Sunday, December 12, 2010

Modern man outlived Neanderthals due to 'live slow and grow old' strategy

Young Neanderthals' teeth growth was significantly faster than in our own species


Young Neanderthals' teeth growth was significantly faster than in our own species Photo: HULTON ARCHIVE


Humans became more sophisticated than other species because of our uniquely slow physical development and long childhood, it was claimed.


Other primates have shorter gestation, mature faster in childhood, reproduce at a younger age and have shorter lifespans, even when compared with early humans.


It had been unclear at what point in the six to seven million years since our evolutionary split from non-human primates the life course shifted.


But a new examination of teeth from 11 Neanderthal and early human fossils has suggested that our move from a "live fast and die young" to a "live slow and grow old" strategy occurred fairly recently.


The research was led by scientists at Harvard University in the United States, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (MPI-EVA), and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF).


Tanya Smith, assistant professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, said: "Teeth are remarkable time recorders, capturing each day of growth much like rings in trees reveal yearly progress.


"Even more impressive is the fact that our first molars contain a tiny 'birth certificate', and finding this birth line allows scientists to calculate exactly how old a juvenile was when it died."


Dr Smith and her colleagues found that young Neanderthals' teeth growth was significantly faster than in our own species, including some of the earliest groups of modern humans to leave Africa some 90,000 to 100,000 years ago.


This indicates that the elongation of childhood has been a relatively recent development.


The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


View the original article here

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Pedestrians struggle to suppress their inner lemming when crossing the road

Pedestrians crossing the road: Pedestrians struggle to suppress their inner lemming when crossing the road


The research showed that pedestrians were up to 2.5 times more likely cross a busy road if someone else stepped out in front of the traffic first Photo: GETTY


Biologists studying the herding instinct of humans have analysed the road crossing behaviour of pedestrians at a crossing in a busy city centre.


They found that pedestrians were up to 2.5 times more likely cross a busy road if someone else stepped out in front of the traffic first. Men were also more likely to follow others into the road than females.


In some cases individuals started to cross before scuttling back to the kerb after realising the danger they were in.


Dr Jolyon Faria, who was at Leeds University when he conducted the study but is now at Princeton University, said he was hoping to investigate how people respond to the behaviour of their neighbours in potentially dangerous situations.


He said: "Crossing the road is a dangerous scenario, so we thought it would be interesting to see whether people's behaviour was influenced by those on either side of them.


"There is a potential advantage to following others when they cross because when others cross the road it usually indicates a gap in the traffic and gives the benefit of getting across the road faster.


"The disadvantages are quite serious though you may be injured by a vehicle.


"It could be that people feel safer when they are crossing with others. Perhaps its an effect from our evolutionary past."


Dr Faria analysed the behaviour of 365 people as they waited to cross at a pedestrian crossing in Leeds during rush hour over a three-day period.


Using computer simulations he was also able to examine what would happen if the pedestrians chose to ignore those around them, or followed the lead of others in the group.


It revealed that the pedestrians were 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely to cross the road on average if the person next to them stepped out first. Dr Faria said that men tended to follow their neighbours more often than women waiting to cross the road.


"It could be that men are more likely to take the risk of following someone across the road and women are more conscious of their surroundings," said Dr Faria, whose research has been published in the journal Behavioural Ecology and PlanetEarth Online.


Herding behaviour is common in the natural world. Wildebeests tend to wait nervously at the edge of rivers waiting for one to cross first before they all follow in a bid to avoid being attacked by crocodiles waiting in the water.


Shoals of fish also stick together in an attempt to reduce the chance of being eat and penguins wait at the edge of an ice flow for a brave individual to dive into the water first before the rest follow in a bid to avoid waiting leopard seals.


Lemmings migrate in large numbers and often follow each other into fast flowing lakes and rivers where they can drown.


Dr Faria added: "The behaviour we were seeing was much like swallows sitting on a line or penguins at an ice flow, where they are thinking about what they want to do while also watching those around them and trying to work out the optimal strategy."


He said he hoped his research might help to make people think twice before stepping out into the road. Around 13,000 pedestrians are injured each year crossing the road in the UK.


View the original article here

Friday, December 10, 2010

Science fiction that turned into fact

The Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHASR) gun is under development at the US Air Force Research Laboratory which like its science fiction counterpart can "stun" assailants. The real PHASR is a non-lethal, portable deterrent weapon which uses a laser system to blind the enemy temporarily.

Like their Star Trek equivalent modern mobile phones often have flip top lids and can - thanks to satellite navigation technology - be used to pinpoint your position. Unfortunately using them to "beam you up" remains a scientific dream.

The Universal Translator

Like the Star Trek device which translates alien languages, the US military is using the Phraselator in Iraq for speech translation. The website Google, among others, can translate web sites and phone manufacturer NEC is launching the first mobile phone with speech translation.

Medical Tricorder

MRI and CAT scans can like Dr McCoy's hand-held tricorder device diagnose diseases by scanning the body. The team at Yale University claim the portable biomarker detector will be able to identify signs of illness from a sample of blood within 20 minutes.

Tractor Beam

Optical tweezers are a scientific instrument that uses a focused laser beam to provide an attractive or repulsive force. Unfortunately unlike the Enterprises tractor beam which can trap and pull in space ships they only work on a microscopic level.

Cloaking device

Scientists in the real world have come up with all sorts of devices to copy the technology that renders Harry Potter and Klingon ships invisible, from "stealth" radar-absorbing dark paint to active camouflage. In the long run they are looking at a special "meta" materials, that theoretically could make light curve around an object and so make it appear as if it were not there at all.

3D holograms

Ever since Princess Leia used a hologram of herself to ask Obi Wan Kenobi for help in the film Star Wars, scientists have been trying to harness the same technology for real. Now a team led by Professor Nasser Peyghambarian, of Arizona University, have developed a way of updating the image every two seconds – making it close to "real time". The ability to beam a moving hologram to anywhere in the world could lead to holographic teleconferences, 3D adverts, and a wealth of telemedicine, engineering and entertainment industry applications.


View the original article here

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Scientists dig below Dead Sea to probe Earth's history

The project aims to examine the layers of sediment left behind beneath the lowest place on Earth over the course of millions of years, providing clues about shifting weather patterns, seismic activity and climate change.

"The sediments ... provide an 'archive' on the environmental conditions that existed in the area in its geological past," the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a partner in the project, said on Wednesday.

The thin slice of Earth's history will be extracted via a 1,200-metre (3,937-foot) deep borehole being drilled by a special rig that has been set up in the northern basin of the Dead Sea.

Once extracted, the layer-cake of soil will be subjected to high-resolution examination by scientists from fields ranging from climate science to chemistry for clues about Earth's changing environment.

Details about severe weather or major seismic activity could even provide insight into human migration in and out of the region.

"We believe that the results of this project will have vast implications in the fields of science and environment and will shed light on new natural resources," Zvi Ben-Avraham, a professor at Tel Aviv University, and Moti Stein, with the Israel Geological Survey, said in a joint statement.

"In addition, a historic hydrogeological-environmental study of the Dead Sea will help unravel the mystery of human cultural evolution in this area," they added.

The project is being sponsored by the International Continental Drilling Programme, a group that has carried out similar probes deep into the Earth's crust at locations around the world.

In an unusual example of regional co-ordination, the governments of Israel and Jordan, which lies on the east bank of the Dead Sea, as well as the Palestinian Authority are co-operating with the project, which is expected to run until the end of this year.


View the original article here

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Star Trek-style cloaking device comes a step nearer

The device sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but scientists at Imperial College London have proved it could work in theory – at least in terms of very short bursts of time.

As well as being a sci-fi fan's dream, they believe the idea could also be used to make faster and more powerful computers.

Professor Martin McCall, the lead scientist, said that the technique worked by dividing up rays of light that are heading towards the eye.

By speeding up the front part of the ray and then slowing down the rear, you can create a gap which could be filled with an event or action.

Then by reversing the speeds the gap could be closed again before the light reaches the observer making it look nothing has happened.

At the moment it should be possible to cut two thousandth of a millionth of second from time but in future seconds or even minutes could be cut.

"Imagine a camera that is on a time delay watching a safe," said Prof McCall. "If a thief opens the safe, steals the money and locks it again in between the pictures being taken it will appear as if nothing has happened.

"We have shown that by manipulating the way the light illuminating an event reaches the viewer, it is possible to hide the passage of time in the same way.

"If you had someone moving along the corridor, it would appear to a distant observer as if they had relocated instantaneously, creating the illusion of a Star Trek transporter.

"So, theoretically, this person might be able to do something and you wouldn't notice."

In previous experiments to create "invisibility cloaks" scientists have shown that light can be curled around objects to make them seem invisible.

The teleporters used in Star Trek are said to have been based on the idea of "quantum entanglement" in an object or person is broken down into photons of light or atoms, transported and then re-materialised in a different place.

This new technology would not actually transport anyone just hide their journey.

Researcher Alberto Favaro said: "It is unlike ordinary cloaking devices because it does not attempt to divert light around an object.

"Imagine computer data moving down a channel to be like a highway full of cars.

"You want to have a pedestrian crossing without interrupting the traffic, so you slow down the cars that haven't reached the crossing, while the cars that are at or beyond the crossing get sped up, which creates a gap in the middle for the pedestrian to cross.

