tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-206472372024-03-13T12:20:39.056+08:00Collectionsa collection of articles of my interest...양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.comBlogger306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-47004324282577243642012-01-17T19:31:00.002+08:002012-01-17T19:31:35.442+08:00Costa Concordia: The rules of evacuating a ship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h1 class="story-header">Costa Concordia: The rules of evacuating a ship</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Tom de Castella</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News Magazine</span> </span> <div class="caption body-width"> <img alt="Costa Concordia" height="261" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57908000/jpg/_57908884_costaconcordia_afpgetty.jpg" width="464" /> </div><div class="embedded-hyper"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16576289#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <div class="hyperpuff"> <h2>Cruise disaster</h2><ul><li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16584591" rel="published-1326735984279">Profile of captain</a> </li>
<li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16575615" rel="published-1326723120211">Industry 'undented'</a> </li>
<li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16582060" rel="published-1326727653840">In pictures</a> </li>
<li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16569063" rel="published-1326648553634">Underwater search</a> </li>
</ul></div></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">It's been suggested women and children were not given priority for lifeboats when the Costa Concordia capsized. But are there rules governing who leaves a sinking ship first?</div>It's a famous moment in the Titanic story. "Women and children first!" went the cry. <br />
It's too early to know exactly what happened in the final hours of the Costa Concordia. The captain has already had to deny allegations he left the ship before everyone had been evacuated. <br />
And it has been reported that some male passengers ignored informal injunctions to wait until women and children had made it into the lifeboats. <br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16576289#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>How did the priority rule begin?</h2><ul><li> This protocol started when HMS Birkenhead sank in 1852</li>
<li> "Women and children first" phrase coined in 1860</li>
<li> RMS Titanic disaster in 1912 popularised the rule</li>
<li> Only 20% of men on board Titanic were saved</li>
<li> It is not a part of international maritime law</li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_2">Edwin Gurd, a retired police chief, told the Times. "We were keen for women and children to go first, and men if they had babies or families. A lot of men regardless of that were trying to save themselves." </div>But is the traditional maxim of women and children going first really part of the maritime rules?<br />
Once passengers board a cruise ship, they are assigned a lifeboat according to where their cabin is, says Rob Ashdown, operations director at the European Cruise Council.<br />
If there is an accident, as is the case with the Concordia hitting the rocks, it is up to the captain to decide whether to abandon ship. To signal the start of an evacuation, a loud alarm sounds ordering people to go to their muster station. <br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16576289#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Costa sinking: How it happened</h2><div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Infographic of the Costa Concordia" height="190" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57919000/gif/_57919421_costa_conc_promo304.gif" width="304" /> </div><ul class="links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16563562">Maps and stats on the grounded cruise ship </a></li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_3">From this point onwards, ships have 30 minutes to load, launch and manoeuvre away the lifeboats, under regulations set down by the International Maritime Organisation. And there is no legal duty to allow women and children to board first, Ashdown says.</div>The evacuation of the troop ship HMS Birkenhead in 1852 is widely believed to be the first occasion of women and children being told to board the lifeboats first. <br />
The ship was carrying nearly 500 troops and about 26 women and children. After the commanding officer's order for the soldiers to wait, all the women and children survived but most of the men died. The phrase "women and children first" is thought to have come later.<br />
But there is one group who may receive preferential treatment today - disabled people with special mobility needs, Ashdown says. <br />
"This idea of women and children first is just a convention there is for historical reasons," he suggests. "It may be appropriate in certain circumstances and cultures and not elsewhere."<br />
When it comes to air travel, the point is immaterial as prioritising women and children in an evacuation would be impractical. <br />
An argument could be made in relation to ships that men are generally likely to be stronger swimmers than women and therefore have a better chance of survival in the water. But today the argument is less about survival chances and more about treating people fairly. <br />
Prof Ed Galea, an evacuation expert at the University of Greenwich, says orderly behaviour among passengers is crucial to a successful evacuation. <br />
<div class="caption"> <img alt="Loss of life headlines" height="224" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57910000/jpg/_57910375_titaniclossoflife_getty.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">The women and children first rule caused more men to die when the Titanic sank</span> </div>And having studied major disaster situations, including interviewing survivors from the World Trade Center, he says that people don't respond to these evacuations in the way that one might think.<br />
"It's not like Hollywood, it's not like every man for himself. People behave quite selflessly. You'll find people screaming and crying but it doesn't mean they are panicking."<br />
Usually people will help the most vulnerable to leave the scene first. It's not necessarily women, but is likely to be the injured, elderly and young children, he says. <br />
It's too early to know in detail what happened during the Concordia evacuation. But it seems that the crew did an "exemplary" job and that most passengers behaved well, Galea says.<br />
The real problem aboard the Concordia was the slowness of the order to "abandon ship", he argues. Crucial minutes were lost after the ship hit the rocks and reports suggest it was only once the ship began to heel that the evacuation began. <br />
Once a ship heels at 20 degrees it becomes difficult to launch the lifeboats and after the Concordia began to tip over it was soon heeling dramatically. <br />
"They had time," Galea says. "But as I understand it the evacuation didn't start until the ship had a serious heel."</div>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-23996732223216769872012-01-17T19:30:00.000+08:002012-01-17T19:30:28.463+08:00Aye aye 'heats up' middle finger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h1 class="story-header">Aye aye 'heats up' middle finger</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Ella Davies</span> <span class="byline-title">Reporter, BBC Nature</span> </span> <div class="caption full-width"> <img alt="The aye aye's cold finger shows up black on thermal images (c) G Moritz / N Dominy" height="351" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57918000/jpg/_57918312_fingercoldonhumanhand2_no-l.jpg" width="624" /> <span style="width: 624px;">Cold finger: the special digit shows up black on thermal images</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16577537#story_continues_1"></a></div><div id="story_continues_1">Madagascar's mysterious aye aye warms up its extra-long finger when searching for dinner, scientists have found.</div>The lemur, the world's largest nocturnal primate, taps its specialised middle finger on tree trunks to find nutritious beetle larvae.<br />
Studying thermal images, researchers found that the digit was colder than the others but warmed by up to 6C during foraging.<br />
Scientists suggest that the aye aye saves energy by keeping the digit cool.<br />
The findings are published in the <a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/587203201g2375q2/">International Journal of Primatology</a>.<br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16577537#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>FINGER FACTS</h2><div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="The aye aye has a delicate middle digit (c) David Haring " height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57918000/jpg/_57918310_ayeaye.jpg" width="304" /> </div><ul><li> The aye aye's middle finger is long and very thin - less than half the width of its other digits</li>
<li> It has a ball and socket joint so it is far more flexible when it comes to extracting grubs from trees</li>
<li> The finger is also used for grooming, scraping out coconuts and drinking. The animal uses it to move water or nectar rapidly into its mouth</li>
</ul><ul class="links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Aye-aye#p00bf1hs">Watch the aye aye's finger in action</a></li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_2">The team from Dartmouth University in New Hampshire, US, wanted to investigate the surface temperature of sensitive structures.</div>The aye aye's unusual middle finger has already been found to be super-sensitive to vibrations, so provided the perfect subject for their study. <br />
"It was striking to see how much cooler the third digit was while not in use and how quickly it warmed to [match] the other digits when engaged in an active foraging task," said graduate student Gillian Moritz, who carried out the study under the guidance of her supervisor, Dr Nathaniel Dominy.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Black and white</span> When not in use, the finger appeared black on thermal images. This indicated a large difference in temperature between it and the white (hot) ears and eyes.<br />
But when the animal was looking for food, the finger rose in temperature by up to 6C.<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="The finger is hot as it probes a boiled egg (c) G Moritz / N Dominy" height="224" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57920000/jpg/_57920431_finger-hot-edit2.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">The finger heats up as it probes a food source</span> </div>"We think the relatively cooler temperatures of the digit when not in use could be related to its [long, thin] form," said Ms Moritz.<br />
"This form results in a relatively high surface-to-volume ratio [but] such a ratio is bad for retaining heat."<br />
In order to sense the vibrations of beetle larvae through the bark of a tree, the finger is "packed with sensitive nerve endings", the scientist explained.<br />
Because of its specialist sense receptors, using this tapping tool is very costly in terms of energy.<br />
"Like any delicate instrument, it is probably best deactivated when not in use," Ms Moritz told BBC Nature.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Kink in the flow</span> The question of how the lemur controls the heat of a single digit remains unclear.<br />
