Umpires: Bowen, Meredith, Wenn
Official crowd: 37,438 at the MCG
My team (Lions) would have been poorer without Luke Power or Simon Black. Richmond Tigers are a team on their way up though this was a more even match. Either side could have won it but our forwards seem to be disadvantaged in a contest. I nearly made the trip to attend this game for a long weekend, but had to commit to a meeting on Monday instead of taking that day off.
From Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics news release 'Animal Language Sends Wrong Message' of 26 April 2011
A call for a new “animal language” has been made by some of the world’s leading animal ethicists who say words like “pests” and “vermin” send out the wrong message and even our most common terms such as ”pets” and “wild animals” need updating.
The editors of a new Journal of Animal Ethics (JAE) published this month by the University of Illinois Press say derogatory words like “pests” and “vermin” should be dropped altogether and “pets” replaced by “companion animals”, while “wild animals” should be termed “free living or free ranging animals”.
“Despite its prevalence, “pets” is surely a derogatory term both of the animals concerned and their human carers. Again the word “owners”, whilst technically correct in law, harks back to a previous age when animals were regarded as just that: property, machines or things to use without moral constraint … In addition, we invite authors to use the words “free-living”, “free-ranging” or “free-roaming” rather than “wild animals”… For most, “wildness” is synonymous with uncivilized, unrestrained, barbarous existence. There is an obvious prejudgment here that should be avoided.”
“Our existing language about animals is the language of past thought – and the crucial point is that the past is littered with derogatory terminology: “brutes”, “beasts”, “bestial”, “critters”, “sub-humans”, and the like. We shall not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use less than partial adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them,” they argue.
Some of the suggestions may seem far-fetched to some people. The notion of 'ownership' of 'pets' is worth thinking about. I have often been uneasy about the concept of 'owning' other living creatures, which is basically, the lives of other sentient beings. Hence, the alternative notion of humans as 'carers' or 'guardians' of pets and other domesticated animals make more sense. This reinforces the need to treat other creatures with respect and dignity, free from cruelty.
'Pets' or rather 'canine or feline companions' then become adopted rather than bought.
The question isn't academic but rather an ethical one.
Much of our values concerning animals are based on cultural and religious views. In Judeo-Christian-Islam ('people of the book') traditions, living creatures have been given to humans by God. In most native American cultures, animals have spirits (or souls). It might be time to re-examine our views.
Queen bees are created when designated larvae are fed royal jelly by worker bees. Until now, the exact active ingredient was not known. Masaki Kamakura of Biotechnology Research Center, Toyama Prefectural University has found that the active ingredient is royalactin. The study was a challenge as royal jelly itself degrades very quickly. Abstract from Nature
The honeybee (Apis mellifera) forms two female castes: the queen and the worker. This dimorphism depends not on genetic differences, but on ingestion of royal jelly, although the mechanism through which royal jelly regulates caste differentiation has long remained unknown. Here I show that a 57-kDa protein in royal jelly, previously designated as royalactin, induces the differentiation of honeybee larvae into queens. Royalactin increased body size and ovary development and shortened developmental time in honeybees. Surprisingly, it also showed similar effects in the fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster). Mechanistic studies revealed that royalactin activated p70 S6 kinase, which was responsible for the increase of body size, increased the activity of mitogen-activated protein kinase, which was involved in the decreased developmental time, and increased the titre of juvenile hormone, an essential hormone for ovary development. Knockdown of epidermal growth factor receptor (Egfr) expression in the fat body of honeybees and fruitflies resulted in a defect of all phenotypes induced by royalactin, showing that Egfr mediates these actions. These findings indicate that a specific factor in royal jelly, royalactin, drives queen development through an Egfr-mediated signalling pathway.
Royal Jelly is also used a health supplement, although it may induce allergies in some people. Identification of the active ingredient could result in it being synthesized rather than being harvested from hives.
For those of us who have studied undergraduate biology, biochemistry or genetics, Drosophila melanogaster is still the ubiquitous object of study.