"Meanwhile an observer down the road would only see a steady stream of traffic."

In order to create a gap of time of about two thousandth of a millionth of a second researchers reckon they need almost two miles of fibre optic cable wrapped around a spool.

With current technology to hide a second of time would require more than 200 million miles but eventually if light could be slowed down then longer periods could be possible.

The research is outlined in the Institute of Physics' Journal of Optics.


View the original article here

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The sci-fi inventions that maths predicts are possible

The eminent physicist Prof Amos Ori, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has set out a theoretical model of a time machine which would allow people to travel back in time to explore the past. The way the machine would work rests on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, a theory of gravity that shows how time can be warped by the gravitational pull of objects. Bend time enough and you can create a loop and the possibility of temporal travel. Prof Ori’s theory, set out in the prestigious science journal Physical Review, rests on a set of mathematical equations describing hypothetical conditions that, if established, could lead to the formation of a time machine, technically known as “closed time-like curves.” In the blends of space and time, or spacetime, in his equations, time would be able to curve back on itself, so that a person travelling around the loop might be able to go further back in time with each lap.

A rippling magic carpet that can fly through the air is a theoretical possibility, according to a Professor Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan of Harvard University. Fictional flying carpets are ubiquitous and have appeared in literature since ancient times. Now they have caught the attention of a leading mathematician. Although he has only succeeded in showing that flying is practical for a bank note sized carpet, Prof Mahadevan, and his co-workers believe that one capable of ferrying a person is far from being a pantomime fantasy. His claims were published in the journal Physical Review Letters. The key to levitating a carpet is to create uplift by making ripples that push against air close to a horizontal surface, such as a floor. The undulating movements create a high pressure in the gap between the carpet and the floor, "roughly balancing its weight." The magical part comes from the discovery that, as well as lifting it, the ripples can drive the carpet forward - a handy trick for a panto - because they make the carpet tilt slightly, moving towards the raised edge.

Warp speed

Two physicists have devised a scheme to travel faster than the speed of light. The advance could mean that Star Trek fantasies of interstellar civilisations and voyages powered by warp drive are now no longer the exclusive domain of science fiction writers. Dr Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Richard Obousy have come up with a new twist on an existing idea to produce a warp drive that they believe can travel faster than the speed of light, without breaking the laws of physics. In their scheme, in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, a starship could "warp" space so that it shrinks ahead of the vessel and expands behind it. By pushing the departure point many light years backwards while simultaneously bringing distant stars and other destinations closer, the warp drive effectively transports the starship from place to place at faster-than-light speeds. All this extraordinary feat requires, says the new study, is for scientists to harness a mysterious and poorly understood cosmic antigravity force, called dark energy. Dark energy is thought responsible for speeding up the expansion rate of our universe as time moves on, just like it did after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded much faster than the speed of light for a very brief time. This may come as a surprise since, according to relativity theory, matter cannot move through space faster than the speed of light, which is almost 300,000,000 metres per second. But that theory applies only to unwarped 'flat' space.

Levitation

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing a pheneomenon known as the Casimir force, a force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person. The Casimir force is a consequence of quantum mechanics, the theory that describes the world of atoms and subatomic particles that is not only the most successful theory of physics but also the most baffling. The force is due to neither electrical charge or gravity, for example, but the fluctuations in all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between the objects and is one reason atoms stick together, also explaining a “dry glue” effect that enables a gecko to walk across a ceiling. Now, using a special lens of a kind that has already been built, Prof Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin report in the New Journal of Physics they can engineer the Casimir force to repel, rather than attact.


View the original article here

Monday, December 6, 2010

'Youngest black hole' discovered by Nasa

Evidence of the black hole was detected by space telescopes just 30 years after it was created by a supernova, or an exploding star.

The blast took place in 1979 in the relatively nearby M100 galaxy some 50 million miles from Earth.

For a brief time the supernova, discovered by an amateur stargazer and labelled SN 1979C, looked brighter than all the billions of other stars in the same galaxy put together.

Later, a bright source of X-rays was detected from the same spot by three telescopes in space – Nasa's Chandra, Europe's XMM-Newton and Germany's ROSAT.

The X-ray radiation remained strong between 1995 and 2007. It is thought to have been produced by a new black hole consuming material pouring into it.

Astronomers believe that the black hole formed when a star about 20 times larger than the sun exploded and its core collapsed in on itself.

It became an invisible galactic plughole so powerful that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull, experts believe.

Nasa's Daniel Patnaude, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the research, said: "If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed."

Though a black hole is the favoured explanation, the scientists point out that the X-ray emission could be produced by a young, rapidly spinning neutron star with a powerful wind of high energy particles.


View the original article here

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Harry Potter: first 30 minutes of Deathly Hallows leaked onto web


The other big film premiere of the night took place in New York for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1. Cast members (Lt-Rt) Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Tom Felton 


The first half an hour of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 turned up on a file-sharing website on Tuesday night ahead of the movie's premiere in numerous countries around the globe.


Industry watchers and the studi have predicted that the film could eclipse the $100 million mark in the US and Canada over its first three days, starting on Nov 19. They are even predicting a full run of more than $1 billion in global ticket sales.


But the leak has cast a pall over the film's opening.


Warner Bros said in a statement that the excerpt was "stolen and illegally posted on the internet. This constitutes a serious breach of copyright violation and theft of Warner Bros. property.


"We are working actively to restrict and/or remove copies that may be available. Also, we are vigorously investigating this matter and will prosecute those involved to the full extent of the law."


The first six Harry Potter movies, which are based on the best-selling books about the boy wizard by author J.K. Rowling, have earned $5.42 billion at world-wide box offices, according to California-based BoxOfficeMojo.com.


Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. domestic distribution chief, said the film should top $100 million in the US and Canada during its first weekend. Throughout the movie's entire life in cinemas around the globe, he sees ticket sales rising to the rare level of more than $1 billion.


View the original article here

Hong Kong confirms first human case of bird flu since 2003

The government has raised Hong Kong's bird flu alert to "serious", meaning there is a "high risk" of contracting the potentially fatal disease, a spokesman for the Department of Health said.

Hong Kong recorded its last case of bird flu in humans in 2003, and had the world's first major outbreak among humans in 1997, when six people died of a then-unknown mutation of the virus. Millions of poultry were culled.

The 59-year-old woman tested positive for Influenza A (H5), a variant of avian influenza, after she was first diagnosed with pneumonia, health officials said. She is now listed in a serious condition in hospital.

Officials are working to determine whether she contracted the virus in Hong Kong or elsewhere, and are monitoring people who have been in contact with her.

The city's health chief York Chow said that there was no sign so far of human-to-human transmission in the case.

"I think we have to first concentrate on the source of infection from the poultry as origin," he said.

"But we will be concentrating on people who were in contact with her when she showed symptoms and also when she was in Hong Kong.

"The chances of her catching it is most likely on the mainland, but you cannot rule out... Hong Kong," he added.

The woman travelled to mainland China between Oct 23 and Nov 1 with her husband and daughter, the Centre for Health Protection at the Department of Health said in a statement.

She did not visit farms or have contact with live poultry, an initial investigation found. The woman was admitted to hospital on Nov 14 after complaining of a persistent fever and cough.


View the original article here

Pope Benedict XVI calls for release of Christian sentenced to hang in Pakistan

The Pope told his weekly public audience in the Vatican of his "spiritual closeness" to Asia Bibi, a mother of five children, who is accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

Last week The Daily Telegraph revealed that she had been sentenced to death after a mob of angry villagers, spurred on by clerics, tried to attack the 45-year-old over a dispute about whether a Christian should be allowed to handle a container filled with drinking water for Muslims.

The Pope said that Christians in Pakistan often faced violence or discrimination as he called for Mrs Bibi's "full freedom".

"I pray for those who are in similar situations that their human dignity and their fundamental rights be fully respected," he said.

Supporters of Mrs Bibi said she had fetched water for other women working in fields in Punjab province, sparking a row over whether the water was still fit for Muslims to drink.

The dispute escalated a few days later, when she was accused of making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Mohammed. She has been in prison for the past one and a half years and is thought to be the first woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

Similar convictions are usually overturned by higher courts and Mrs Bibi's family have already lodged an appeal.

However, the verdict has drawn attention to Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which human rights campaigners believe are used to persecute the country's religious minorities and to settle personal rivalries.

Although governed by a secular party, Pakistan's conservative clerics wield considerable influence and few political leaders are willing to risk their ire by repealing the blasphemy laws.

However, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minority affairs, said the government was working to reform the law so that it could not be abused.


View the original article here

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Silvio Berlusconi's allies 'helping mafia spread across Italy'

Mr Saviano, who has been under 24-hour police guard since writing a book on the mob, said the ‘Ndrangheta mafia were courting the Northern League, a powerful ally of the prime minister and a member of his conservative coalition.

Mr Saviano alleged that the ‘Ndrangheta had expanded far outside its traditional power base in the southern Calabria region and had infiltrated Italy’s rich northern Lombardy region, including Milan, Italy's business and fashion capital.

“In the north, as in the south, ‘Ndrangheta seeks out political power and in the north it courts the League,” Mr Saviano said on a national television programme watched by nine million Italians on Monday night.