Ms Moritz suggested two explanations. The first was simply that the blood vessels that supplied the digit could be constricted or dilated. <br />
The second more unusual possibility, she said, was that the creature might employ temperature control method that was linked to the flexibility of its finger.<br />
Ms Moritz explained: "Because the finger is fragile and vulnerable to injury, it is often extended back and out of the way during locomotion and periods of inactivity," she said.<br />
This extension could cause a "kink" in the artery that supplies warm blood to the digit.<br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16577537#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">Like any delicate instrument, it is probably best deactivated when not in use”</div></blockquote><span class="quote-credit">Gillian Moritz</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Dartmouth University</span> </div><div id="story_continues_3">In the same way a bent garden hose supplies less water, the artery could supply less blood, keeping the finger much colder than its fully supplied neighbouring digits.</div>Aye ayes are the only primates known to have this strange adaptation.<br />
The species is listed as Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), mainly because of threats to its habitat. <br />
But the odd-looking primate also suffers direct persecution. Superstition in Madagascar describes the species as a bad omen. Those that are pointed at by the creature's mysterious finger are said to meet their death.</div>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-6927264648406612102011-11-08T22:02:00.000+08:002011-11-08T22:02:14.580+08:00Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h6 class="kicker">Aneyoshi Journal</h6><h1 class="articleHeadline">Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone</h1><div class="articleSpanImage"><img alt="" border="0" height="330" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/21/world/21stonesspan/21stones-articleLarge.jpg" width="600" /> <div class="credit">Ko Sasaki for The New York Times</div><div class="caption">A stone tablet in Aneyoshi, Japan, warns residents not to build homes below it. Hundreds of these so-called tsunami stones, some more than six centuries old, dot the coast of Japan. </div></div><h6 class="byline">By <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/martin_fackler/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Martin Fackler">MARTIN FACKLER</a></h6><h6 class="dateline">Published: April 20, 2011 </h6><div class="articleTools" id="articleToolsTop"> <div class="box"> <div class="inset"><br />
</div></div></div><div class="articleBody"> ANEYOSHI, Japan — The stone tablet has stood on this forested hillside since before they were born, but the villagers have faithfully obeyed the stark warning carved on its weathered face: “Do not build your homes below this point!” <br />
</div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft"> <div class="columnGroup doubleRule"> </div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="margin-top: -11px;"> <h6 class="sectionHeader flushBottom">Multimedia</h6></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft firstArticleInline" style="background-color: transparent; height: auto; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: 0pt; width: 190px;"> <div class="story expandAssetContainer" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; cursor: pointer; height: 126px; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; top: 0px; width: 190px; z-index: 0;"> <div class="thumbnailContainer"> <div class="wideThumb"> <img alt="" border="0" height="126" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/20/multimedia/video-tc-042011-japan/video-tc-042011-japan-thumbWide.jpg" width="190" /> </div><h6><a class="video" href="">TimesCast | Warnings Written in Stone</a></h6></div><div class="assetContainer" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; height: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; opacity: 0; width: 0pt;"> </div></div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft"> <div class="columnGroup doubleRule"> <h3 class="sectionHeader">Related</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush"><li> <h6><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21japan.html?ref=asia"> Japan Prohibits Access to Nuclear Evacuation Zone</a> (April 21, 2011) </h6></li>
</ul></div><div class="inlineImage module"> <div class="image"> <div class="icon enlargeThis"><a href="">Enlarge This Image</a></div><a href=""> <img alt="" height="127" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/21/world/21stones2/21stones2-articleInline.jpg" width="190" /> </a> </div><h6 class="credit">Ko Sasaki for The New York Times</h6><div class="caption">Tamishige Kimura, village leader of Aneyoshi, Japan, took a walk with his grandson this week. </div></div></div><div class="inlineLeft" id="readerscomment"> <h3>Readers’ Comments</h3><div class="content"><br />
</div></div>Residents say this injunction from their ancestors kept their tiny village of 11 households safely out of reach of the deadly tsunami last month that wiped out hundreds of miles of Japanese coast and rose to record heights near here. The waves stopped just 300 feet below the stone. <br />
“They knew the horrors of tsunamis, so they erected that stone to warn us,” said Tamishige Kimura, 64, the village leader of Aneyoshi. <br />
Hundreds of so-called tsunami stones, some more than six centuries old, dot the coast of <a class="meta-loc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Japan.">Japan</a>, silent testimony to the past destruction that these lethal waves have frequented upon this earthquake-prone nation. But modern Japan, confident that advanced technology and higher seawalls would protect vulnerable areas, came to forget or ignore these ancient warnings, dooming it to repeat bitter experiences when the recent tsunami struck. <br />
“The tsunami stones are warnings across generations, telling descendants to avoid the same suffering of their ancestors,” said Itoko Kitahara, a specialist in the history of natural disasters at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. “Some places heeded these lessons of the past, but many didn’t.” <br />
The flat stones, some as tall as 10 feet, are a common sight along Japan’s northeastern shore, which bore the brunt of the magnitude-9.0 <a href="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2011/usc0001xgp/" title="U.S.G.S. information on the earthquake.">earthquake and tsunami</a> on March 11 that left almost 29,000 people dead or missing. <br />
While some are so old that the characters are worn away, most were erected about a century ago after two deadly tsunamis here, including <a href="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1896_06_15.php" title="More on the 1896 tsunami from U.S.G.S.">one in 1896</a> that killed 22,000 people. Many carry simple warnings to drop everything and seek higher ground after a strong earthquake. Others provide grim reminders of the waves’ destructive force by listing past death tolls or marking mass graves. <br />
Some stones were swept away by last month’s tsunami, which scientists say was the largest to strike Japan since the Jogan earthquake in 869, whose waves left sand deposits miles inland. <br />
Aneyoshi’s tsunami stone is the only one that specifically tells where to build houses. But many of the region’s names also seem to indicate places safely out of the waves’ reach, like Nokoriya, or Valley of Survivors, and Namiwake, or Wave’s Edge, a spot three miles from the ocean that scholars say marks the farthest reach of a tsunami in 1611. <br />
Local scholars said only a handful of villages like Aneyoshi heeded these old warnings by keeping their houses safely on high ground. More commonly, the stones and other warnings were disregarded as coastal towns grew in the boom years after World War II. Even communities that had moved to high ground eventually relocated to the seaside to be nearer their boats and nets. <br />
“As time passes, people inevitably forget, until another tsunami comes that kills 10,000 more people,” said Fumio Yamashita, an amateur historian in Iwate Prefecture, where Aneyoshi is situated. He has written 10 books about tsunamis. <br />
Mr. Yamashita, 87, who survived the recent tsunami by clinging to a curtain after waters flooded the hospital where he was bedridden, said Japan had neglected to teach its tsunami lore in schools. He said the nation had put too much store instead in new tsunami walls and other modern concrete barriers, which the waves easily overwhelmed last month. <br />
Still, he and other local experts said that the stones and other old teachings did contribute to the overall awareness of tsunamis, as seen in the annual evacuation drills that many credit with keeping the death toll from rising even higher last month. <br />
In Aneyoshi, the tsunami stone states that “high dwellings ensure the peace and happiness of our descendants.” Mr. Kimura, the village leader, called the inscriptions “a rule from our ancestors, which no one in Aneyoshi dares break.” <br />
The four-foot-high stone stands beside the only road of the small village, which lies in a narrow, cedar-filled valley leading to the ocean. Downhill from the stone, a blue line has been newly painted on the road, marking the edge of the tsunami’s advance. <br />
Last week, a university group said the waves reached their greatest height in Aneyoshi: 127.6 feet, surpassing Japan’s previous record of 125.3 feet reached elsewhere in Iwate Prefecture by the 1896 tsunami. <br />
Just below the painted line, the valley quickly turns into a scene of total destruction, with its walls shorn of trees and soil, leaving only naked rock. Nothing is left of the village’s small fishing harbor except the huge blocks of its shattered wave walls, which lie strewn across the small bay. <br />
Mr. Kimura, a fisherman who lost his boat in the tsunami, said the village first moved its dwellings uphill after the 1896 tsunami, which left only two survivors. Aneyoshi was repopulated and moved back to the shore a few years later, only to be devastated again by a tsunami in 1933 that left four survivors. <br />
After that, the village was moved uphill for good, and the stone was placed. Mr. Kimura said none of the 34 residents in the village today know who set up the stone, which they credit with saving the village once before, from a tsunami in 1960. <br />
“That tsunami stone was a way to warn descendants for the next 100 years that another tsunami will definitely come,” he said. <br />
For most Japanese today, the stones appear relics of a bygone era, whose language can often seem impenetrably archaic. However, some experts say the stones have inspired them to create new monuments that can serve as tsunami warnings, but are more suited to a visual era of Internet and television. <br />
One idea, put forth by a group of researchers, calls for preserving some of the buildings ruined by the recent tsunami to serve as permanent reminders of the waves’ destructive power, much as the skeletal <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/775" title="Information from Unesco on the dome.">Atomic Bomb Dome</a> in Hiroshima warns against nuclear war. <br />
“We need a modern version of the tsunami stones,” said Masayuki Oishi, a geologist at the Iwate Prefectural Museum in Morioka. <br />
Despite Aneyoshi’s survival, the residents are in no mood for rejoicing. Four of the village’s residents died last month: a mother and her three small children who were swept away in their car in a neighboring town. <br />