GOALS Brisbane: Clark 4, Redden 2, Polkinghorne, Polec, Adcock, Power, Rockliff St Kilda: Schneider 3, Milne 2, Gram 2, Steven 2, Ray, Goddard, Riewoldt, Dal Santo
BEST Brisbane: Adcock, Leuenberger, Rockliff, Merrett, Redden, Clark St Kilda: Montagna, Goddard, Schneider, Gram, Steven, Riewoldt
INJURIES Brisbane: Bewick (back)
Umpires: Donlon, Kamolins, Jeffery Official crowd: 22,520
Last weekend (Round 4) was a bye so both teams were well rested. Tonight's game was scrappy but the Brisbane Lions were persistent, leading on the scoreboard towards the final quarter. The game could have been won if goal-kicking was more accurate. Mitch Clark has been consistently good as a forward.
Elisabeth Sladen portrayed Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and was probably considered to be one of the most favourite of the Doctor's companions.
She first became The Doctor's companion in 1973 in The Time Warrior, which also introduced a Sontaran warrior Linx (Jon Pertwee as the Doctor)
When Doctor Who was revived by the BBC, Sarah Jane Smith would be reunited with the Doctor (David Tennant) on a number of 'adventures' as well has her own spin-off show.
Cambridge University researcher Dr Robin Bunce has examined why Daleks scare people. From Cambridge University Research News published on 19 April 2011
It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. Ever since Doctor Who first aired in 1963, the series has been internationally recognisable thanks to one of the most ridiculous space-creatures ever conceived; a master race of intergalactic pepperpots, armed with a sink plunger and an egg whisk, who (according to popular mythology), are hell-bent on conquering anywhere, provided it doesn’t involve stairs.
But don’t let that fool you. For more than 45 years, the Doctor’s arch-enemies, the Daleks, have been striking fear into young viewers with their chilling war-cry of “Exterminate!”. Like the Doctor himself, they have become an icon of British culture. For many, hiding behind the sofa when they appear is virtually a rite of passage.
Now, with the new season of Doctor Who nearly upon us, a Cambridge University academic has turned his mind to what makes the Daleks so terrifying. Writing in a new paper, Dr Robin Bunce – normally a researcher in intellectual history – explores why these unlikeliest of sci-fi foes bettered the rest, and became the most menacing alien ever to invade the small screen.
His answer has nothing to do with their often-cited, non-human appearance, nor their weird, electronic voices. In fact, Dr Bunce believes that the Daleks succeed because they offer us a moral lesson in what it means to be human in the first place. They terrify us because the evil they represent is a more precise definition than that of philosophers stretching from Socrates to Kant. They are chilling, he argues, because they are a vision of what we ourselves might become.
“The reason the Daleks are evil is because we recognise that they were once better,” Dr Bunce explained. “They are the nightmare future we dread.”
“According to their back-story, once they were capable of genuine emotion and real moral good. Now they are sexless, heartless brains, shut up in machines incapable of intimacy, who have forgotten what it means to laugh and no longer think of themselves as individuals. We recognise the Daleks as evil because they have lost all that we hold most dear.”
Actually, Daleks are scary because they want to ex-ter-min-ate humans. Should a 'fictitious' Dalek approach you, it has only one purpose in mind. Surely no potential fatal victim of a Dalek is going to be thinking about what Daleks once were but instead flee for their lives. Now that is scary.
About 12 months ago, I wrote about New Yorkers finally getting the real taste of coffee, with Australian baristas from Melbourne, which has a well-known cafe and coffee culture, sharing their expertise.
AFP (through France24) has reported that Paris is now finally getting 'gourmet' coffee, also courtesy of experienced Australian baristas. Excerpt
It's famous for its sun-kissed sidewalk cafes, but Paris has lagged well behind New York, London and Sydney as a Mecca for connoisseurs of fine coffee -- until now.
Gourmet coffee bars and small-batch roasteries are popping up in the French capital, introducing locals to thick rich espressos, artful lattes and the idea that a cup of Joe can be savoured like fine wine.
"Coffee is a big part of the culture" in Paris, said Tom Clark, co-owner of the Coutume Cafe, which recently became the city's newest coffee bar and specialty roaster when it opened its doors on the Left Bank.