He cited judicial investigations into links between the ‘Ndrangheta and the Right-wing anti-immigration party, as well as the example of a League councillor who was filmed meeting a businessman with alleged links to the Calabrian mob.

His claims were also backed up by the release on Wednesday of a report by a parliamentary anti-mafia committee, which concluded that the ’Ndrangheta’s presence in northern Italy was in “constant, progressive development” and that the criminal organisation “interacts” with business interests in Lombardy.

The ‘Ndrangheta is suspected of laundering money earned from illegal activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution and toxic waste dumping by investing in legitimate businesses such as construction and public works contracts in the affluent north, the heartland of the League.

Mr Saviano’s on-air claims infuriated Roberto Maroni, the interior minister and a heavyweight in the Northern League, who said they were potentially defamatory and demanded a right of reply on the same television programme.

“As a minister and a member of the League I feel offended and outraged by Roberto Saviano’s slanderous words, which were fuelled by evident prejudice against the League,” he said.

“I would like a face-to-face meeting with him to see if he has the courage to say those things while looking me in the eye.”

The battle of words intensified further when Mr Saviano compared the minister’s challenge to threats that had once been made to him by the lawyer of a notorious Mafioso, Francesco “Sandokan” Schiavone.

“I’m amazed and alarmed by the minister’s words,” he said.

Mr Saviano’s 2006 book Gomorrah, a play on the name of the Naples-based Camorra mafia, became an international best-seller and was later turned into an award-winning film.

The government has arrested several top mafia leaders and seized millions of pounds’ worth of assets over the last two years, actions which Mr Maroni has hailed as evidence of its determination to crush organised crime.

The latest blow to be struck was on Wednesday, when anti-mafia police arrested Antonio Iovine, 46, one of the most powerful leaders of the Camorra, after they found him hiding in a wall cavity in a house in the town of Casal di Principe.

Mr Maroni said he had set up a special commission to keep track of any attempts by the mafia to muscle in on contracts for the 2015 Milan Expo.


View the original article here

Name That Butterfly

Silver spotted skipper butterfly  

The Chesapeake Bay is the winter home for a variety of birds



Counting butterflies is one of those things that sound easy but isn’t. Six of us are squinting and sweating in the morning sun, cameras and binoculars in hand, in the Peterson Butterfly Garden in Northern Virginia, and the butterflies are thick. Our goal today is to conduct a census of the butterflies in this garden and several neighboring fields.


In order to count a butterfly, we first have to identify it. Jocelyn Sladen, our group leader, points to the first butterfly of the day. “That is exactly the problem,” she says. “That little black butterfly could be one of any number of species.” What’s more, the trouble with counting butterflies in a butterfly garden is that there are a lot to count, and none of them hold still. Our little group moves through the garden together, one plant at a time, consulting our field guides whenever another butterfly species is discovered. While one volunteer questions a butterfly — “Oh, what are you?” — another cries “Come back, come back!” as a butterfly flits off, unidentified and uncounted.


In the midst of the chaos, there are successful identifications. “Now, that is a pearl crescent,” says Sladen. “Oh, good, good, good!” she says. We shout out more species names as that day goes on: Eastern tiger swallowtails, silver-spotted skippers, cabbage whites. A fritillary is spotted, to Sladen’s delight. And, only once, “That’s a monarch!”


We six are among the thousands of people who will take part in a North American Butterfly Association (NABA) butterfly count this year. Our count, which we share with several other groups of volunteers, encompasses a 15-mile-wide circle of fields, forests and gardens. The butterfly garden at the center of this circle is part of Airlie Center, a conference center and foundation in Northern Virginia. This year’s count is the 15th annual Airlie Butterfly Census. By sharing our results with NABA, we contribute to a continent-wide effort to track butterfly population trends over the years.


And the trends do not look good. Twenty-two species of butterflies in the United States are listed as endangered or threatened, and another 38 are considered candidates for listing, are species of concern or are currently under review, out of about 600 species in the lower 48 states. Butterflies, like bees, bats and hummingbirds, are important pollinators, and their numbers are declining. In 2007 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report called Status of Pollinators in North America that drew attention to a “demonstrably downward” trend in many wild pollinator populations, including some butterflies.


Scientists, gardeners and casual observers agree that our pollinators are in trouble. “When we were younger, we used to see so many more butterflies,” recalls Robin Williams, a volunteer in today’s census. But identifying a decline is not enough. To reverse downward trends, the causes of pollinator decline must be known. This may prove the greater challenge. As the National Academy of Sciences points out, “declines in many pollinator groups are associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, and deterioration, although in the United States data are, in most cases, inadequate to demonstrate causation unambiguously.”


As pollinator populations decline, interest in the butterfly count grows. NABA launched its butterfly count program in 1975. During that first year, only 29 counts were completed across the continent. By 2009, that number had grown to 463 individual counts — including the Airlie census — in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The vast majority of butterfly counters are citizen scientists—untrained volunteers who lend their eyes, ears and enthusiasm to ongoing scientific projects such as butterfly censuses or bird counts. Sladen speculates that there is a strong relationship between environmental decline and the rise of citizen scientists. “We are becoming so much more aware of what we are losing.” Still, Sladen wants to see more participation, especially from parents and children. “We need to get our children closer to nature.”


Counting butterflies could be a good way to reach this goal. Nearly 600 species of butterflies live in the lower 48 states, and dozens of these could be seen during our census. Proper identification requires sharp eyesight (a specialty of children) and patience to study detailed field guides. Every mark on the census sheet increases our knowledge about butterflies. Ultimately, this information may help scientists better understand the reasons behind pollinator decline and develop effective conservation solutions.


Of course, citizen science has its limitations. None of us are trained entomologists, and many butterflies are never identified. Others are surely misidentified. The differences between some species are subtle. For example, the Eastern tiger swallowtail, in its black phase, is nearly identical to the black swallowtail. Both are large black butterflies with blue accents and streamers on their wings. The only difference is a row of yellow spots running along the wings of the black swallowtail. The skippers are an even greater challenge. These little butterflies are plentiful and tiny—some are no larger than my thumb—and share similar markings across species. We see an agonizing variety of skippers. Mistakes are common. Perfection is not expected. “We are tremendously inaccurate,” admits Sladen, who has a simple piece of advice for volunteers: “Use your eyes and enjoy. Don’t worry about being wrong.”


Sladen’s advice is both kind and correct. These annual butterfly counts track population trends— evidence of more or fewer butterflies—not the actual number of all butterflies in a given census area. Because errors in counting and identification tend to hold fairly steady over the years, the census results can be trusted to illustrate these long-term population trends. By comparing census results across regions and years, NABA is able to follow changing trends in butterfly diversity and population numbers across North America.


By lunchtime, and the end of our census, we tallied 19 different species of butterflies and a total of 113 positively identified individuals (not including the countless unidentified butterflies). Our group’s totals will be combined with those of other census groups in the area and then submitted to the North American Butterfly Association.


The benefits here go beyond data. These annual butterfly censuses are open to volunteers of all ages and abilities — no prior butterfly counting experience is required. First-time participants may come simply to learn butterfly identification skills or enjoy a stroll in the summertime sun, but they go home as citizen scientists. Often, they return the next year as well. With any luck, they bring a friend or relative, eager to chase after butterflies for a summer morning.


“Once people do this, they tend to be hooked,” says Sladen. She appears to be right. After we’ve completed our census, first-time participant Janice Clarke leaves on this note: “I can’t wait to go home and do this in our gardens.”


Counting butterflies is one of those things that sound easy but isn’t. Six of us are squinting and sweating in the morning sun, cameras and binoculars in hand, in the Peterson Butterfly Garden in Northern Virginia, and the butterflies are thick. Our goal today is to conduct a census of the butterflies in this garden and several neighboring fields.


In order to count a butterfly, we first have to identify it. Jocelyn Sladen, our group leader, points to the first butterfly of the day. “That is exactly the problem,” she says. “That little black butterfly could be one of any number of species.” What’s more, the trouble with counting butterflies in a butterfly garden is that there are a lot to count, and none of them hold still. Our little group moves through the garden together, one plant at a time, consulting our field guides whenever another butterfly species is discovered. While one volunteer questions a butterfly — “Oh, what are you?” — another cries “Come back, come back!” as a butterfly flits off, unidentified and uncounted.


In the midst of the chaos, there are successful identifications. “Now, that is a pearl crescent,” says Sladen. “Oh, good, good, good!” she says. We shout out more species names as that day goes on: Eastern tiger swallowtails, silver-spotted skippers, cabbage whites. A fritillary is spotted, to Sladen’s delight. And, only once, “That’s a monarch!”


We six are among the thousands of people who will take part in a North American Butterfly Association (NABA) butterfly count this year. Our count, which we share with several other groups of volunteers, encompasses a 15-mile-wide circle of fields, forests and gardens. The butterfly garden at the center of this circle is part of Airlie Center, a conference center and foundation in Northern Virginia. This year’s count is the 15th annual Airlie Butterfly Census. By sharing our results with NABA, we contribute to a continent-wide effort to track butterfly population trends over the years.