The mother, Mihoko Aneishi, 36, had rushed to take her children out of school right after the earthquake. Then she made the fatal mistake of driving back through low-lying areas just as the tsunami hit. <br />
The village’s mostly older residents said they regretted not making more of an effort to teach younger residents such tsunami-survival basics as always to seek higher ground. <br />
“We are proud of following our ancestors,” the children’s grandfather, Isamu Aneishi, 69, said, “but our tsunami stone can’t save us from everything.</div>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-9852188905639616112011-10-30T12:53:00.002+08:002011-10-30T12:53:37.348+08:00The only living master of a dying martial art<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h1 class="story-header">The only living master of a dying martial art</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Stephanie Hegarty</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC World Service</span> </span> <div class="caption full-width"> <img alt="Nidar Singh Nihang with weapons" height="510" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56339000/gif/_56339409_sikh_warrior624x510.gif" width="624" /> </div><div class="embedded-hyper"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15480741#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <div class="hyperpuff"> <h2><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine/">In today's Magazine</a></h2><ul><li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15470903" rel="published-1319931361523">The myth of the War of the Worlds panic</a> </li>
<li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15486080" rel="published-1319838380784">The challenges of doing business in Venezuela</a> </li>
<li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15486720" rel="published-1319832716684">Scientists glimpse inside a Peruvian mummy</a> </li>
<li> <a class="story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15449959" rel="published-1319756896491">Population control: Is it a tool of the rich?</a> </li>
</ul></div></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">A former factory worker from the British Midlands may be the last living master of the centuries-old Sikh battlefield art of shastar vidya. The father of four is now engaged in a full-time search for a successor.</div>The basis of shastar vidya, the "science of weapons" is a five-step movement: advance on the opponent, hit his flank, deflect incoming blows, take a commanding position and strike.<br />
It was developed by Sikhs in the 17th Century as the young religion came under attack from hostile Muslim and Hindu neighbours, and has been known to a dwindling band since the British forced Sikhs to give up arms in the 19th Century.<br />
Nidar Singh, a 44-year-old former food packer from Wolverhampton, is now thought to be the only remaining master. He has many students, but shastar vidya takes years to learn and a commitment in time and energy that doesn't suit modern lifestyles.<br />
"I've travelled all over India and I have spoken to many elders, this is basically a last-ditch attempt to flush someone out because if I die with it, it is all gone."<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Nidar Singh Nihang" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56352000/jpg/_56352032_sikh2_464.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Mr Singh is searching India and Pakistan for a young successor</span> </div>He would be overjoyed to discover an existing master somewhere in India, or to find a talented young student determined to dedicate his life to the art.<br />
Until he was 17 years old, he knew little of his Sikh heritage. His family were not religious - he wore his hair short and dressed like any British teenager. He was a keen wrestler, but knew nothing of martial arts.<br />
He spent his childhood between Punjab and Wolverhampton and it was on one of these trips to see an aunt in India that he met Baba Mohinder Singh, the old man who was to become his master.<br />
Already in his early 80s, Baba Mohinder Singh had abandoned life as a hermit in a final effort to find someone to pass on his knowledge to.<br />
"When he saw my physique he looked at me, even though I was clean-shaven and he asked me: 'Do you want to learn how to fight'," recalls Nidar Singh. "I couldn't say no."<br />
On his first day of training, the frail old man handed him a stick and instructed Mr Singh to hit him. When he tried, the master threw him around like a rag doll.<br />
"He was a frail old man chucking me about and I couldn't touch him," he says. "That definitely impressed me."<br />
<strong>Open-minded</strong><br />
Mr Singh spent the next 11 years on his aunt's farm, milking the buffalos in the morning and spending every day training with his master. <br />
In 1995 he returned to Britain to get married and took work packing food in a factory. He began to teach shastar vidya and immersed himself in research on early Sikh military history.<br />
Soon he had enough interest from students to go into teaching full-time. He now travels around the UK to teach classes and to Canada and Germany where eager students have asked him to share his knowledge. <br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15480741#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>History of shastar vidya</h2><div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Sikh weapon" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56347000/jpg/_56347293_sword_304.jpg" width="304" /> </div><ul><li> When Sikh leader Guru Arjan Dev was murdered by the Mughal emperor in 1606, his son Guru Hargobind set out to militarise the Sikh people </li>
<li> Men were instructed to carry arms - including the kara (iron bracelet) and kirpan (small blade) still worn by orthodox Sikhs today</li>
<li> Hair was worn long and wrapped around the head to protect the skull</li>
<li> Hargobind also set up schools to train an elite warrior caste called the Akali Nihang, the immortal crocodiles, which developed secret fighting techniques</li>
<li> They also adopted a unique belief system with the martial art as a main tenet of their faith</li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_2">"The people who are here are open-minded," he says. "I have Muslims and Christians here as well as Sikhs."</div>But even his most advanced pupils have only recently reached the stage where they can fight him with weapons without getting hurt. <br />
Shastar vidya often gets confused with Gatka, a stick-fighting technique that was developed during British occupation of Punjab and was widely practised among Sikh soldiers in the British army. <br />
Though it is a highly skilled art it was developed for exhibition rather than mortal combat. It is much easier to practise in public.<br />
By working to revive a culture and practice that left the mainstream more than 200 years ago, Mr Singh has come up against a lot of resistance from within the Sikh community. <br />
He says he received 84 death threats in his first two years as a teacher, from other Sikh groups who disagree with the ideology of shastar vidya and the beliefs of the small Nihang sect, which he identifies with.<br />
"It is not just martial technique, there is a lot of oral tradition and linguistic skills that has to be there as well," he explains.<br />
Nihangs still maintain some tenets of the Hindu faith, they have three scriptures rather than one and these extra books contain influences from Hinduism. <br />
Many Nihangs also eat meat and drink alcohol which fundamentalist Sikhs disagree with. Traditionally they also drank bhang, an infusion of cannabis, to get closer to God. <br />
"Sikhism has gone through several stage of evolution," says Christopher Shackle , a former professor of South Asian studies at Soas, University of London. "When the Nihangs were formed at the end of the 17th Century they were a very powerful group but they became rather marginalised." <br />
<div class="caption"> <img alt="Akali Nihang soldier" height="299" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56345000/jpg/_56345704_akalinihang1865toorcollection.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">An Akali Nihang soldier in 1865</span> </div>When the Sikhs established their own kingdom under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he realised he needed a modern army to keep the British out, and he hired ex-Napoleonic officers to train up his soldiers, sidelining the Nihangs. <br />
The Nihangs were further isolated when the British Raj defeated the Sikh state in 1849 and forced Sikhs to give up arms.<br />
"The British introduced a shoot-to-kill policy," says weapons collector and historian Davinder Tool, adding that accounts of British army officers show some troops fired on any man with a blue turban and a firearm.<br />
"There is a sense that the Nihang's got left behind by time," says Mr Shackle.<br />
Mr Singh spends a lot of time travelling to India and Pakistan researching the art, searching for descendents of the Akali Nihang and adding to his vast collection of weapons.<br />
So far he has only met four people who could claim to be masters, now all dead. The last of these, Ram Singh, whom he met in 1998, died four years later.<br />
"Nidar Singh is like someone who has walked straight out of the 18th Century," says Parmjit Singh, who has worked on several books on Nihang culture with the master.<br />
"He is like a window into the past."<br />
He is also still hoping to be a door to the future, opening up the path for new practitioners of the art to follow.</div>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-75145237846527848992011-09-10T21:37:00.002+08:002011-09-10T21:37:33.412+08:00Fish living in dark caves still feel the rhythm of life<h1 class="story-header">Fish living in dark caves still feel the rhythm of life</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Leila Battison</span> <span class="byline-title">Science reporter</span> </span> <div class="caption body-width"> <img alt="Phreatichthys andruzzii (Saulo Bambi)" height="261" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55242000/jpg/_55242842_plbi-09-09-bertolucci.jpg" width="464" /> <span style="width: 464px;">Millions of years of evolution in the dark have led to this Somalian cavefish losing its eyes, scales, and pigmentation.</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14844053#story_continues_1"></a></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">A blind, cave-dwelling fish in Somalia knows what time it is, but its "day" is twice as long as ours.</div>Most animals have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, that lasts around 24 hours and is modified by the light-dark cycle of a day. <br />
But an international team, whose research is <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001142">published in the open access journal PloS Biology</a>, shows that certain blind cave fish have a circadian rhythm that lasts almost two days.<br />
The cavefish, <em>Phreatichthys andruzzii</em>, has evolved for nearly two million years in the isolated darkness of caves beneath the Somalian desert.<br />
Professor Nick Foulkes, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, said that this particular species was chosen "because it was such an extreme example, having been isolated from a day-night cycle for so long". <br />
In the course of its evolution it has lost its eyes, colouration and scales, having no need for them in the pitch-black of an underground cave system. <br />
