Another (sub) species, extinct

According to the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, "the Western Black Rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes) has officially been declared extinct." (see IUCN news release).

The loss of a rhinoceros sub-species is a travesty, particularly as it was hunted to extinction.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a democratic membership union composed of over 1,000 members, 11,000 scientific experts in various thematic commissions with 1,000 staff, working together in more than 160 countries to help the world find pragmatic solutions to the most pressing environment and development challenges.

The Australian Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities is a country member, along with nine state government agencies and 16 non-government organisations.

The United States Department of State Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and the United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are also country members.

Tintin in India

Soutik Biswas is the Delhi correspondent for the BBC. He's also an unabashed Tintin fan and writes

Indians love Tintin like no other comic book. In an age of dashing, computer generated comic book heroes, Tintin albums - in English and in Bengali and Hindi translations - continue to sell by the thousands. Is it any surprise then that Steven Spielberg's paean to the intrepid reporter, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, releases in India later on Friday, six weeks ahead of its US release?

"Tintin is huge in India, perhaps bigger than in the US," says a spokesperson for Sony Pictures (India), which is releasing the film here. She says their research shows that more than 90% of the audience that watch Hollywood films in India are Tintin fans. Amazing.

Read more.

Tintin visited India in Tintin in Tibet, The Blue Lotus and Cigars of the Pharaohs.

Water from thin air

The winner of the James Dyson Award was announced on 8 November 2011. From James Dyson Award website

The James Dyson Award is open to product design, industrial design and engineering university level students (or graduates within 4 years of graduation) who have studied in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.

The award is £10,000 for the student or student team (up to four members) winner, £10,000 for their university department and the James Dyson Award trophy and Certificate.

This year, the award was won by Edward Linacre, a Swinburne University of Technology graduate, for his Airdrop invention, in which

Moisture is harvested out of the air to irrigate crops by an efficient system that produces large amounts of condensation. A turbine intake drives air underground through a network of piping that rapidly cools the air to the temperature of the soil where it reaches 100% humidity and produces water. The water is then stored in an underground tank and pumped through to the roots of crops via sub surface drip irrigation hosing.

Read more.

See also


In his own words


Amazing ingenuity from Australia - an innovative and practical solution to a major problem that is also cheap to implement. Congratulations to Mr Linacre.

Tintin TIME

TIME magazine's 31 October issue featured a Tintin cover in the Europe, Asia and South Pacific editions.

The United States edition was unique

Evidence that the United States doesn't get Tintin the way the rest of the world does.

Saving canines

Two interesting articles this week.

Global Post has a pictorial of pet dogs in Bangkok also being saved/evacuated from the flooding.

Der Spiegel reports whether the German Shepherd breed can be saved from show-breeders who have deformed the standard so that the lower back and hind-legs now slope down, making those dogs impractical for police work.

Tintin update

The Tintin film was released in Belgium and France on 26 October 2011 (link for other release dates elsewhere).

Reported in Euronews



Read Euronews report.

Reporting in the Belgian and French media have been glowing.

Behind the face and voice of Elmo

From ABC Nightline



Fascinating story.

Kevin Clash has been behind (underneath?) Elmo since late 1985 on Sesame Street.

More on Elmo

Measuring up. The Martians are here. The Sydney Story Factory.

Inspired by 826 Valencia, a writing centre in San Francisco for children founded by novelist Dave Eggers and educator Ninive Caligari, the Sydney Story Factory is scheduled to open late in 2011 in Redfern, Sydney. From their website

The Sydney Story Factory is a not-for-profit creative writing centre for children. Volunteer tutors offer free help to tell stories of all kinds. Programs are targeted at disadvantaged children, especially those from indigenous and non-English speaking backgrounds, but are open to all.

Sydney Story Factory programs are project-based, and every child walks away with a published piece of work. At the end of a one-off, two-hour workshop, children might have a bound and illustrated chap book to take home. At the end of a longer program, they may have produced a book, zine, school newspaper or short animated film. They might have had an article published in The Sydney Morning Herald, our media partner.

The Sydney Story Factory is dedicated to developing creativity. There is growing global awareness that the ability to think creatively and flexibly is key to preparing children for a future we cannot yet imagine. All programs at the Sydney Story Factory are designed to nurture the creativity that is innate to every child. Programs will increase children's abilities to express their thoughts and feelings, and give them new ways of understanding the world around them.

Read more.

The proposed work of the Sydney Story Factory is best shown in the video Measuring Up


The most powerful tool a child has is his or her imagination.

See reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tintin update

New trailer (UK) via MSN UK

Evelyn Grace Academy

The Evelyn Grace Academy, is a new secondary school in Brixton, south London located at 255 Shakespeare Road. It opened in September 2008. The building was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, which was awarded the £20,000 RIBA Stirling Prize 2011 for the best new European building built or designed in the United Kingdom. From Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announcement

A highly stylized zig-zag of steel and glass, the Evelyn Grace Academy is squeezed onto the tightest of urban sites (1.4 hectares - the average secondary school is 8/9 hectares). The architects received a complex brief: four schools under a single academy umbrella with the need to express both independence and unity. The architects were strongly encouraged by the client to 'think outside the box'. With such a small space and with sport being one of the Academy's 'special subjects' (each Academy school has one), the architects needed to be highly inventive. They succeeded, for instance by cleverly inserting a 100m running track into the heart of the site taking pupils right up to the front door. By dramatically celebrating the school's specialism, the RIBA Stirling Prize judges noted 'this is a design that literally makes kids run to get into school in the morning'.

The Evelyn Grace Academy is the first school to win the RIBA Stirling Prize, with seven schools shortlisted in previous years. It is the first time that Zaha Hadid Architects have designed a school and their first large-scale project in the UK. Previously they designed a Maggie's Centre in Scotland and more recently they have completed the Riverside Museum in Glasgow and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics.

Read more.

Design as described by the architect

Following the principle of ‘schools within schools’, the design generates natural patterns of division within highly functional spaces which give each of the four smaller schools a distinct identity, both internally and externally.

Photo by Luke Hayes (via Zaha Hadid Architects website)

Video by RIBA


See reporting by BBC News.

It is an inspiring building, which hopefully will in turn inspire students in what is considered to be a disadvantaged socio-economic area.

2011 Ig Nobel awards

The Ig Nobel is awarded to researchers, whose research should not be repeated. The 2011 winners, announced on 29 September 2011 at Harvard University were

PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE: Anna Wilkinson (of the UK), Natalie Sebanz (of NETHERLANDS, HUNGARY, and AUSTRIA), Isabella Mandl (of AUSTRIA) and Ludwig Huber (of AUSTRIA) for their study 'No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."
REFERENCE: 'No Evidence Of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise Geochelone carbonaria," Anna Wilkinson, Natalie Sebanz, Isabella Mandl, Ludwig Huber, Current Zoology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011. pp. 477-84.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Ludwig Huber

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.
REFERENCE: US patent application 2010/0308995 A1. Filing date: Feb 5, 2009.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Makoto Imai, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami

MEDICINE PRIZE: Mirjam Tuk (of THE NETHERLANDS and the UK), Debra Trampe (of THE NETHERLANDS) and Luk Warlop (of BELGIUM). and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman (of the USA), Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff (of AUSTRALIA) for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things — but worse decisions about other kinds of things‚ when they have a strong urge to urinate.
REFERENCE: "Inhibitory spillover: Increased Urination Urgency Facilitates Impulse Control in Unrelated Domains," Mirjam A. Tuk, Debra Trampe and Luk Warlop, Psychological Science, vol. 22, no. 5, May 2011, pp. 627-633.
REFERENCE: "The Effect of Acute Increase in Urge to Void on Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults," Matthew S. Lewis, Peter J. Snyder, Robert H. Pietrzak, David Darby, Robert A. Feldman, Paul T. Maruff, Neurology and Urodynamics, vol. 30, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 183-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Mirjam Tuk, Luk Warlop, Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman, David Darby

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE: Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, NORWAY, for trying to understand why, in everyday life, people sigh.
REFERENCE: "Is a Sigh 'Just a Sigh'? Sighs as Emotional Signals and Responses to a Difficult Task," Karl Halvor Teigen, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 2008, pp. 49–57.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Karl Halvor Teigen

LITERATURE PRIZE: John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.
REFERENCE: "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title "Structured Procrastination." http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~jperry
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Colleague Deborah Wilkes accepted the prize on behalf of Professor Perry.

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females (Coleoptera)," D.T. Gwynne, and D.C.F. Rentz, Journal of the Australian Entomological Society, vol. 22, 1983, pp. 79-80
REFERENCE: "Beetles on the Bottle," D.T. Gwynne and D.C.F. Rentz, Antenna: Proceedings (A) of the Royal Entomological Society London, vol. 8, no. 3, 1984, pp. 116-7.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz

PHYSICS PRIZE: Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru (of FRANCE), and Herman Kingma (of THE NETHERLANDS), for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't.
REFERENCE: "Dizziness in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning," Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: The winners accepted via recorded video.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

PEACE PRIZE: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.
REFERENCE: VIDEO and OFFICIAL CITY INFO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: Arturas Zuokas

PUBLIC SAFETY PRIZE: John Senders of the University of Toronto, CANADA, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.
REFERENCE: "The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving," John W. Senders, et al., Highway Research Record, vol. 195, 1967, pp. 15-33. VIDEO
ATTENDING THE CEREMONY: John Senders

Compare to 2010 and 2009, which I've previously written.

The mathematics and peace prizes were particularly interesting. Sigh. Or was just a sigh?

