Jones told The Athletic's Sam Amick. "Deandre is important for us. He means a lot to us and was vital in what we did and what we've done this past season."
Last month, the team came to terms on a four-year, $90 million deal with versatile wing Mikal Bridges. Bridges joins Devin Booker as a core piece locked up for the future, with Paul also inking a four-year deal worth up to $120 million in August.

Whether it be the Suns trio of Paul, Booker and Bridges, or the 2018 draft class of Doncic, Young and Gilgeous-Alexander, the collection of talent cashing in on major paydays all have something in common.

They aren't a center.

Ayton will now have the opportunity to sign an offer sheet with a rival team next offseason as a restricted free agent.

The failure to lock down Ayton caused many Suns fans to blame owner Robert Sarver, with the Suns a non-luxury tax team since 2010. Coming off a run to The Finals, potentially straining a relationship with your No. 1 overall pick from three years earlier is certainly a curious decision.

The 23-year-old has gotten off to an injury-interrupted start to 2021-22, appearing in just six games while battling with a leg contusion. A consistent double-double player as he has been throughout his career, Ayton is averaging 14.2 points, 11.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game thus far.

Ayton is sure to become one of the talking points of the 2022 free agency period, with the rising big man's relationship with the franchise seemingly tested through last summer's failed contract negotiations.

Now we wait for the next chapter of the 2018 Draft night story to unfold.

Former Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs III has been ordered to appear in Las Vegas court on Monday following a missed alcohol test. That is a violation of his bond release restrictions following a fatal crash in which prosecutors say he was driving under the influence at 156 mph.

According to Clarke County court records, Ruggs missed one of four daily court-mandated alcohol tests at 4:41 p.m. local time on Saturday before completing "a client initiated remote breath test" at 6:28 p.m. the same day. The alcohol monitoring agency noted in court filings that it couldn't verify Ruggs' sobriety at the time he was supposed to complete his test earlier in the day.
Ruggs' attorney David Chesnoff told Judge Suzan Baucum — who has ordered his reappearance in court — that the delay in his test was related to trouble with equipment provided to him. Ruggs, 22, could face a return to jail for violating the terms of his release. Ruggs was released on $150,000 bond on Wednesday, Nov. 3 and was ordered to remain on house arrest while undergoing electronic surveillance. He is also to refrain from alcohol or other controlled substances, among other restrictions.

Ruggs was arrested after his involvement in a fatal drunk-driving accident on Tuesday, Nov. 2. Prosecutors said he was driving 156 mph at the time of the crash, with a blood alcohol content level of .16 — twice the legal limit for Nevada drivers. Ruggs' Chevrolet Corvette struck the back of 23-year-old Tina Tintor's Toyota Rav4. Witnesses to the event indicated they tried to help Tintor and her dog escape the vehicle, but were ultimately forced back from flames emanating from the car.
Ruggs faces two felony charges of DUI resulting in death or serious injury. That is considered a category B felony in Nevada, the second-worst violation of state law. The charges are non-probationary, meaning Ruggs will face jail time if convicted. Each charge carries a minimum two-year sentence, but can go as long as 20 years. He also faces two counts of felony reckless driving — charges with penalties of one to six years in prison — and a misdemeanor weapon charge.

The Raiders released Ruggs on Nov. 2 following his DUI arrest. He was the No. 12 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and the highest receiver taken in the draft.