But it appears that the absence of day and night has caused a much more profound change in the fish's life rhythm.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Light sensitivity</span> The internal body clock of most mammals is slightly longer than 24 hours, although it is unique for each person and is modified by light. <br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14844053#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">If we look again at them in a few million years, they may have no trace of a circadian rhythm”</div></blockquote><span class="quote-credit">Nick Foulkes</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Karlsruhe Institute of Technology</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">This is most obvious to us when we travel across time zones, as jet lag is caused by the delay in our circadian rhythm synchronising with the new daylight times. </div>On a smaller scale, the body clock can be measured by the switching on and off of certain "clock genes" at different times during the day. This happens automatically daily, but is synchronised with the day-night cycle through exposure to light.<br />
Light is detected primarily by the eyes, but most cells in the body have some reaction to light levels. In non-mammalian animals, such as fish, these "peripheral" detectors play a more important role.<br />
This means that, even though the cavefish have lost their eyes over the course of evolution, their bodies should still be able to react to changes in light. <br />
When comparing the reactions of the circadian rhythm of the cavefish to those of a "normal" zebrafish, however, the blind fish showed none of the responses to external light changes that the zebrafish did.<br />
After two million years in the dark, the cavefish have no need to react to the light, and their body clocks have permanently changed to reflect this.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Alternative triggers</span> But these blind fish do still have a body clock, which can be reset by triggers other than light.<br />
Feeding the fish at regular times showed that both the zebrafish and the cavefish responded by resetting their circadian rhythms. <br />
Furthermore, when the cavefish were left to reset their clock according to their natural rhythm, the researchers found that their "day" is 47 hours long. <br />
Professor Foulkes said that this was "possibly linked with food availability, or we could have caught them in the process of losing their clocks. If we look again at them in a few million years, they may have no trace of a circadian rhythm".<br />
The team plans to investigate whether this gradual loss of body clock is a common feature among all species of fish living in perpetual darkness.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-7320651772870633022011-05-29T17:36:00.000+08:002011-05-29T17:36:07.047+08:00Toronto couple defend move to keep baby's sex secret27 May 2011 Last updated at 19:02 GM<br />
<h1 class="story-header">Toronto couple defend move to keep baby's sex secret</h1><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="David Stocker and Storm" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53041000/gif/_53041214_nm0iu8gy.gif" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Mr Stocker and Ms Witterick say the decision to keep Storm's sex a secret was "a tribute to freedom"</span> </div><div class="introduction">A Toronto couple are defending their decision to keep their infant's sex a secret in order to allow the child to develop his or her own gender identity.</div>Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have been widely criticised for imposing their ideology on four-month-old Storm.<br />
The family were the subject of a <a href="http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/babiespregnancy/babies/article/995112">recent profile in the Toronto Star</a> newspaper.<br />
In an e-mail, Ms Witterick wrote that the idea that "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe, and voyeuristic".<br />
Ms Witterick, 38, and Mr Stocker, 39, have also been criticised for the manner in which they are raising their two sons Jazz, five, and Kio, two.<br />
The boys are encouraged to choose their own clothing and hairstyles - even if that means wearing girls' clothes - and to challenge gender norms. Jazz wears his hair in long braids, and the boys are "almost exclusively assumed to be girls," Mr Stocker told the Toronto Star.<br />
The child's grandparents do not know Storm's sex, the Toronto Star reported, and have grown weary of explaining the situation, but are supportive.<br />
In an e-mail to the Associated Press news agency, Ms Witterick, a stay-at-home mother, said a four-month-old infant was still learning to recognise him or herself, and said it was inappropriate to impose a gender identity on the child.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-71452825585839256402011-05-29T17:09:00.000+08:002011-05-29T17:09:41.830+08:00What Paddington tells us about German v British manners26 May 2011 Last updated at 10:14 GMT <br />
<h1 class="story-header">What Paddington tells us about German v British manners</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Stephen Evans</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News, Berlin</span> </span> <br />
<div class="caption body-width"><img alt="Paddington Bear with marmalade sandwich in hand, about to board a train at Paddington station" height="261" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53004000/jpg/_53004315_paddingtonbear_getty.jpg" width="464" /> <span style="width: 464px;">Paddington stories reveal a lot about this cultural difference</span> </div><div class="introduction">Are Germans ruder than the British? Are Britons more dishonest than Germans? Fortunately, we don't have to rely on blind prejudice for answers. Serious academic research has been done on both sides of the North Sea.</div><div class="story-feature narrow"><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386#story_continues_1"></a> <br />
<h2 class="quote">“Start Quote</h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">'Hallo Mrs Bird,' said Judy. 'How's the rheumatism?'”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">This doesn't appear in German editions of A Bear called Paddington</span> </div><div id="story_continues_1">There are Britons in Berlin who get taken aback by the directness of Germans. And there are Germans who get really annoyed when Britons (and Americans), in an effort to appear friendly, say things they don't really mean. Some Germans call this "lying".</div>So, what do the experts say on the matter?<br />
Professor Juliane House, of the University of Hamburg, has studied groups of people interacting in controlled situations, watching with academic rigour how they behave as human guinea-pigs. <br />
She found (or verified) that Germans really don't do small talk, those little phrases so familiar to the British about the weather or a person's general well-being, but which she describes as "empty verbiage". <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="German fan at Eurovision" height="228" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53004000/jpg/_53004314_011977886-1.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">There is no word in German for "small talk" </span> </div>In academic language, this is "phatic" conversation - it's not meant to convey hard information but to perform some social function, such as making people feel good.<br />
The German language doesn't even have an expression for "small talk", she says. It is so alien that in the German translation of A Bear called Paddington - Paddington unser kleiner Baer - it was omitted.<br />
So this exchange of small talk occurs in the English original: "'Hallo Mrs Bird,' said Judy. 'It's nice to see you again. How's the rheumatism?' 'Worse than it's ever been' began Mrs. Bird."<br />
In the German edition, this passage is simply cut. <br />
Might a German talk about the weather, then? <br />
<div class="caption"><img alt="Union flag bedecked fans at Eurovision Song Contest" height="329" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53004000/jpg/_53004312_011986232-1.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">But small talk is a staple of social interaction in the UK</span> </div>"In a lift or a doctor's waiting room, talk about the weather in German? I don't think so," she says. <br />
So does that mean the British are more polite? No, just different.<br />
For their part, the British have what House calls the "etiquette of simulation". The British feign an interest in someone. They pretend to want to meet again when they don't really. They simulate concern.<br />
Saying things like "It's nice to meet you" are rarely meant the way they are said, she says. "It's just words. It's simulating interest in the other person."<br />
From a German perspective, this is uncomfortably close to deceit.<br />
"Some people say that the British and Americans lie when they say things like that. It's not a lie. It's lubricating social life. It's always nice to say things like that even if you don't mean them," says House.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Blunt or direct?</span> For Britons it's German directness that most often gives rise to bafflement or even fury. House, who married a Scouser - a native of Liverpool - gives an example from her own experience.<br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386#story_continues_2"></a> <br />
<h2 class="quote">“Start Quote</h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">There seem to be one or two problems here”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">How a Briton might raise a serious concern</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">She would tell her husband to bring something from another part of the house - without the British lardings of "would you mind...?" or "could you do me a favour...?" </div>He would hear this as an abrupt - and rude - command. <br />
This gap between German directness and British indirectness is the source of much miscommunication, says Professor Derek Bousfield, the head of linguistics at the University of Central Lancashire, and one of the editors of the Journal of Politeness Research.<br />
There are many documented cases where the British understate a very serious problem with phrases like "there seem to be one or two problems here" or "there seems to be a little bit of an issue with this", he says. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Spectator dressed as Grim Reaper at cycling road race" height="228" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52988000/jpg/_52988282_012037976-1.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">British understatement might note that the Grim Reaper can rather spoil the mood</span> </div>A British listener knows there is a gap between what is said and what is meant - and this can be a source of humour, as when the Grim Reaper's arrival at a dinner party in Monty Python's Meaning of Life "casts rather a gloom" over the evening. <br />
Sometimes it's endearing, or at least the British think it is, as when this announcement was made by British Airways pilot Eric Moody in 1982, after flying through a cloud of volcanic ash over Indonesia: <br />
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."<br />
But it can also be confusing if you're not used to it. <br />
When BMW bought the British car manufacturer, Rover, it took a while for the seriousness of some of the problems at Rover to sink in. All too often, British managers spoke in euphemisms that their German counterparts took at face value.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Beach towels at dawn</span> Both professors reject the idea that one nation's manners are better than the other's. Each has its own rules of communication, or patterns of behaviour, and neither can be blamed, they say, when clashes occur.<br />