"It's just that it's not been respected... It is a living product. It has to be handled with care."
Driving the trend is an entrepreneurial network of young expats like Clark, an Australian living in France for three years who grew up on artisanal coffee, and well-travelled French contemporaries like his business partner Antoine Netien, a champion roaster in Melbourne before his return home.
"Before I went to Australia, I was drinking coffee with no idea how it was made," said French bartender-turned-barista Thomas Lehoux, who now mans the coffee machine at Eggs&Co, a hip Left Bank brunch spot.
"Most French people don't have any idea that coffee can be like wine."
Read more. It may come as a surprise to many people that despite its cafe society, the coffee in Paris is not that good at all. It would be much the same in Germany, where the coffee is also 'industrial' served with cream and sugar.
The peacock spider (Maratus volans) is native to the east coast of Australia. Dr Jurgen Otto captured the unique peacock-like display of the male spider, which was featured in ABC's Catalyst program last month.
Australian researchers have found that male humpback whales in the same population group sing the same song but that any changes to the tune spreads to other pods. Abstract from Current Biology
Highlights
- Humpback whale songs have repeatedly moved east across the South Pacific
- The songs moved across the region in a series of cultural waves
- The waves frequently caused complete “cultural revolution” of the song
- The scale, rate, and repetition of these cultural changes are unparalleled
Summary
Cultural transmission, the social learning of information or behaviors from conspecifics, is believed to occur in a number of groups of animals, including primates, cetaceans, and birds. Cultural traits can be passed vertically (from parents to offspring), obliquely (from the previous generation via a nonparent model to younger individuals), or horizontally (between unrelated individuals from similar age classes or within generations). Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have a highly stereotyped, repetitive, and progressively evolving vocal sexual display or “song” that functions in sexual selection (through mate attraction and/or male social sorting). All males within a population conform to the current version of the display (song type), and similarities may exist among the songs of populations within an ocean basin. Here we present a striking pattern of horizontal transmission: multiple song types spread rapidly and repeatedly in a unidirectional manner, like cultural ripples, eastward through the populations in the western and central South Pacific over an 11-year period. This is the first documentation of a repeated, dynamic cultural change occurring across multiple populations at such a large geographic scale.
Researchers at The University of Queensland have found that male humpback whales ‘change their tune' every year during their migration across the Pacific.
A study on whale song published today in the US journal, Current Biology, reveals a striking pattern of cultural change over a large distance, with the rate, scale and repetition unmatched in non-human culture.
UQ PhD student Ellen Garland said 11 different humpback whale song types were identified, which typically started in the eastern Australian population and spread in a step-wise fashion across the region to French Polynesia.
“I noticed that the songs moved quite rapidly through the six populations, usually taking two years to spread all the way across the region,” she said.
“This can compare to the game of Chinese whispers, except the song appears to be transmitted with little changes unlike a human sentence in the game.”
Ms Garland said songs had spread across whale populations suggesting acoustic contact or male dispersal between populations in the region.
“The reason we believe the song tends to travel east is because the eastern Australian population is the largest in the region and has a greater influence than the smaller Oceania ones,” she said.
Previous research has revealed that only male humpback whales sing and that song is a behaviour used in courtship and mating.
Ms Garland said all of the males in a population sang a similar song, but it was continually changing and evolving over time.
“Song can undergo evolutionary change, which occurs over a long period of time, or revolutionary change, where the males start singing a completely new song,” she said.
“We believe the song is continually changing because the males wish to be novel or slightly different to the male singing next to them.
“The way whales change their song can be compared to how humans follow fashion trends – someone starts a new trend and before you know it everyone starts wearing the same thing.”
The study is the first documentation of a repeated, dynamic cultural change occurring across multiple humpback whale populations across a large geographical scale.
It was undertaken in collaboration with the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium and investigated song similarity over an 11-year period within the South Pacific region focusing on the populations of eastern Australia, New Caledonia, Tonga, American Samoa, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia.