And the trends do not look good. Twenty-two species of butterflies in the United States are listed as endangered or threatened, and another 38 are considered candidates for listing, are species of concern or are currently under review, out of about 600 species in the lower 48 states. Butterflies, like bees, bats and hummingbirds, are important pollinators, and their numbers are declining. In 2007 the National Academy of Sciences issued a report called Status of Pollinators in North America that drew attention to a “demonstrably downward” trend in many wild pollinator populations, including some butterflies.


Scientists, gardeners and casual observers agree that our pollinators are in trouble. “When we were younger, we used to see so many more butterflies,” recalls Robin Williams, a volunteer in today’s census. But identifying a decline is not enough. To reverse downward trends, the causes of pollinator decline must be known. This may prove the greater challenge. As the National Academy of Sciences points out, “declines in many pollinator groups are associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, and deterioration, although in the United States data are, in most cases, inadequate to demonstrate causation unambiguously.”


As pollinator populations decline, interest in the butterfly count grows. NABA launched its butterfly count program in 1975. During that first year, only 29 counts were completed across the continent. By 2009, that number had grown to 463 individual counts — including the Airlie census — in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The vast majority of butterfly counters are citizen scientists—untrained volunteers who lend their eyes, ears and enthusiasm to ongoing scientific projects such as butterfly censuses or bird counts. Sladen speculates that there is a strong relationship between environmental decline and the rise of citizen scientists. “We are becoming so much more aware of what we are losing.” Still, Sladen wants to see more participation, especially from parents and children. “We need to get our children closer to nature.”


Counting butterflies could be a good way to reach this goal. Nearly 600 species of butterflies live in the lower 48 states, and dozens of these could be seen during our census. Proper identification requires sharp eyesight (a specialty of children) and patience to study detailed field guides. Every mark on the census sheet increases our knowledge about butterflies. Ultimately, this information may help scientists better understand the reasons behind pollinator decline and develop effective conservation solutions.


Of course, citizen science has its limitations. None of us are trained entomologists, and many butterflies are never identified. Others are surely misidentified. The differences between some species are subtle. For example, the Eastern tiger swallowtail, in its black phase, is nearly identical to the black swallowtail. Both are large black butterflies with blue accents and streamers on their wings. The only difference is a row of yellow spots running along the wings of the black swallowtail. The skippers are an even greater challenge. These little butterflies are plentiful and tiny—some are no larger than my thumb—and share similar markings across species. We see an agonizing variety of skippers. Mistakes are common. Perfection is not expected. “We are tremendously inaccurate,” admits Sladen, who has a simple piece of advice for volunteers: “Use your eyes and enjoy. Don’t worry about being wrong.”


Sladen’s advice is both kind and correct. These annual butterfly counts track population trends— evidence of more or fewer butterflies—not the actual number of all butterflies in a given census area. Because errors in counting and identification tend to hold fairly steady over the years, the census results can be trusted to illustrate these long-term population trends. By comparing census results across regions and years, NABA is able to follow changing trends in butterfly diversity and population numbers across North America.


By lunchtime, and the end of our census, we tallied 19 different species of butterflies and a total of 113 positively identified individuals (not including the countless unidentified butterflies). Our group’s totals will be combined with those of other census groups in the area and then submitted to the North American Butterfly Association.


The benefits here go beyond data. These annual butterfly censuses are open to volunteers of all ages and abilities — no prior butterfly counting experience is required. First-time participants may come simply to learn butterfly identification skills or enjoy a stroll in the summertime sun, but they go home as citizen scientists. Often, they return the next year as well. With any luck, they bring a friend or relative, eager to chase after butterflies for a summer morning.


“Once people do this, they tend to be hooked,” says Sladen. She appears to be right. After we’ve completed our census, first-time participant Janice Clarke leaves on this note: “I can’t wait to go home and do this in our gardens.”



 

Monday, November 22, 2010

Camp Guard Denied Early Release

Judge rules crimes were too grave to allow Zoran Zigic to leave prison after nine years of 25-year sentence. By Rachel Irwin - International Justice - ICTY TRI Issue 669, 12 Nov 10

A former Bosnian Serb reserve police officer and prison camp guard has been denied early release, the Hague tribunal president ruled this week.

Zoran Zigic was sentenced in 2001 to 25 years in prison for the murder, torture and cruel treatment of non-Serb detainees at the Omarska and Keraterm detention camps in northern Bosnia. He was transferred to Austria to serve his sentence and under that country’s laws was eligible in October for early release.

In their judgement, appeals judges noted that Zigic was briefly a guard in Keraterm, but otherwise “entered the camps for the sole purpose of abusing detainees”.

He was found to have beaten detainees with “a rod with a metal ball attached to one end”. On another occasion, he made the prisoners sit on their hands and feet, “like dogs”, while he beat them. Afterwards, “they were made to crawl outside like dogs and wash their bloody faces in a puddle of dirty rainwater”.

In his decision this week, tribunal president Patrick Robinson noted the “high gravity” of Zigic’s crimes.

“I do not consider that the amount of time that Mr Zigic has served in detention militates in favour of his release,” he stated.

Zigic was tried alongside four other defendants – Miroslav Kvocka, Dragljub Prcac, Milojica Kos and Mlado Radic - who were also convicted of committing crimes against camp detainees. All except Zigic and Radic, who was sentenced to 20 years, have already been released.

Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.


View the original article here

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Indelible Images - The Rarest Bird - Sept10

The ivory-billed woodpecker is one of the most extraordinary birds ever to live in America’s forests: the biggest woodpecker in the United States, it seems to keep coming back from the dead. Once resident in swampy bottomlands from North Carolina to East Texas, it was believed to have gone extinct as early as the 1920s, but sightings, confirmed and otherwise, have been reported as recently as this year.


The young ornithologist James T. Tanner’s sightings in the late 1930s came with substantial documentation: not only field notes, from which he literally wrote the book on the species, but also photographs. In fact, Tanner’s photographs remain the most recent uncontested pictures of the American ivory-bill. Now his widow, Nancy Tanner, has discovered more photographs that he took on a fateful day in 1938.


Tanner was a doctoral candidate at Cornell University when, in 1937, he was sent to look for ivory-bills in Southern swamplands, including a vast virgin forest in northeast Louisiana called the Singer Tract. Two years earlier, his mentor, Arthur Allen, founder of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, had proved that the “Lord God” bird—so named for what people supposedly exclaimed after getting a look at its 20-inch body and 30-inch wingspan—was still extant, with observations of several adult ivory-bills in the same forest.


“There are relatively few references to young Ivorybills,” Allen wrote in 1937, “and there is no complete description of an immature bird.” But that would soon change.


On his initial solo trip to the Singer Tract, Tanner became the first person to provide such a description, after watching two adults feed a nestling in a hole they’d carved high in a sweet gum tree. “It took me some time to realize that the bird in the hole was a young one; it seemed impossible,” he scribbled in his field notes. When he returned to those woods in early 1938, he discovered another nest hole, 55 feet off the ground in the trunk of a red maple. And in it he discovered another young ivory-bill.


Watching the nest for 16 days, Tanner noted that the bird’s parents usually foraged for about 20 minutes at midday. No ivory-bill had ever been fitted with an identifying band, so Tanner resolved to affix one to the nestling’s leg while its parents were away.


On his 24th birthday, March 6, 1938, Tanner decided to act. Up he went, on went the band—and out came the ivory-bill, bolting from the nest in a panic after Tanner trimmed a branch impeding his view of the nest hole. Too young to fly, the bird fluttered to a crash landing “in a tangle of vines,” Tanner wrote in his field notes, “where he clung, calling and squalling.” The ornithologist scrambled down the tree, retrieved the bird and handed it to his guide, J. J. Kuhn. “I surely thought that I had messed things up,” Tanner wrote. But as the minutes ticked away, he “unlimbered” his camera and began shooting, “jittery and nervous as all get-out,” unsure of whether he was getting any useful pictures. After exhausting his film, he returned the bird to its nest, “probably as glad as he that he was back there.”


When Tanner’s Cornell dissertation was published as The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in 1942, the book included two pictures of the juvenile bird perched on Kuhn’s arm and head. Those frames, along with four others less widely printed—the only known photographs of a living nestling ivory-bill—have provided generations of birders with an image laden with fragile, possibly doomed, hope.


The ivory-billed woodpecker is one of the most extraordinary birds ever to live in America’s forests: the biggest woodpecker in the United States, it seems to keep coming back from the dead. Once resident in swampy bottomlands from North Carolina to East Texas, it was believed to have gone extinct as early as the 1920s, but sightings, confirmed and otherwise, have been reported as recently as this year.


The young ornithologist James T. Tanner’s sightings in the late 1930s came with substantial documentation: not only field notes, from which he literally wrote the book on the species, but also photographs. In fact, Tanner’s photographs remain the most recent uncontested pictures of the American ivory-bill. Now his widow, Nancy Tanner, has discovered more photographs that he took on a fateful day in 1938.


Tanner was a doctoral candidate at Cornell University when, in 1937, he was sent to look for ivory-bills in Southern swamplands, including a vast virgin forest in northeast Louisiana called the Singer Tract. Two years earlier, his mentor, Arthur Allen, founder of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, had proved that the “Lord God” bird—so named for what people supposedly exclaimed after getting a look at its 20-inch body and 30-inch wingspan—was still extant, with observations of several adult ivory-bills in the same forest.