<div class="caption"><img alt="Sunloungers on a beach in Mauritius" height="224" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52988000/jpg/_52988284_003662266-1.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Reserved your sun-lounger yet?</span> </div>What about those sun-loungers - the seats by the pool, which German holidaymakers allegedly grab at the crack of dawn?<br />
"I think what you've got there is a clash of prototypical German efficiency with the prototypical British sense of fair play," says Bousfield.<br />
House reckons the British do get the sun-loungers in the end, by one means or another.<br />
"The British want the sun-lounger, but they do it differently," she says.<br />
"Are the British devious? Yes, but why should you directly go for something if it doesn't work? Devious is not a bad thing."양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-76935758898315134802011-05-29T17:05:00.000+08:002011-05-29T17:05:26.130+08:00Cosmic distance record 'broken'25 May 2011 Last updated at 18:12 GMT <br />
<h1 class="story-header">Cosmic distance record 'broken'</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Jonathan Amos</span> <span class="byline-title">Science correspondent, BBC News </span> </span> <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="GRB 090429B (Nasa/Swift/S.Immler)" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52953000/jpg/_52953494_grb090429b_xrt_labelsforweb.jpg" width="304" /><br />
<span style="width: 304px;">The blast may have occurred a mere 520 million years after the Big Bang</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">A cataclysmic explosion of a huge star near the edge of the observable Universe may be the most distant single object yet spied by a telescope.</div>Scientists believe the blast, which was detected by Nasa's Swift space observatory, occurred a mere 520 million years after the Big Bang.<br />
This means its light has taken a staggering 13.14 billion years to reach Earth.<br />
Details of the discovery will appear shortly in the Astrophysical Journal.<br />
The event, which was picked up by Swift in April 2009, is referred to by astronomers using the designation GRB 090429B.<br />
The "GRB" stands for "gamma-ray burst" - a sudden pulse of very high-energy light that the telescope is tuned to find on the sky.<br />
These bursts are usually associated with extremely violent processes, such as the end-of-life collapse of giant stars.<br />
"It would have been a huge star, perhaps 30 times the mass of our Sun," said lead researcher Dr Antonino Cucchiara from the University of California, Berkeley.<br />
"We do not have enough information to claim this was one of the so-called 'Population III" stars, which are the very first generation of stars in the Universe. But certainly we are in the earliest phases of star formation," he told BBC News.<br />
Swift, as its name implies, has to act quickly to catch gamma-ray flashes because they will register for only a few minutes.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Record breaker</span> Fortunately, an afterglow at longer wavelengths will persist sometimes for days, which allows follow-up observations by other telescopes that can then determine distance.<br />
It was this afterglow analysis that established another burst in the week previous to GRB 090429B to be at a separation from Earth of 13.04 billion light-years, making it temporarily the "most distant object in the Universe".<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Swift artist impression (Nasa)" height="405" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52955000/jpg/_52955317_52955316.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">The event was picked up in April 2009 by Nasa's Swift telescope</span> </div>This other event (GRB 090423) was reported fairly soon after its occurrence, but it has taken astronomers two years to come back with a confident assessment that an even greater expanse lies between Earth and GRB 090429B.<br />
There are other competing candidates for the title of "most distant object". Hubble, for example, was given much more powerful instruments during its final astronaut servicing mission in 2009, and teams working on new images from the famous space telescope have seen galaxies that look not far short of GRB 090429B - and potentially even further out. <br />
It should be stated, of course, that in these sorts of observations, there is always a degree of uncertainty. <br />
Hubble's targets were galaxies - collections of stars; and GRB 090429B is the signature of a single event, a single star. So, in that sense, it might be considered apart.<br />
Scientists are very keen to probe these great distances because they will learn how the early Universe evolved, and that will help them explain why the cosmos looks the way it does now.<br />
They are particularly keen to trace the very first populations of stars. These hot, blue giants would have grown out of the cold neutral gas that pervaded the young cosmos.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Brilliant but brief</span> These behemoths would have burnt brilliant but brief lives, producing the very first heavy elements.<br />
Their intense ultra-violet light would also have "fried" the neutral gas around them - ripping electrons off atoms - to produce the diffuse intergalactic plasma we still detect between nearby stars today. <br />
<div class="story-feature wide "><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13539914#story_continues_2"></a> <br />
<h2>A GAMMA-RAY BURST RECIPE</h2><div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Impression of a star explosion (ESO/A. Roquette)" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52994000/jpg/_52994752_gammarayburst.jpg" width="304" /> </div><ul><li> Models assume GRBs arise when giant stars burn out and collapse</li>
<li> During collapse, super-fast jets of matter burst out from the stars</li>
<li> Collisions occur with gas already shed by the dying behemoths</li>
<li> The interaction generates the energetic signals detected by Swift</li>
<li> Remnants of the huge stars end their days as black holes</li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_2">So, apart from its status as a potential record-breaker, GRB 090429B is of intense interest because it is embedded directly in this time period - the "epoch of re-ionisation", as astronomers call it.</div>Whether GRB 090429B was one of the very first stars to shine in the Universe is doubtful, as Dr Cucchiara states. There may be several generations before it. <br />
But Swift will keep looking, and it is ideally suited for the purpose, explains co-researcher Dr Paul O'Brien from the University of Leicester, UK. <br />
"By finding the most distant objects we get an estimate, of course, of when the first objects formed," he told BBC News. "But then if you can find a location on the sky - in this case of a single star - you can go and look for the galaxy this object is presumably in, and you can start to study the very first galaxies. <br />
"Because gamma-rays can get right through dust, this gives you a good, unbiased way of finding those first galaxies. One could just find very bright galaxies, whereas Swift means we can find the smaller galaxies, too. It was all of these objects that grew up to form the Universe we see around us today. If you think in terms of a human lifespan, it's about understanding what the Universe was like as a toddler."<br />
The Swift mission was launched in 2004. It is a US space agency-managed venture but has a big UK and Italian contribution.<br />
Britain's major input has been to provide an X-ray camera and core elements of the satellite's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope.<br />
<div class="caption full-width"><img alt="GRB 090429B (Gemini Observatory /AURA / Levan, Tanvir, Cucchiara)" height="200" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52955000/jpg/_52955535_yo.jpg" width="624" /> <span style="width: 624px;">Observations made at longer wavelengths - as in this infrared image of GRB 090429B taken by the Gemini North Telescope - are used to work out the distance</span> </div>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-49880435699877356812011-05-26T02:28:00.000+08:002011-05-26T02:28:34.839+08:00'Rapture' apocalypse prediction sparks atheist reaction<h1 class="story-header">'Rapture' apocalypse prediction sparks atheist reaction</h1><div class="has-icon-comment dna-comment-count-simple"><span class="dna-comment-count-number"></span><span class="gvl3-icon gvl3-icon-comment"></span> </div><div class="caption"> <img alt="File photo of Harold Camping" height="282" src="http://64.19.142.10/news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52859000/jpg/_52859068_52859067.jpg" width="226" /> <span style="width: 226px;">Harold Camping says he will spend Saturday at home in California</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> </div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">US atheists are holding parties in response to an evangelical broadcaster's prediction that Saturday will be "judgement day".</div>The Rapture After Party in North Carolina - "the best damned party in NC" - is among the planned events. <br />
Harold Camping, 89, predicts that Jesus Christ will return to earth on Saturday and true believers will be swept up, or "raptured", to heaven.<br />
He has used broadcasts and billboards to publicise his ideas.<br />
He says biblical texts indicate that a giant earthquake on Saturday will mark the start of the world's destruction, and that by 21 October all non-believers will be dead.<br />
Mr Camping has predicted an apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage.<br />
"We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people," says a text on the website of Mr Camping's network, Family Radio Worldwide. <br />
"On the first day of the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011) they will be caught up (raptured) into Heaven because God had great mercy for them." <br />
<span class="cross-head">'Countdown to back-pedalling'</span> The Rapture After Party in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is a two-day event organised by the Central North Carolina Atheists and Humanists. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Promoters of Harold Camping's prediction in New York, 13 May 2011" height="171" src="http://64.19.142.13/news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52859000/jpg/_52859163_52859162.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">This prediction has been given an unusually high level of publicity</span> </div>"Though the absurdity of this claim is obvious to the majority of the world, it's a great opportunity to highlight some of the most bizarre beliefs often put forth by religious fundamentalists and raise awareness of the need for reason," said a posting about the party on the group's website.<br />
Atheists in Tacoma, Washington, have headed their celebration "countdown to back-pedalling".<br />
Events were also due to take place in Texas, Florida and California.<br />
An atheist and entrepreneur from New Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.<br />
He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture. <br />
They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."<br />