Media: Ellen Garland, 0406 965 475 or e.garland@uq.edu.au; or Erin Pearl (UQ Communications) 07 5460 1229 or e.pearl@uq.edu.au
In August 2007, I wrote (rather reproduced an Associated Press report) about bhut jolokia (the "ghost chilli") grown in northeastern India and claimed to be the hottest, rated at 1,000,000 Scoville units. The previous record holder, the Red Savina habanero, was tested at up to 580,000 Scovilles.
Bhut jolokia held the record for nearly three years until the end of last year when it was superceded by the Infinity chilli at nearly 1.18 million Scovilles then the Naga Viper at just over 1.38 million Scovilles, both grown in the United Kingdom.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that an even hotter chilli has been grown in Australia called the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T rated at 1.46 million Scovilles.
INJURIES Brisbane Lions: Clark (dislocated finger)
Umpires: Schmitt, Chamberlain, Keating Official crowd: 24, 380 at MCG
The first quarter was good but the Lions could not sustain the momentum. I had not expected a win given Melbourne is supposedly a team on the way up, while the Lions are on the way down compared to last year. Still, it was messy game in the rain. Mitch Clark was everywhere and did some great things but was let down on a few occasions by ineffective disposals. Luke Power was outstanding.
A new tool has been developed by Australian scientists to enable prioritisation in the attempt to save species at risk of extinction. When these species fall below a population threshold, they may not be worth saving. Abstract from Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is arguably the most popular measure of relative species threat, but its threat categories can be ambiguous (eg “Endangered” versus “Vulnerable”) and subjective, have weak quantification, and do not convey the threat status of species in relation to a minimum viable population target. We propose a heuristic measure that describes a “species' ability to forestall extinction”, or the SAFE index. We compared the abilities of the SAFE index with those of another numerically explicit metric – percentage range loss – to predict IUCN threat categories using binary and ordinal logistic regression. Generalized linear models showed that the SAFE index was a better predictor of IUCN threat categories than was percentage range loss. We therefore advocate use of the SAFE index, possibly in conjunction with IUCN threat categories, because the former indicates the “distance from extinction” of a species, while implicitly incorporating population viability as a variable.
According to the authors of the SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction) index, conservationists with limited resources may want to channel their efforts on saving the tiger, a species that is at the 'tipping point' and could have reasonable chance of survival.
Photo by Juliane Riedl. Full Image (175.46K)
Thursday, 7 April 2011
A new index has been developed to help conservationists better understand how close species are to extinction.
The index, developed by a team of Australian researchers from the University of Adelaide and James Cook University, is called SAFE (Species Ability to Forestall Extinction).
The SAFE index builds on previous studies into the minimum population sizes needed by species to survive in the wild. It measures how close species are to their minimum viable population size.
"SAFE is a leap forward in how we measure relative threat risk among species," says co-author Professor Corey Bradshaw, Director of Ecological Modelling at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.
"The idea is fairly simple - it's the distance a population is (in terms of abundance) from its minimum viable population size. While we provide a formula for working this out, it's more than just a formula - we've shown that SAFE is the best predictor yet of the vulnerability of mammal species to extinction."
Professor Bradshaw says SAFE is designed to be an adjunct to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, not a replacement.
"Our index shows that not all Critically Endangered species are equal. A combined approach - using the IUCN Red List threat categories together with the SAFE index - is more informative than the IUCN categories alone, and provides a good method for gauging the relative 'safety' of a species from extinction," he says.
Of the 95 mammal species considered in the team's analysis, more than one in five are close to extinction, and more than half of them are at 'tipping points' that could take their populations to the point of no return.
"For example, our studies show that practitioners of conservation triage may want to prioritise resources on the Sumatran rhinoceros instead of the Javan rhinoceros. Both species are Critically Endangered, but the Sumatran rhino is more likely to be brought back from the brink of extinction based on its SAFE index," Professor Bradshaw says.
"Alternatively, conservationists with limited resources may want to channel their efforts on saving the tiger, a species that is at the 'tipping point' and could have reasonable chance of survival."