"Goldman Sachs rules the world"

according to Alessio Rastani, a London-based trader, while interviewed by BBC News



See also Yahoo! News for discussion about whether it was a hoax (apparently it wasn't).

Thanks to Eric Olander via Google+

A logo for Human Rights

A universal symbol for Human Rights was announced in New York on 23 September 2011 following a world-wide competition seeking a suitable design. The Human Rights logo is an open source product, free to be used by everyone, everywhere, without restrictions for the purpose of promoting Human Rights.

The logo was designed by 32-year old Serbian graphic designer Predrag Štakić from Belgrade.

See reporting in Deutsche Welle (in English) and German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) media release (in German).

The logo in different formats can be downloaded from a Logo for Human Rights.

Breakaway (Speedy Singhs)

Breakaway is a joint Indian-Canadian film production about Punjabi Indian Canadian life set in Toronto. It combines Bollywood with Canada's major sporting past-time ice-hockey.

Trailer for Breakaway



In India, the film has been released as Speedy Singhs. Even the trailer has been edited for a different film-going market.



One that I will watch. Bend it like Beckham was a splendid film and the Punjabi culture depicted made that film appealing and charming.

Catalonia's final torment and torture of bulls

Last year, I wrote about the Catalan parliament banning the torment and torture of bulls, otherwise known as bullfighting.

Today, Barcelona hosted its last bullfight.

Reported by Euronews





Further print reporting in BBC News, AFP and France24.

FC Bayern München in lederhosen

**

After defeating FC Schalke in an away game, players for FC Bayern München donned traditional Bavarian dress including the lederhosen. Of course, Oktoberfest has already started.

World in Union

The 2011 Rugby World Cup began on 9 September 2011 with the New Zealand All Blacks defeating Tonga 41-10. Every four years, the competition begins with the rugby union anthem World in Union. This was first heard in 1991 at Twickenham sung by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. This year, it was sung by New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra. It is probably the best sporting anthem of all time. Of course the tune would be familiar to most people from the Thaxted melody of Gustav Holst's The Planets (Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity) and also in the hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country.

British ITV's introduction to their rugby coverage makes best use of Hayley Westenra's rendition of World in Union

The 2007 All Stars recording for the RWC in France was also well done

I Vow to Thee, My Country

Holst The Planets - Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

Google Doodle for Freddie Mercury Day

Today worldwide (except for the United States), Google celebrated what would have been Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday with an animated doodle using an embedded YouTube video (see below)



France24 also had an excellent article about it, excerpt

"It has a lot of fun, goofy stuff to celebrate what an incredible song writer, fashion icon, and musical innovator he was," doodle team creative lead Ryan Germick told AFP during a visit to their base at Google's headquarters in the California city of Mountain View.

"Freddy Mercury was an awesome performer, an ambitious creator and pioneered really audacious concept records," Germick said. "We just love him; we've been blasting Queen for the last couple of months and it is always joyful."

Read more. See also, Queen guitarist Dr Brian May's post in the Google blog.

Previously, the animated doodle for Lucille Ball's 100th birthday was also very creative, allowing for interaction with different 'channels'.

football - round 24

Sydney Swans   3.3  11.7  14.9  18.11 (119)
Brisbane Lions  4.3   6.6    9.9     9.13 (67)

GOALS
Sydney Swans: Bolton, Goodes 4, Rohan, Spangher 3, Parker 2, Hannebery, Malceski
Brisbane Lions: McGrath 3, Karnezis 2, Rich, Hawksley, Redden, Cornelius

BEST
Sydney Swans: Bolton, Goodes, Spangher, Rohan, McVeigh, O'Keefe, McGlynn
Brisbane Lions: McGrath, Rich, Leuenberger, Hanley, Karnezis, Hawksley

INJURIES
Sydney Swans: Reid (calf), Grundy (illness) replaced in the selected side by Malceski and Jetta
Brisbane Lions: Banfield (hamstring) replaced in the selected side by Buchanan

SUBSTITUTES
Sydney Swans: Spangher replaced by Jetta in the fourth quarter
Brisbane Lions: Retzlaff replaced by Buchanan in the third quarter

Umpires: Margetts, Chamberlain, Meredith
Official crowd: 27,721 at SCG.

It was the last game for the season and the year. Brisbane Lions won the first quarter before Sydney Swans picked up the pace. Match report by James Dampney and Ryan Chase. Photos by Craig Golding for Slattery Media.

Jack Redden 

Simon Black

Aaron Cornelius

Matthew Leuenberger

New York City - get fit and make music. For free.

For VMAN, Clark Cord and Matthew Terry show how New York City can provide the means of staying fit and making music, without paying a dime.

Clark "you can go down the street and work out anywhere"

VMAN 23 CLARK ll from V Magazine on Vimeo.

Matthew - shows that the city has a rhythm and beat

VMAN 23 MATT ll from V Magazine on Vimeo.