<span class="cross-head">'No Plan B'</span> Meanwhile Mr Camping says he knows "without any shadow of a doubt" that "judgement day" is arriving.<br />
There is no "Plan B", he says.<br />
His campaign has been unusually widely promoted - both in the US and overseas, including in the Middle East. <br />
In Vietnam, thousands of members of the Hmong ethnic minority gathered near the border with Laos earlier this month to await the 21 May event, the Associated Press reported.<br />
He said rolling earthquakes would occur at 1800 in the world's various time zones.<br />
The internet has been alive with reactions as the apocalypse failed to materialise in various countries.<br />
One early posting on Twitter read: "Harold Camping's 21st May Doomsday prediction fails; No earthquake in New Zealand."양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-86654817538825125572011-05-19T02:13:00.002+08:002011-05-19T02:13:29.955+08:00Rare window into life of tsarist Russia6 December 2010 Last updated at 01:06 GMT <br />
<h1 class="story-header">Rare window into life of tsarist Russia</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Imogen Foulkes</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News, Geneva</span> </span> <br />
<div class="caption full-width"><img alt="Letters, photos and drawings from the court of Tsar Alexander III" height="260" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50289000/gif/_50289024_thousandsofletters,photosanddrawingswerediscoveredinagenevaattic.gif" width="466" /> <span style="width: 466px;">Thousands of letters, photos and drawings have been discovered in Geneva</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11913509#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <br />
<h2>Related stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11297475">Tsar's memorial church burns down</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7645776.stm">Russia's last tsar rehabilitated</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1113655.stm">Russia timeline</a></li>
</ul></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">A rare window into life in imperial Russia is due to open on Monday, when hundreds of letters, postcards, photographs and even menus from the court of Tsar Alexander III are put up for auction in Geneva.</div>The documents were all sent by Alexander's children, Nicholas (who later became Nicholas II), George, Michael, Olga and Xenia to their Swiss tutor Ferdinand Thormeyer.<br />
Mr Thormeyer was born and brought up in Geneva, but emigrated to Russia as a young man where - in 1886 - he became a tutor of French language and literature to the imperial children.<br />
Throughout his time with them the children wrote him letters, partly as a way of practising their French. <br />
But when Mr Thormeyer left Russia in 1899, they continued to write to him and to his family; Olga's letters only stopped when she died in exile in 1960.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Attic trove</span> <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt=" Ferdinand Thormeyer surrounded by his collection of Russian memorabilia" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50289000/jpg/_50289022_ferdinand.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">The tsarist children had an enormous affection for their Swiss tutor</span> </div>The documents were only discovered this year, when a descendant of Mr Thormeyer's was clearing out his attic. There, hidden in an old trunk, he found letters spanning 70 years.<br />
"He came to see us first with just 20 letters," recalls Christina Robinson of the Geneva auction house Hotel des Ventes. "He wondered if they were worth anything."<br />
"We saw that the letters had been written by Olga Kulikovsky, Grand-Duchess Olga Alexandrovna in fact, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II."<br />
A visit to the attic revealed more than 1,000 more documents, including family photographs, postcards, and even sketches.<br />
What the documents reveal are an intimate portrait of life at the court of the tsar and the enormous affection the children had for their Swiss tutor.<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Olga's postcard to Ferdinand Thormeyer, where her brother Mikhail is dressed for a grand costume ball in 1903 " height="405" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50289000/gif/_50289028_olgasendsferdinandthormeyerapostcardofherbrothermikhail,dressedforagrandcostumeballin1903.gif" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Olga's postcard to Mr Thormeyer, where her brother Mikhail is dressed for a grand costume ball in 1903 </span> </div>"I think when Alexander III died in 1894 Mr Thormeyer became, probably unwittingly, almost a father figure for them," says Mrs Robinson.<br />
"They address their letters to him 'my dear Siocha', which was their nickname for him, and Mikhail signs himself 'your loving Misha', rather familiar for a grand-duke."<br />
The children also clearly felt they could confide their feelings to their tutor in a way that they perhaps couldn't to their families.<br />
Grand-Duke George, for example, suffered from tuberculosis, and - sent away in 1896 to take the cure - wrote to Mr Thormeyer complaining about his doctor: "I do fear sometimes he's injecting me with something other than the medicine I actually need…the man is a dog."<br />
Mikhail, meanwhile, was having difficulty accepting his role as heir to the throne once his brother Nicholas became tsar.<br />
In 1904, when Nicholas's son Tsarevich Alexis was born, Mikhail wrote to Mr Thormeyer: "I thank God for liberating me from the burden I have been carrying all these years."<br />
And in 1910, Grand-Duchess Olga explains bluntly why Mikhail, at the time causing scandal because of his private life, would be unable to attend the coronation of his cousin George V of England.<br />
"Mikhail is sick, he has come out in a most horrible and disgusting rash, with pink spots all over his face," she wrote. "Naturally, with his head all bandaged to cover them up, he cannot possibly represent Russia at the coronation."<br />
<span class="cross-head">Dream world</span> What comes across most of all, however, is the complete separation of the tsarist family from life in everyday Russia at the time.<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Grand-Duke Mikhail after a bear hunt" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50289000/gif/_50289232_grand-dukemikhailafterabearhunt.gif" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">In his letters, Mikhail liked to boast how many bears he had managed to kill</span> </div>While discontent among ordinary people mounted, the imperial children were busy visiting and receiving visits from Europe's royal families, almost all of whom were their cousins.<br />
Their letters tell stories of picnics, bicycle rides, and bear hunts. <br />
"On an almost daily basis Mikhail goes shooting," says Mrs Robinson, "and he often writes to Ferdinand Thormeyer to tell him how many bears he managed to shoot on that particular outing."<br />
"They are so far detached from reality that they don't even know it," she adds.<br />
A glance at various court menus saved by Ferdinand Thormeyer proves the point. <br />
In the cold November 1910 in St Petersburg, when many Russians were going hungry, the royal family were having pheasant, artichoke, and asparagus for lunch, followed by fresh fruit and ice cream, sweet pastries, tea, coffee and liqueurs.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Life in exile</span> Of course, it all came to a bloody end after the revolution of 1917. Mikhail, Nicholas II and his entire family were shot, Olga and Xenia escaped into exile.<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"><img alt="Tsar Alexander III and his children in 1888" height="405" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50289000/gif/_50289229_tsaralexanderiiiandhischildren1888.gif" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Tsar Alexander III and his children in 1888</span> </div>But there is little in the Geneva letters to indicate that any of them really saw what was coming.<br />
"We actually have one letter from Olga in 1914, which starts off talking about the weather and her flower collection,' says Mrs Robinson.<br />
"There's really no indication that she was aware of what was happening around her, and the political situation in Russia.<br />
"After that we jump to 1920, so there is a kind of blackout through most of the trouble."<br />
But, safely exiled in Denmark and then Canada, Olga continued writing to her beloved tutor.<br />
"She talks a lot about her love for Russia, and how much she misses it," explains Mrs Robinson.<br />
"She says she always feels Russian, and she writes of her childhood, her happy memories… she still wants, even at the end of her life, to maintain a contact with her past life."<br />
Now, that long-forgotten life will become more public; the letters and other documents are expected to sell for $70,000-$100,000 (£44,544-£63,634).<br />
The auction house has divided them into different lots, but the hope is that they will all be bought by a library or foundation, in order to make this previously unknown historical archive accessible to all who are interested.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-22630320088186517112011-05-19T01:54:00.000+08:002011-05-19T01:54:07.008+08:00Futurology: The tricky art of knowing what will happen next<h1 class="story-header">Futurology: The tricky art of knowing what will happen next</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Finlo Rohrer</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News Magazine</span> </span> <div class="caption body-width"> <img alt="Illustration from 2011: Living in the future" height="261" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50548000/jpg/_50548014_liv_future_insde_front_cvr.jpg" width="464" /> <span style="width: 464px;">Cheap air travel was among the predictions (illustration from Geoffrey Hoyle's book)</span> </div><div class="embedded-hyper"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12058575#story_continues_1"><br />
</a> <div class="hyperpuff"><br />
</div></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">A 1972 book which predicts what life would be like in 2010 has been reprinted after attracting a cult following, but how hard is it to tell the future?</div>Geoffrey Hoyle is often asked why he predicted everybody would be wearing jumpsuits by 2010. He envisioned a world where everybody worked a three-day week and had their electric cars delivered in tubes of liquid.<br />
These colourful ideas from his 1972 children's book, 2010: Living in the Future, helped prompt a Facebook campaign to track him down. His work has now been reprinted with the year in the title amended to 2011.<br />
"I've been criticised because I said people [would] wear jumpsuits," explains Hoyle, the son of noted astronomer and science fiction author Fred Hoyle. "We don't wear jumpsuits but to a certain extent the idea of the jumpsuit is the restriction of liberties."<br />
Hoyle's book is a product of its time. The move towards a planned society with an emphasis on communal living colour it. <br />
<div class="caption"> <img alt="Illustration from 2011: Living in the future" height="299" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50548000/jpg/_50548149_liv_future_pg14.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Fortunately, jumpsuit proliferation has not occurred as Hoyle predicted</span> </div>"Most of it is based on the evolution of a political system," Hoyle notes.<br />