Canadian Digital Journal (Kimberley Pollock) has a good well-sourced write-up. According to the SAFE index, the ten species most at risk of extinction are
1. Javan rhinoceros (Indonesia)
2. Kouprey (Cambodia)
3. African wild ass (Eritrea and Ethiopia)
4. Iberian lynx (Spain)
5. Northern hairy-nosed wombat (Australia)
6. Sumatran rhinoceros (Malaysia and Indonesia)
7. Ethiopian wolf (Ethiopia)
8. Addax (Sahara Desert)
9. Dibbler (Australia)
10. Riverine rabbit (South Africa)
Australia's ABC interviewed Professor Corey Bradshaw, focusing on the northern hairy-nosed wombat (article, radio interview transcript, audio).
While the SAFE index provides a rational approach, this is not always going to be the case. If tigers and pandas fell below the viable population for saving, there is no doubt that extra effort including cloning would be made to save them. Today, species like the dodo or Tasmanian tiger would certainly attract considerable effort for saving.
From the town of Laufen in Bavaria, 15-year-old Regina Mayer, whose parents are farmers declined her request for a horse, so she did the next best thing, which was to train one of their cows called Luna like a horse. Luna also thinks she is a horse.
GOALS Western Bulldogs: Hall 3, Griffin 3, Higgins 3, Giansiracusa 2, Boyd 2, Hill, Jones, Sherman, Grant, Ward, Djerrkura Brisbane Lions: Redden 2, Polkinghorne 2, Lester, Clark
BEST Western Bulldogs: Griffen, Boyd, Cooney, Cross, Williams, Liberatore, Hill Brisbane Lions: Black, Buchanan, Adcock, Bewick, Redden, Rich, Rockliff
INJURIES Brisbane Lions: Matt Maguire (quad) replaced in selected side by Broc McCauley
Umpires: Dalgleish, Meredith, Wenn Official crowd: 22,331 at Etihad Stadium
Totally thrashed. Polkinghorne's two consecutive goals was one redeeming feature in an otherwise uninspiring game. This was also Sherman's first game against his former side.
Simon Black on his 32nd birthday (photo by Getty Images, Robert Cianflone)
Mitch Clark rucking (photo by Slattery Media, Darrian Traynor)
Pearce Hanley (photo by Slattery Media, Darrian Traynor)
Jack Redden (photo by Getty Images, Robert Cianflone)
This morning I fell for April fools' pranks. Not once but four times.
First, I visited a colleague on the other side of our floor. He had the local Canberra Times newspaper, which usually prints a serious article on the front page. None could be found. He then mentioned reports about bats in the local area and mentioned seeing some in the tree that could be seen through the window. He insisted there was one just hanging in a branch. I looked and looked and could not see any. Five minutes later...
The second time was when a colleague mentioned that a staff member whom she supervised would be leaving on promotion to another area. My colleague is also going on annual leave in a few weeks so her team would be down from three to one. While I was trying to work out how to fill the 'vacancy' as quickly as possible...
Meanwhile, I had received an email from another colleague who knew about my regular consumption of weißwurst. She mentioned media reporting about "another round of Gammelfleischskandal in Germany" and that Das "Bild is calling it the Schwarzwurst Skandal". So I looked...
Finally, the big boss' executive officer came around to tell me that he wanted to talk to me about something urgent and important. So I grabbed a notebook and a pen while trying to figure out what it could be. Upon arrival at his office, I peered in only to find the prankster sitting in his chair.
I must have had 'gullible' printed on my forehead this morning.
Meanwhile, some of the better pranks today were from
- Lonely Planet on non-human translations of its guides
- The Guardian on their new approach to the monarchy and new live blog
- Google's new Gmail Motion
- Richard Branson buying Pluto
- The Independent reporting about Cristiano Ronaldo being traded by Portugal to Spain
- BBC's 3D radio
- The Sun reporting about gorillas being given iPads
- The Telegraph reporting about ferrets being trained to lay cables for broadband
- Artline's new tweeter pen
- IKEA's Hundstol (see video below)
There is always the possibility that any one of those mentioned above could be serious.
James Creedon from France24 in his international press segment for today seemed to enjoy it a bit more