“There are relatively few references to young Ivorybills,” Allen wrote in 1937, “and there is no complete description of an immature bird.” But that would soon change.


On his initial solo trip to the Singer Tract, Tanner became the first person to provide such a description, after watching two adults feed a nestling in a hole they’d carved high in a sweet gum tree. “It took me some time to realize that the bird in the hole was a young one; it seemed impossible,” he scribbled in his field notes. When he returned to those woods in early 1938, he discovered another nest hole, 55 feet off the ground in the trunk of a red maple. And in it he discovered another young ivory-bill.


Watching the nest for 16 days, Tanner noted that the bird’s parents usually foraged for about 20 minutes at midday. No ivory-bill had ever been fitted with an identifying band, so Tanner resolved to affix one to the nestling’s leg while its parents were away.


On his 24th birthday, March 6, 1938, Tanner decided to act. Up he went, on went the band—and out came the ivory-bill, bolting from the nest in a panic after Tanner trimmed a branch impeding his view of the nest hole. Too young to fly, the bird fluttered to a crash landing “in a tangle of vines,” Tanner wrote in his field notes, “where he clung, calling and squalling.” The ornithologist scrambled down the tree, retrieved the bird and handed it to his guide, J. J. Kuhn. “I surely thought that I had messed things up,” Tanner wrote. But as the minutes ticked away, he “unlimbered” his camera and began shooting, “jittery and nervous as all get-out,” unsure of whether he was getting any useful pictures. After exhausting his film, he returned the bird to its nest, “probably as glad as he that he was back there.”


When Tanner’s Cornell dissertation was published as The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in 1942, the book included two pictures of the juvenile bird perched on Kuhn’s arm and head. Those frames, along with four others less widely printed—the only known photographs of a living nestling ivory-bill—have provided generations of birders with an image laden with fragile, possibly doomed, hope.


In a 1942 article for the ornithological journal The Wilson Bulletin, Tanner wrote “there is little doubt but that complete logging of the [Singer] tract will cause the end of the Ivorybills there.” The tract was indeed completely logged, and an ivory-bill sighting there in 1944 remains the last uncontested observation anywhere in the United States. Before he died at age 76 in 1991, Tanner, who taught for 32 years at the University of Tennessee, had sadly concluded that the species was extinct.


Three years ago, I began working with Nancy Tanner on a book about her husband’s fieldwork. In June 2009, she discovered a faded manila envelope in the back of a drawer at her home in Knoxville, Tennessee. In it were some ivory-bill images. At her invitation, I started going through them.


One of the first things I found was a glassine envelope containing a 2 1/4- by 3 1/4-inch negative. Holding it up to the light, I realized it was of the nestling ivory-bill from the Singer Tract—an image I had never seen. I quickly found another negative, then another and another. My hands began to shake. It turned out that Tanner had taken not 6 pictures on that long-ago March 6, but 14. As a group, they show the young bird not frozen in time, but rather clambering over Kuhn like a cat on a scratching post, frightened but vital.


Like almost any ornithologist, Jim Tanner would have liked to have been proved wrong about the ivory-bill’s fate. In 2005, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology announced that searchers had seen an ivory-bill multiple times in ten months in the Big Woods in Arkansas. Other researchers, connected to Auburn University, reported 13 sightings in 2005 and 2006 along the Choctawhatchee River in Florida’s panhandle. In both cases, the sightings were made by experienced observers, including trained ornithologists. Yet neither group’s documentation—including a 4.5-second video of a bird in Arkansas—has been universally accepted. So the wait for incontrovertible evidence continues. Photographs like the ones Jim Tanner took in 1938 would do nicely.


Stephen Lyn Bales is a naturalist in Knoxville. His book about James Tanner, Ghost Birds, is due out this month.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Google's new Android phone aims to replace credit cards

Eric Schmidt shows off Google's new Gingerbread-powered Android handset.


Eric Schmidt shows off Google's new Gingerbread-powered Android handset. Photo: REUTERS


Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, showed off the company’s next Android-powered phone, which will contain a chip that will allow people to make payments via their handsets.


Opening this year’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Schmidt showed off the new phone, which had the manufacturer’s label deliberately covered up, but is assumed to be the next Nexus device, following the Nexus One, and will contain a Near Field Communication chip, that will allow people to use their phones like credit cards.


The latest version of Android, called Gingerbread, due to come out in the “next few weeks”, will power this new handset according to Schmidt, and will feature this new mobile payments system as a key tool.


“This could replace your credit card,” Schmidt said. “The reason this NFC chip is so interesting is because the credit card industry thinks the loss rate is going to be much better, they’re just more secure.”


Users will need both a phone with an NFC chip and Android’s Gingerbread operating system in order to activate the technology. The near field communication technology allows people to tap their phones on a symbol or an item in the real world to make an action happen, such as a payment. Schmidt said it will it will allow people to “tap and pay”.


Schmidt stressed that Google had no alliances with any retailers and those relationships would be put in place by the credit card companies and retailers independent of the search giant. Instead Google will partner with third party payment processors.


He also said that Google would not retain any personal data obtained through credit card transactions via the phone.


However, despite saying that he could envision this type of mobile technology replacing the credit card, Schmidt would not put a time frame on this migration. Instead he said: “ Who knows? [how long it will take]. I anticipate my credit cards will be around for some time.”


Schmidt was keen to emphasise that NFC technology provides a brand new platform for people to start thinking about new apps, which can use the same “bump for everything” technology, as it was described on stage.


View the original article here

Glimpses of Hope in Impoverished Kibera

Corrugated jungle that is Africa's second largest slum was one of the flashpoints of ethnic violence following Kenya's 2007 election. By Blake Evans-Pritchard - International Justice - ICC ACR Issue 276, 12 Nov 10

A little short of breath in the stifling Kenyan heat, I pause at the top of a slight incline, where the rusty tracks of a railway snake into the smoky distance.

My guide - a tall, genial university student - points to the other side of the ridge, where the land falls away and is replaced by a thick tangle of corrugated iron roofs. Narrow streets, strewn with rubbish, wind their way through this corrugated jungle. Whoops of children float upwards on the gentle breeze, and the acrid scent of raw sewage tinges the air.

This is Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa, where perhaps as many as one million people are crammed into no more than a few square kilometres of living space. It was also one of the flashpoints of the ethnic violence that engulfed the country following the 2007 election. An estimated 800 people lost their lives, many reportedly gunned down by the police.

Trains still run occasionally along the railway upon which we are standing, ferrying people between Kampala in the west and the Indian Ocean, although today the tracks team with swarms of traders, hawking goods. There is not a train in sight.

I am told that when Kibera residents become really upset with the government, they cause chaos by tearing up the railway tracks.

My guide points into the middle-distance, where a few unfinished red-brick buildings huddle together, looking naked amidst all the chaos and dirt.

This, he tells me, was a new housing project launched by Raila Odinga, the country's prime minister and local member of parliament, in a bid to clean up the slum and provide decent housing for its inhabitants.

When President Mwai Kibaki won the election in 2007, amid serious allegations of vote-rigging, those living in Kibera felt cheated: their man, they felt, should have won. The ensuing violence was a direct result of the feeling that, once again, Kenyan politics had swindled them.

"Odinga is our man," one local resident says, swaying unsteadily on his feet and smelling of cheap alcohol. "You won't find anyone here who doesn't support him." He holds out his hand expectantly, into which I thrust a few loose coins.

My guide turns away from the forlorn half-built housing, and indicates something else in the distance, which I cannot see.

Just beyond my vision, on the edge of the Kibera slum, lies the oldest golf course in Nairobi. As the last of the haphazard shacks falls way, the visitor to the slum suddenly understands the vast difference between rich and poor in Kenya.

It is just this other side of Kibera where former president Daniel Arap Moi once lived in palatial surroundings, and where now the nouveau-riche come for a quick round of golf before getting back to running the country.

I stop looking at what I cannot see and turn my gaze downwards to something that has caught my eye. A group of mzungos - white people - are scrambling clumsily up the slope from the rubbish-strewn streets below. A Kenyan with a straw hat is leading the group. The woman at the back appears to be wearing thoroughly inappropriate footwear.

"Tourists," mutters my guide, by way of explanation.

But not everything about Kibera reminds the casual visitor of desperate poverty. Living conditions may be unsanitary and opportunistic beggars sometimes seem ubiquitous. But one can also catch glimpses of elegance and order, and perhaps a little hope for the future.

As we come from the railway embankment, a bespectacled man, clutching a handful of books, scurries past us. I glimpse the title of one of them. It is Hamlet.

A little distance away, I see a group of smartly-dressed young men, leaning on a fence post, talking and laughing. One of the group is wearing Nike trainers. On the T-shirt of another, I can make out the Lacoste label.

At first, such brand consciousness looks oddly out of place in the destitute wilderness that is Kibera. But then I notice that they are not out of place, but part of the wilderness itself.

This is Kibera. A place of often desperate poverty - dirty, unhygienic, overcrowded. But one, also, where ordinary people still get on with their lives. They go to university, they work, they earn money. And they hope, one day, for a better life.