The author also predicted widespread use of "vision phones" and doing your grocery shopping online. <br />
He is one of a long line of science fiction authors to have tried their hand at futurology, the discipline of mapping out the future. <br />
"If you go back over the years in terms of science fiction and fantasy you find many very brilliant simulations of futures that have occurred," says Richard Rhodes, author of Visions of Technology: A Century of Vital Debate about Machines, Systems, and the Human World.<br />
Perhaps one of the most celebrated pieces of futurology by a science fiction author was Arthur C Clarke's prediction of a network of satellites in geostationary orbits [effectively remaining at the same spot in relation to a fixed point back on earth]. <br />
The idea of satellites in geostationary orbit had been floated before but Clarke was the first to see the possibilities for their use as relays for broadcasting and communications. <br />
And HG Wells was years ahead of his time, predicting nuclear weapons in 1914, and later inspiring physicist Leo Szilard.<br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12058575#story_continues_2"><br />
</a> <h2>FAMOUS PREDICTIVE HITS</h2><ul><li> <strong>Arthur C Clarke</strong>: Network of geostationary communications satellites</li>
<li> <strong>HG Wells</strong>: Nuclear weapons, world wars, rise of air power</li>
<li> <strong>George Orwell:</strong> Monitoring of population as standard </li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_2">In more recent times, author David Brin, in the 1989 novel Earth and in his other works, predicted citizen reporters, personalised web interfaces, and the decline of privacy.</div>"The top method is simply to stay keenly attuned to trends in the laboratories and research centres around the world, taking note of even things that seem impractical or useless," says Brin. <br />
"You then ask yourself: 'What if they found a way to do that thing ten thousand times as quickly/powerfully/well? What if someone weaponised it? Monopolised it? Or commercialised it, enabling millions of people to do this new thing, routinely? What would society look like, if everybody took this new thing for granted?'"<br />
Conscious efforts at futurology go back a long way. In 1931, to celebrate its 80th anniversary, the New York Times went to several prominent men for their predictions of what life would be like in 2011.<br />
There were "hits". William Mayo predicted a 70-plus-year lifespan. Other predictions about an ageing population and less importance for national boundaries were promising. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="HG Wells and the first nuclear blast" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50548000/jpg/_50548147_nuclearduo_getty.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">HG Wells predicted nuclear weapons 30 years before it became a reality</span> </div>But there were bad misses - certainly for Michael Pupin, the physicist - who predicted the equitable distribution of wealth.<br />
A similar exercise had been undertaken in 1893 - looking forward to 1993 - for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Florida as a major tourist destination and fast trains are among the hits, but there are many misses. <br />
Politician John J Ingalls was one of the most prescient when he wrote about travelling from New York to London in less than a day.<br />
Predictions, failed or successful, tell us as much about the time they were made as they do about the future. <br />
Go back to the early years of the Cold War and predictions of catastrophic nuclear war were widespread. <br />
"It is the dog that didn't bark," says Rhodes, also author of The Twilight of the Bomb. "In the nuclear community in the years after World War II, they were pretty clear if we didn't eliminate nuclear weapons, if they didn't get it under control, there would inevitably be a nuclear war.<br />
"They didn't see the deep existential fear those weapons induced in leaders of the various countries."<br />
And it's easy to get things wrong or to miss a potential development, because an insurmountable obstacle seems to stand in the way. <br />
<div class="caption"> <img alt="Illustration from 2011: Living in the future" height="299" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50548000/jpg/_50548152_liv_future_pg25.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Internet grocery shopping isn't exactly like this</span> </div>One common wrong prediction, made by utopian socialists in the 19th Century, and cropping up in 1893 and 1931 and many times since, is the idea that mechanisation just has to go a bit further to earn us all a life of leisure. <br />
Hoyle's three day week for 2010 has failed to materialise. "People are going to have to work very hard. It's gone the other way. People are working seven days a week. I'm very pessimistic now," he says.<br />
But Hoyle got it right when predicting the role of the vision phone. And the vision desk sounds rather familiar too. "The glass on top of the screen is made in a special way so that when you write on it the camera photographs what you write."<br />
If you predicted today that within a few years time key electronic devices like phones, GPS and media players would be embedded in the human body, you would hardly be saying anything daring. <br />
"It's fairly straightforward to extrapolate from existing technology - that tends to be what people do," says Rhodes. "But the really important changes are almost inevitably complete surprises."<br />
The proliferation of the computer and the microchip comes into this category, says Tim Mack, president of the World Future Society. <br />
"Computers were all looked at as big data crunchers," says Mack. "People missed that - the embedding of chips in just about everything." <br />
Futurology is big business now. The defence industry picked it up a long time ago, but now it's used in everything from consumer technology to food firms. <br />
And it will still prove delightful to read 2010's predictions in a century's time.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-81925236912537315962011-05-19T01:08:00.000+08:002011-05-19T01:08:35.468+08:00The words that could unlock your child<h1 class="story-header">The words that could unlock your child</h1><div class="has-icon-comment dna-comment-count-simple"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701?print=true#dna-comments"><br />
<span class="dna-comment-count-number"></span><span class="gvl3-icon gvl3-icon-comment"></span></a> </div><div class="caption body-width"> <img alt="Girl revising" height="261" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52251000/jpg/_52251940_books_thinks.jpg" width="464" /> </div><div class="embedded-hyper"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701?print=true#story_continues_1"><br />
</a> <div class="hyperpuff"><br />
</div></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">As children face their final month of revision before the exam season starts, many parents are looking for the words to motivate their offspring. But could they be mistakenly praising the value of ability over effort, asks Matthew Syed.</div>Take a glance at these expressions of encouragement: <br />
"You learned that so quickly, you're so smart!" <br />
"Look at that drawing. Are you the next Picasso or what?"<br />
"You're so brilliant - you passed that exam without really studying!"<br />
They come across as precisely the kind of confidence-boosting statements that should be given to children or, indeed, anyone else. Such phrases are used in homes and classrooms every day, particularly with exams looming. <br />
But are they benign? Or could they unlock the reason why so many children are failing at school and elsewhere? <br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701?print=true#story_continues_2"><br />
</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">Intelligence-based praise orients the receiver towards the fixed mindset - it suggests to them that intelligence is of primary importance rather than the effort through which intelligence can be transformed”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">To find out we need to take a quick detour into the science of expertise, and ask a question. Where does excellence come from? For a long time, it was thought the answer to this hinged, to a large degree, on genetic inheritance. Or, to put it another way, it is all about talent. </div>It turns out that this is mistaken. Dozens of studies have found that top performers - whether in maths, music or whatever - learn no faster than those who reach lower levels of attainment - hour after hour, they improve at almost identical rates. <br />
The difference is simply that high achievers practise for more hours. Further research has shown that when students seem to possess a particular gift, it is often because they have been given extra tuition at home by their parents.<br />
This is not to deny that some kids start out better than others - it is merely to suggest that the starting point we have in life is not particularly relevant. <br />
Why? Because, over time, with the right kind of practice, we change so dramatically. It is not just the body that changes, but the anatomy of the brain. <br />
A study of pianists, for example, showed that the area of the brain governing finger movement is substantially larger than for the rest of us - but it did not start out like this; it grew with practice. <br />
The question of talent versus effort would not matter terribly much if it was merely theoretical. But it is so much more than that. It influences the way we think, feel, and the way we engage with our world.<br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701?print=true#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Mindset experiments</h2><ul><li> Computer studies students received lessons on importance of growth mindset. It resulted in a dramatic improvement in test scores after a six-week intervention</li>
<li> Students at Stanford University were encouraged towards the growth mindset in a workshop. At the end of term, these students had earned significantly higher grade point averages than the control group</li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_3">To see how, consider a youngster who believes excellence is all about talent - labelled the "fixed mindset". Why would she bother to work hard? </div>If she has the right genes, won't she just cruise to the top? And if she lacks talent, well, why bother at all? And who can blame a youngster for this kind of attitude, given the underlying premise? <br />
If, on the other hand, she really believes that effort trumps talent - labelled the "growth mindset" - she will persevere. She will not see failure as an indictment, but as an opportunity to adapt and grow. And, if she is right, she will eventually excel. <br />
What a young person decides about the nature of talent, then, could scarcely be more important. <br />
Think how often you hear children saying "I just lack the brain for numbers" or "I don't have the coordination for sports". These are direct manifestations of the fixed mindset, and they destroy motivation. <br />
Those with a growth mindset, on the other hand, do not regard their abilities as set in genetic stone. These are the youngsters who approach tasks with gusto. "I may not be good at maths now, but if I work hard, I will be really good in the future!"<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Exam room" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52252000/jpg/_52252068_room_pa.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Many schools already praise effort as much as achievement</span> </div>So, how do we orient our children to the growth mindset? A few years ago, Carol Dweck, a leading psychologist, took 400 students and gave them a simple puzzle. <br />