Blake Evans-Pritchard is IWPR's Africa Editor.


View the original article here

How to survive LeWeb 2010: a guide for start-up CEOs

Europe's largest - and most daunting - gathering of geeks is almost upon us. LeWeb's 2010 incarnation promises to be bigger and even more extravagant than ever before. But before I get into telling you how to prepare for the mother of all tech conferences, I suppose first of all you should think about whether it's for you.

First things first: the tickets aren't cheap (although there are plenty of sneaky discounts around if you're smart). And then there's the travel and hotel to consider. But aside from the fact that you can lump all that under marketing spend - especially if you follow the tips below - to be honest it's money well spent, whatever stage your company's at.

Why? Well, without going into too much of sales pitch on organiser Loïc Le Meur's behalf, there's a lot on offer - most importantly the opportunity to grab any one of 2,500 attendees from over 60 countries, including some of the biggest names in tech, and the chance to show off your start-up or Next Big Idea to whoever you can lay your hands on - including about 500 journalists. (That sounds like a huge number of journos per start-up, but as a CEO that's to your advantage: just think how many of them you'll be able to get hold of if you're clever about it.) All the big tech firms are there - Google, Facebook, Twitter, you name it - and a healthy smattering of investors. Plus there's the usual keynotes, panel discussions, fireside chats and all that sort of stuff.

So how do you navigate this hulking great monster of a conference? Here are some tips.

1. Bring business cards. A lot of them. Sure, it's a technology conference and everyone will be tweeting, checking in to their geolocation app of choice and even, if they're lucky, swapping hotel room keys, but the real business is done when you get back home, presuming you can remember who's who out of the fistful of cards that tumble out of your hand luggage. I'd say 500 of your own card should do the trick: after all, if you don't give them all away personally, you can always crash the stage and throw them into the crowd in handfuls. Yeah, it'll probably get you thrown out and arrested, but it'll sure as hell get your start-up noticed.

2. Check the programme. There's no point sitting there for every panel discussion - though, mercifully, most of the stuff on stage is limited to 20 minutes. All the exciting stuff happens in the corridors at this sort of conference. At least, it will if you follow step three...

. Make appointments beforehand. Check who's going and contact them before the event, suggesting a time to duck out of the main show and have a chat. If you're clever about this you ought to be arranging at least ten coffees per day. (So, item 3.1: make sure you know where the loos are.) LeWeb is your chance to connect with useful people from all over the world and you shouldn't waste it wandering the corridors eating free bonbons from the corporate stands.

4. Pick one or two of the big names to approach. When you do, make it quick. Tell them exactly why you want to speak to them and offer them your card. Don't take up any more of their time than you have to. If you're in any doubt about how to approach one of the big hitters...

5. Follow Parisian PR guru Colette Ballou on Twitter. Her infamous "conference tips" are unmissable, and frequently very funny.

6. Bring a charger, plus whatever adapters you need. I know that sounds ridiculously obvious but you'll be surprised by how quickly your phone battery will die with all the tweeting and emailing. There are power sockets behind every chair, so there's really no excuse to be out of battery by the time the parties start, which is when you'll really need it. Seriously, no excuse. Even if you have an iPhone.

7. Get plenty of sleep beforehand. You'll want to party until the early hours and then be at the conference venue ready to go by 8.30am. This is a lot easier said than done; ask anyone who was at F.ounders.

8. Take naps! Real, actual naps on real, actual beds! There are resting areas at LeWeb with plasma screens in the ceiling (yes, we are living that far into the future) so you can doze but not miss yours truly making a tit of himself on stage or one of the TechCrunch guys making the 94th Aol joke of the day.

9. Take full advantage of the free coffee. There's a Nespresso lounge which last year distributed 15,000 cups of coffee to conference attendees. Stop being so British, barge to the front and grab a cup. Or two cups. (q.v. point 3.1, above)

10. One last thing. Le Meur tells me there's an official dress code at LeWeb, and it is: "No suits!" So unless you're from IBM, or you're a venture capitalist who doesn't own anything that isn't from Savile Row, it's jeans and tees all the way. And if you see someone in a suit, conference rules state that you're allowed to throw your free coffee over them.*

So there you have it. And if all that wasn't enough to whet your appetite, there's a huge party being thrown by one of Europe's most prestigious newspapers; you'll hear about it once you get to Paris. See you there!

(*OK, I may have made that last one up. Don't throw your coffee over any Microsoft SVPs. Please.)


View the original article here

MySpace 'will be forced to allow Facebook Connect'

The news follows on from Mike Jones, MySpace’s chief executive, admitting to The Telegraph last week, that the site was no longer a social network, effectively surrendering to Facebook.

Last week, Jones would not be drawn on what he called “rumours” that MySpace will soon implement a Facebook Connect button across its service, allowing people to use their Facebook identities on MySpace. However, several technology executives, present at this week’s Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, have told the Telegraph that MySpace has been left with no choice but to do so.

“MySpace are going to install a Facebook Connect button across the site, but no one at the company can admit it publicly yet. They have to. They need the same audience to come to MySpace, that now goes to Facebook, if their re-launch to a social entertainment portal is going to have any traction,” said one Silicon Valley-based technology entrepreneur, who wished to remain anonymous.

Another senior technology executive, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the move: “MySpace has finally realised that it needs to face the inevitable. It needs to get out of the way of the oncoming train and just get on board. Installing Facebook Connect is a bold but very necessary move. It will happen imminently.”

Talking to The Telegraph at the Monaco Media Forum last week, Jones said the bold statement: “MySpace is a not a social network anymore. It is now a social entertainment destination.”

The troubled site, which saw its UK audience halve to 3.3 million monthly visitors in July earlier this year, is pinning its hopes of renewed success with a return to its music and content roots.

Three weeks ago, the redesigned MySpace, which focuses a lot more on content, rather than social networking, launched in the US and will go live in the UK very soon. Everything has been changed; right down to the logo – which is now the word 'My' and an extended underscore to represent the ‘Space’.

MySpace, founded in 2003, at its peak had more than 100 million registered and active members, but its audience has been declining since the rise of Facebook in 2008.

It has come under increasing pressure from its parent News Corporation, which bought the site in 2005 for $580 million (£351 million) in 2005, to reverse its ailing fortunes.

On an earnings call at the start of this month, Chase Carey, News Corporation’s chief operating officer, said: "We've been clear that MySpace is a problem. The current losses are not acceptable or sustainable." And that he wanted "a clear path to profitability" on a timetable measured "in quarters, not in years”.

MySpace lost $156 million in the quarter that ended in September 2010 compared to a loss of $126 million in the same period last year, on revenues of $298 million, down 25.5%.

Jones said that Carey’s words were taken out of context, and that all of News Corp’s businesses are assessed quarterly.

“There is no timeline to shutdown MySpace. The goal of relaunching the site is to a build a new path and use the tools of social around entertainment content which will appeal to audiences aged between 13-35 around the world,” Jones explained.


View the original article here

RIM CEO tells Apple: 'You don't need an app for the web'

Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of Blackberry-maker Research in Motion.


'You don't need an app for the web,' said RIM's CEO in the company's latest dig at rival Apple Photo: reuters


Balsillie told delegates at the event that Research in Motion’s forthcoming tablet computer, the PlayBook, will be “three or four times” faster at browsing the web than Apple’s iPad.


He also criticised Apple’s ecosystem of applications for its iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, and said that users “don’t need an app for the web”.


Balsillie acknowledged that there was a role for native apps, but that the web browser remained the best way of getting information on mobile devices.


"We believe that you can bring the mobile to the web,” he said. “You don’t need to go through some kind of software development kit. That’s the core part of our message. You can use your existing development environment.


“There’s still a role for apps, but can you use your existing content? Can you use your existing web assets? Do you need a set of proprietary tools to bring existing assets on to a device, or can you use known tools that you use for creating websites?”


It’s the latest exchange in an increasingly fractious relationship between Apple and Research in Motion.


During a quarterly earnings call earlier this year, Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, bragged that iPhone sales had outstripped BlackBerry sales, and that he didn’t see Research in Motion catching up with his company “in the foreseeable future”.


His comments sparked a furious response from RIM, who questioned the sales iPhone and BlackBerry sales figures Jobs had used for his comparison.


Balsillie retaliated by claiming that Apple only told “half the story”, and that everything was skewed by the company’s “reality distortion field”.


View the original article here

Sarah Palin says she could beat Barack Obama in 2012

The former Alaska governor told ABC News she was seriously considering running for the Republican Party presidential nomination in the next elections.

"I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and ... trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing," Mrs Palin said in excerpts of an interview to air on December 9.

Asked whether she could defeat Mr Obama if she ran, Mrs Palin, who was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, answered: "I believe so."

Mrs Palin, who left midway through her first term in office as governor of Alaska, has previously hinted at a potential White House bid but has yet to formally announce if she will run.

Even if she won the Republican primary, Mrs Palin would face an uphill fight in the elections, as she is not considered popular in the country at large and was found wanting on foreign policy experience during Senator John McCain's losing campaign for president.

Now one of the most popular conservatives in America, Mrs Palin solidified her life in the spotlight by launching her own reality show on Sunday, featuring her family fishing, kayaking, bear-watching and relaxing in their tiny Alaskan hometown of Wasilla.


View the original article here

Friday, November 19, 2010

Top Yakuza crime boss arrested in Japan

Top Yakuza crime boss arrested in Japan


The arrest of Takayama coincides with a nationwide attempt to clampdown on organised crime groups in Japan Photo: GETTY


Kiyoshi Takayama, a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate – the largest in Japan - was detained by police on alleged extortion charges.


With the official head of the Yamaguchi-gumi already in prison, Takayama, 63, is believed to be the number one operating member of Japan's most powerful organised crime group.


Takayama, from Kobe, was arrested in Kyoto for allegedly extorting protection money totalling around £302,000 (40 million yen) from a man engaged in construction business between 2005 and 2006, according to police.


The arrest of Takayama, who is head of the syndicate's Kodokai gang, coincides with a nationwide attempt to clampdown on organised crime groups in Japan, according to Kyodo News reports.


It also comes shortly before Kenichi Shinoda, the official head of the Yamaguchi-gumi group, is due to be released from prison next spring following his detention in 2005 for violating gun control laws.


Dubbed the Walmart of crime syndicates, the Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest organised crime group in Japan with its roots in the Kobe region and active membership estimated by some reports as high as 45,000.


Extortion, real estate, sex industry, gambling and stock market manipulation are among a raft of activities that have been tied to the activities of the powerful crime syndicate.


Government legislation has increasingly attempted to stem the powers of the crime groups, while financial institutions have also joined forces in a growing movement to close down the accounts of yakuza members.


The Japanese Bankers Association announced last year that it was asking its member banks to refuse the creation of new accounts for customers with yakuza ties.


Earlier this month, there were reports that a bank in Tokyo had taken steps to terminate the account of a high-ranking yakuza boss.


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Facebook says new messaging service will make email addresses obsolete

In a posting on the Facebook blog after the launch of the social network’s new messaging service, Joel Seligstein, a engineer at the company, said: "Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other.

"We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly. We aren't there yet, but the changes today are a small first step.

At the launch of Facebook's new messaging service earlier Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, called email "too slow and formal".

Speaking at an event in San Francisco, ahead of this year’s Web 2.0 Summit, Zuckeberg showcased the ‘next generation messaging system’, which will allow users to have an @facebook.com email address.

He said: “Email is too slow… email is too formal. There is too much friction, like the filling in the subject line…. when people send an email.”

Zuckerberg stressed that the new system, which will combine Facebook’s instant messaging system, SMS, Facebook messages and email in one place, would allow people to reply seamlessly across multiple devices to different types of messages.

For instance, when somebody emails a Facebook friend using their Facebook email account, that person can reply in the same window using either the system’s instant messaging system, or by email, or by SMS. The aim is to combine all types of messaging in one place, allowing people to reply in real-time.

Zuckerberg emphasised that email would only be a part of the new messaging system. The three key aspects the new system would be seamless messaging allowing people to communicate in several formats, across multiple devices. Secondly the new messaging system will store all conversation history in once screen shot, regardless of whether it was email or IM.

And thirdly the new system works on the premise of the ‘social inbox’. Zuckerberg explained that the system would work better than other email spam detectors and will prioritise key contacts’ messages. “You will only be able to see messages that really matter to you,” he said.

The new messaging system is only live to those with an invite at this stage. Zuckerberg said that it will be rolled out slowly across the next several months.

He also revealed he had ambitions for the system to be able to sync with other email accounts in the future.

Zuckerberg said that his team had been working on the new system for over a year and that 350 million people regularly use Facebook current messaging system.


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Indelible Images - Unmasked - Aug10

On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, a mood of boisterous celebration filled the particulate-dense air of New York City. Mayor John V. Lindsay traveled around by electric bus. In a speech at Union Square he asked, “Do we want to live or die?”A crowd of 20,000 packed the square to catch a glimpse of Paul Newman standing on a raised platform. Stretches of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street, closed to automobile traffic, were transformed into pedestrian seas, amid which office workers set down picnic blankets and girls handed out fresh daisies. Activists hauled nets of dead fish through Midtown streets. “You’re next, people!” they cried. “You’re next!”


Out of all the hubbub that beset the nation that day 40 years ago—a day when students buried trash-filled caskets and put a Chevy on trial for polluting the air—one image would capture the spirit with particular efficiency and wit. It’s a black-and-white photograph of a young man wearing a vintage gas mask as he stretched to smell the magnolias. Reproduced instantly and ever since, it came to symbolize the occasion. (This magazine, which made its debut in April 1970, published the picture in its 20th-anniversary issue.)


But the photograph presents a few substantial mysteries. For one, there’s no record of who took it. The credit line reads simply “Associated Press,” and the AP’s files identify the photographer only as a “stringer,” or freelancer. For another, though a few newspapers printed the young man’s name with the picture at the time, he too was soon rendered anonymous.


Now it can be told, or retold: his name, resurrected from a Pace College publication dated 1970, is Peter Hallerman. He was then a sophomore at Pace, commuting to its Lower Manhattan campus from Queens. In all these years, he says, he has never been interviewed about the event in question.


As he recalls, he was one of about 30 Pace students who held what was surely one of the day’s puniest demonstrations. They crossed the street from their campus to a park near City Hall and chanted slogans and waved brooms, some of them daring to make a sweep or two. (Their permit forbade them to actually clean the park.)


At least the collegians had planned for maximum impact: they demonstrated at lunch hour, hoping the City Hall press corps would straggle out to gather a bit of Earth Day color. “We figured we’d at least get noticed,” Hallerman says. “Whether it would be reported on was something else.”


Sure enough, a handful of journalists appeared. In a dramatic flourish, Hallerman strapped on a gas mask that he believes his mother, Edith, had saved from her service with the Red Cross during World War II. (Though gas masks were a common Earth Day accessory, this long-snouted beast looked particularly awful.) The AP photographer posed Hallerman in front of a blossoming magnolia tree, then changed his mind. “Try leaning over and smelling those flowers,” Hallerman recalls the photographer saying. Hallerman bent his six-foot frame over a short fence surrounding the tree so that the mask’s proboscis touched the pink-white blossoms. The photographer snapped his shot, and Hallerman thought nothing more of it.


On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, a mood of boisterous celebration filled the particulate-dense air of New York City. Mayor John V. Lindsay traveled around by electric bus. In a speech at Union Square he asked, “Do we want to live or die?”A crowd of 20,000 packed the square to catch a glimpse of Paul Newman standing on a raised platform. Stretches of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street, closed to automobile traffic, were transformed into pedestrian seas, amid which office workers set down picnic blankets and girls handed out fresh daisies. Activists hauled nets of dead fish through Midtown streets. “You’re next, people!” they cried. “You’re next!”


Out of all the hubbub that beset the nation that day 40 years ago—a day when students buried trash-filled caskets and put a Chevy on trial for polluting the air—one image would capture the spirit with particular efficiency and wit. It’s a black-and-white photograph of a young man wearing a vintage gas mask as he stretched to smell the magnolias. Reproduced instantly and ever since, it came to symbolize the occasion. (This magazine, which made its debut in April 1970, published the picture in its 20th-anniversary issue.)


But the photograph presents a few substantial mysteries. For one, there’s no record of who took it. The credit line reads simply “Associated Press,” and the AP’s files identify the photographer only as a “stringer,” or freelancer. For another, though a few newspapers printed the young man’s name with the picture at the time, he too was soon rendered anonymous.


So who was that masked man?


Now it can be told, or retold: his name, resurrected from a Pace College publication dated 1970, is Peter Hallerman. He was then a sophomore at Pace, commuting to its Lower Manhattan campus from Queens. In all these years, he says, he has never been interviewed about the event in question.


As he recalls, he was one of about 30 Pace students who held what was surely one of the day’s puniest demonstrations. They crossed the street from their campus to a park near City Hall and chanted slogans and waved brooms, some of them daring to make a sweep or two. (Their permit forbade them to actually clean the park.)


At least the collegians had planned for maximum impact: they demonstrated at lunch hour, hoping the City Hall press corps would straggle out to gather a bit of Earth Day color. “We figured we’d at least get noticed,” Hallerman says. “Whether it would be reported on was something else.”


Sure enough, a handful of journalists appeared. In a dramatic flourish, Hallerman strapped on a gas mask that he believes his mother, Edith, had saved from her service with the Red Cross during World War II. (Though gas masks were a common Earth Day accessory, this long-snouted beast looked particularly awful.) The AP photographer posed Hallerman in front of a blossoming magnolia tree, then changed his mind. “Try leaning over and smelling those flowers,” Hallerman recalls the photographer saying. Hallerman bent his six-foot frame over a short fence surrounding the tree so that the mask’s proboscis touched the pink-white blossoms. The photographer snapped his shot, and Hallerman thought nothing more of it.


The following week, a Pace administrator presented him with an inch-thick stack of newspaper clippings that included the picture: clearly, it had struck a nerve around the country.


Peter Hallerman wasn’t your standard hippie activist. In 1967 he paraded down Fifth Avenue in support of the Vietnam War. In 1969 he followed the music to Woodstock but remained ignorant of the intricacies of igniting hashish. His status as Earth Day poster boy, however, seems just: “The desire to get out, to camp, to have contact with my environment beyond the city streets, was always very strong for me,” says Hallerman, a former Boy Scout and still an intrepid camper.


Hallerman’s 19th birthday was on May 4, less than two weeks after that inaugural Earth Day. That was the day Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine. Four days later, Hallerman attended his first antiwar demonstration, in New York’s financial district; he remembers standing on the steps of the Federal Hall National Memorial when hundreds of construction workers from the World Trade Center building site poured onto the scene, attacking the youthful protesters before storming City Hall in what came to be known as the Hard Hat Riot.


And then his witness-to-history days were over. “My wife, Ellen, jokes that I went through a mini-Forrest Gump phase,” he says.


Rather than return to Pace in the fall of 1970, Hallerman drifted out West, working in coal mines and on railroad crews—fulfilling a high-school guidance counselor’s judgment that he was “uniquely qualified for manual labor.” After six grueling years, he headed back East and into the white-collar world. Now he’s an account executive for Trans World Marketing Corporation of East Rutherford, New Jersey, which designs and makes retail displays, and he lives with his wife on a quiet, leafy lane in South Salem, New York, 50 miles north of the city.


A few years ago, Ellen and their two sons, Ethan and Matthew, now 24 and 21, gave him a mounted blowup of the famous picture for his birthday. But he hasn’t hung it. Even now, he says he’s surprised that it became a cultural touchstone. “I’m flattered to have been involved in something of such historic significance,” he says. “But if that was my 15 minutes of fame, it’s a little frustrating that I was wearing a gas mask and looked like an anteater.”


Timothy Dumas wrote the August 2009 Indelible Images, about a photograph taken at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.

'SafeSocial' monitors children on social networks

The ‘SafeSocial.co.uk’ subscription service uses an email address to track children online and alerts parents to any interactions on social networks that could cause concern. Although children must consent to being monitored, the service invisibly cross-checks them and their friends against up to 50 databases to see if there are any suspicious links, for instance with users who may be of significantly different ages.

Once a child has agreed to be monitored, SafeSocial provides parents with a dashboard of their online activity and also provides alerts to indicate any suspicious behaviour. This could include, for instance, conversations about sex, drugs or suicide.

Launched by American web company AOL, the service costs £6.99 per month to monitor up to four accounts, and claims to encourage parents and children to talk about potential risks posed by the internet.

The service also scans the web for photos tagged with the child’s name, but it cannot see beyond standard privacy settings. Equally, by using an email address SafeSocial cannot “see” any behaviour from an email address that a child sets up but does not tell his parents about. AOL said that in such an instance, however, the lack of activity in a child’s normal account would raise the alarm to a parent.

"The average social networking user has an average of 173 friends and until now the job of tracking online activity has been both difficult and time consuming. SafeSocial enables teens to have their freedom and enjoy time on their favourite social networks, without being visibly monitored or censored, at the same time providing parents with a quick overview of any irregular activity," said David Smith, Head of AOL UK Paid Services.


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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg launches 'next generation of email'

Speaking at an event in San Francisco, ahead of this year’s Web 2.0 Summit, Zuckeberg showcased the ‘next generation messaging system’, which will allow users to have an @facebook.com email address.

He said: “Email is too slow… email is too formal. There is too much friction, like the filling in the subject line…. when people send an email.”

Zuckerberg stressed that the new system, which will combine Facebook’s instant messaging system, SMS, Facebook messages and email in one place, would allow people to reply seamlessly across multiple devices to different types of messages.

For instance, when somebody emails a Facebook friend using their Facebook email account, that person can reply in the same window using either the system’s instant messaging system, or by email, or by SMS. The aim is to combine all types of messaging in one place, allowing people to reply in real-time.

Zuckerberg emphasised that email would only be a part of the new messaging system. The three key aspects the new system would be seamless messaging allowing people to communicate in several formats, across multiple devices. Secondly the new messaging system will store all conversation history in once screen shot, regardless of whether it was email or IM.

And thirdly the new system works on the premise of the ‘social inbox’. Zuckerberg explained that the system would work better than other email spam detectors and will prioritise key contacts’ messages. “You will only be able to see messages that really matter to you,” he said.

The new messaging system is only live to those with an invite at this stage. Zuckerberg said that it will be rolled out slowly across the next several months.

He also revealed he had ambitions for the system to be able to sync with other email accounts in the future.

Zuckerberg said that his team had been working on the new system for over a year and that 350 million people regularly use Facebook current messaging system.


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Weather forecasts should include Australian style updates on water shortages

At the moment the Environment Agency will put out alerts of floods or droughts, but people are not regularly updated on water availability.

Martin Spray, Chief Executive of the WWT, said people are unaware that many areas of Britain are in water stress. The crisis is greatest in the South East where at least 10 million people have less water available per head than those living in Egypt and Morocco.

He said regular reports on the weather would help people to understand the need to cut down on water use in their area when river levels are low. Ultimately, he said it would it would make water part of the “weather small talk”, therefore educating and encouraging people to conserve water when it gets critical.

“There is a perception that this is a wet country. But it is a wet country with a high population using a huge amount of water so it is important we inform people and find new and innovative ways to to do that,” he said.

The wildlife charity said unless water use is cut by 20 per cent in the next decade streams will begin to dry up or become polluted and important species like salmon, water voles and otters will be lost from many catchment areas.

The WWT has teamed up with 13 other charities, including the RSPB and WWF, to call for tougher measures on both consumers and water companies to save water.

The Blueprint for Water calls for water meters in every home in the South East by 2015 and across the whole country by 2020.

At the moment just 30 per cent of households in England and Wales have water meters, although the devices are common in most other European countries.

Water companies are likely to pass the cost of installing the meters onto customers and Government advisers have already warned that prices may have to go up to encourage more efficient use of water.

The Department for the Environment will publish a white paper in summer next year on the reform of the water industry to ensure a more efficient use of water and to protect poorer households.

Ten ways to save water in Britain

:: Waste less water – Reduce water consumption by at least 20 per cent through more efficient use in homes, buildings and businesses.

:: Keep our rivers flowing and wetlands wet – Reform abstraction licensing to reduce pressure on rivers, lakes and wetlands today and increase flexibility to adapt to future climate change.

:: Price water fairly – Make household water bills reflect the amount of water people use.

:: Make polluters pay – Make those who damage the water environment bear the costs through more effective law enforcement, tougher penalties and fairer charges.

:: Stop pollutants contaminating our water – Introduce targeted regulations to reduce harmful pollutants in water.

:: Keep sewage out of homes and rivers and off beaches – Reduce discharges of sewage into urban environments and ecologically sensitive areas.

:: Support water-friendly farming – Support and reward farmers who deliver healthy rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands, and provide a range of other benefits to society.

:: Slow, manage and clean drainage from roads and buildings – Create a modern urban drainage network that can mitigate surface water flooding and trap pollution.

:: Protect and restore catchments from source to sea – Protect, and restore rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands in partnership with local communities.

:: Retain water on floodplains and wetlands – Restore large areas of wetland and floodplain to create and link vital wildlife habitats, improve water quality, protect soil carbon and reduce urban flooding.


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Natural History Museum expedition could be "disaster" for indigenous people

The 100-strong expedition, one of the largest undertaken by the museum in the last 50 years, is due to set off in the next few days to explore one of the most unknown regions of the world for one month.

However the museum has been warned by campaigners that the trip could cause “genocide” for isolated tribes.

The group Iniciativa Amotocodie, that protects local indigenous people, said groups of Ayoreo Indians in the area have never come into contact with westerners before. If they come across the expedition without preparation they could catch common western viruses that could wipe out the small groups in a matter of weeks.

A statement from the group, that has been circulated online, read: “If this expedition goes ahead we will not be able to understand why you prefer to lose human lives just because the English scientists want to study plants and animals. There is too much risk: the people die in the forest frequently from catching white people’s diseases – they get infected by being close. Because the white people leave their rubbish, their clothes, or other contaminated things. It’s very serious. It’s like genocide.”

Jonathan Mazower, Director of Advocacy at Survival International, said there was also a risk to the scientists as tribes have been known to throw spears at groups they fear have come to cause them harm. Westerners going into the area have been killed before.

He said it was impossible to know where the tribal groups are therefore it is better to “err on the side of caution given that the consequences for either side could be pretty disastrous.”

“The danger is to the scientists and to the indigenous people. The scientists because the indigenous people may view them as hostile and attack them and the indigenous people because the scientists carry common western viruses that they have no immunity to,” he said.

The vast area of dry forest across parts of Bolivia, Argentina as well as Paraguay, known as the Gran Chaco, is the only place in South America outside the Amazon where there are uncontacted tribes. Until about 1950 it was thought there were around 5,000 people in the area but now there are thought to be less than 150 as people leave or die out.

Richard Lane, Director of Science at the NHM, confirmed that he had received a letter from a group representing indigenous groups.

But he insisted the expedition has taken every precaution to ensure they do not come into contact with isolated tribes. He said a member of the Ayoreo community will go ahead of the rest of the rest of the group to make sure that there is no opportunity of contact with isolated tribes, as well as helping the scientists through local knowledge.

“Clearly the needs of indigenous people to remain uncontacted needs to be respected and we as an institution have always respected that,” he said.


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