Afterwards, each of the students were given six words of praise. Half were praised for intelligence: "Wow, you must be really smart!" The other half were praised for effort: "Wow, you must be hard working!" <br />
Dweck was seeking to test whether these simple words, with their subtly different emphases, could make a difference to the student's mindsets. The results were remarkable. <br />
After the first test, the students were given a choice of whether to take a hard or an easy test. <br />
A full two-thirds of the students praised for intelligence chose the easy task - they did not want to risk losing their "smart" label. But 90% of the effort-praised group chose the tough test - they wanted to prove just how hard working they were.<br />
Then, the experiment came full circle, giving the students a chance to take a test of equal difficulty to the first test. <br />
The group praised for intelligence showed a 20% decline in performance compared with the first test, even though it was no harder. But the effort-praised group increased their score by 30%. Failure had actually spurred them on. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Boy looking at laptop" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52252000/jpg/_52252071_boylaptop_thinks.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Many people believe that talent is a fixed quality</span> </div>And all these differences turned on the difference in six simple words spoken after the very first test. <br />
"These were some of the clearest findings I've seen," Dweck said. "Praising children's intelligence harms motivation and it harms performance." <br />
Intelligence-based praise orients the receiver towards the fixed mindset - it suggests to them that intelligence is of primary importance rather than the effort through which intelligence can be transformed. <br />
And this takes us right back to those expressions of praise we started out with. They all sounded like confidence-boosting statements. But now listen to the subliminal messages in the background: <br />
"If I don't learn something quickly, I'm not smart."<br />
"I shouldn't try drawing anything hard or they'll see I'm no Picasso."<br />
"I'd better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant."<br />
This reveals a radical new approach to the way we engage with children - that we should praise effort, never talent; that we should teach kids to see challenges as learning opportunities rather than threats; and that we should emphasise how abilities can be transformed. <br />
Experiments from around the world have shown that when parents and teachers adopt this approach, and stick to it, the results are remarkable. <br />
<strong>Matthew Syed is the author of Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice.</strong>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-52760986527508115472011-05-19T01:03:00.000+08:002011-05-19T01:03:32.417+08:00Swearing can help relieve pain, study claims<div class="storyHead"> <h1>Swearing can help relieve pain, study claims</h1><h2> Swearing after hurting yourself can help numb the pain of an injury, new research suggests. </h2></div><div id="storyEmbSlide"> <div class="slideshow ssMain"> <div class="nextPrevLayer"> <div class="ssImg" style="display: block;"> <img alt="Swearing can help relieve pain, study claims" height="287" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01875/BR54JR_1875098c.jpg" width="460" /> <div class="artImageExtras"> <div class="ingCaptionCredit"> <span class="caption">Research proves that swearing triggers not only an emotional response, but a physical one too</span> <span class="credit">Photo: ALAMY</span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="cl"> </div><div class="byline"> <span class="publishedDate">10:05AM BST 18 Apr 2011</span> <div class="comments"> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8458163/Swearing-can-help-relieve-pain-study-claims.html#disqus_thread">27 Comments</a> </div><div class="cl"> </div></div><div class="firstPar"> Scientists from <a href="http://journals.lww.com/neuroreport/Abstract/publishahead/Swearing_as_a_response_to_pain.99989.aspx">Keele University found that letting forth a volley of foul language can have a powerful painkilling effect</a>, especially for people who do not normally use expletives. </div><div class="secondPar"> To test the theory, student volunteers placed their hands in a bucket of ice cold water while swearing repeatedly. </div><div class="thirdPar"> They then repeated the exercise but, instead of swearing, used a harmless phrase instead. </div><div class="fourthPar"> Researchers found that the students were able to keep their hands submerged in the icy water for longer when repeating the swear word - establishing a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance. </div><div class="fifthPar"> They also found that the pain-numbing effect was four times more likely to work in the volunteers who did not normally use bad language. </div><div class="body"> The team believes the pain-lessening effect occurs because swearing triggers the ''fight or flight'' response. <br />
The accelerated heart rates of the students repeating the swear word may indicate an increase in aggression, in a classic fight or flight response of ''downplaying feebleness in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo''. <br />
The research proves that swearing triggers not only an emotional response, but a physical one too, which may explain why the centuries-old practice of cursing developed and why it still persists today. <br />
Dr Richard Stephens, who worked on the project, said: ''Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon. <br />
''It taps into emotional brain centres and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain. <br />
''Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists.'' <br />
</div>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-85138589200259959072011-04-27T01:17:00.000+08:002011-04-27T01:17:11.571+08:00Cheap wine 'good as pricier bottles' - blind taste test<h1 class="story-header">Cheap wine 'good as pricier bottles' - blind taste test</h1><div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Woman tasting wine (library picture)" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52150000/jpg/_52150494_011720231-1.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">The wines tested were priced up to £30 a bottle</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> </div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Wine costing less than £5 a bottle can have the same effect on the palate as those priced up to six times as much, a psychological taste challenge suggests.</div>The blind test at the Edinburgh Science Festival saw 578 members of the public correctly identify the "cheap" or "expensive" wines only 50% of the time.<br />
They tasted a range of red and white wines including merlot and chardonnay.<br />
University of Hertfordshire researchers say their findings indicate many people may just be paying for a label.<br />
Two champagnes costing £17.61 and £29.99 were compared, alongside the bottles costing less than £5 and vintages priced between £10 and £30.<br />
The other varieties tasted were shiraz, rioja, claret, pinot grigio and sauvignon blanc.<br />
The participants were asked to say which they thought were cheap and which were expensive.<br />
By the laws of chance, they should have been able to make a correct guess 50% of the time - and that was the exact level of accuracy seen.<br />
The findings demonstrate the volunteers cannot distinguish between wines by taste alone, the organisers of the test say.<br />
Lead researcher psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman said: "These are remarkable results. People were unable to tell expensive from inexpensive wines, and so in these times of financial hardship the message is clear - the inexpensive wines we tested tasted the same as their expensive counterparts."양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-13416645624996853312011-04-18T19:25:00.000+08:002011-04-18T19:25:21.540+08:00Born in a death camp: A miracle baby and her mother<h1 class="story-header">Born in a death camp: A miracle baby and her mother</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Emily Davis</span> <span class="byline-title">Producer, The Baby Born In A Concentration Camp</span> </span> <div class="introduction">Eva Clarke has been called the miracle baby. By the time of her birth, her mother Anka had endured six years of Nazi rule, had survived three concentration camps and weighed just five stone.</div><div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Baby Eva and her mother Anka" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52145000/jpg/_52145549_baby_anka304x171.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Eva and Anka: Baby Eva weighed just 3lbs (1.5kg) when she was born</span> </div>In the late 1930s, Anka Bergman was a lively law student living in the Czech capital Prague. <br />
"I wanted company and boyfriends and to enjoy myself. I didn't know that Hitler was coming, but I filled my time with only cinemas and theatres and concerts and parties," she says.<br />
It was at a nightclub that Anka met her husband, Bernd Nathan, an attractive German-Jewish architect who had fled Germany in 1933.<br />
"He thought that it was far enough to be safe," said Eva. "It wasn't but, if he hadn't come to Prague, he wouldn't have met my mother." <br />
In March 1939, the Nazis invaded Prague and, from that moment Anka's life, and Bernd's, changed forever. <br />
<span class="cross-head">Secret pregnancy</span> Anka and her entire family were sent to Terezin (also know as Theresienstadt), a transit camp for the Auschwitz death camp. <br />
<div class="caption"> <img alt="Eva's father, Bernd Nathan" height="224" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52163000/jpg/_52163622_bernd_family224x224.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Eva's father was killed before his daughter was born</span> </div>Anka and her husband Bernd were to remain there for the next three years. <br />
Although the sexes were segregated, Anka managed to meet secretly with her husband and she became pregnant.<br />
"My mother stayed in the same barracks as I did," said Anka. <br />
"And she looked at me: 'How? And where?' She laughed actually, because - in all that misery there - she had a sense of humour." <br />
But as Anka soon discovered, to be Jewish and become pregnant under Nazi rule was a serious offence. <br />
"There were five couples in the same position and we had to sign a paper that the babies, when they are born, will be taken away. <br />
"That's the first time I heard the word 'euthanasia'. But we did sign it." <br />
Anka gave birth to a baby boy. He was not taken away, but he died in the camp from pneumonia when he was two months old.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Chimneys</span> In October 1944, Anka became pregnant again - but before she was able to tell her husband, he was sent to Auschwitz. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Eva (left) and Anka (right) today" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52177000/jpg/_52177734_eva_anka_bbc304.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Eva and Anka Clarke now live together in Cambridge</span> </div>Astonishingly, Anka volunteered to follow him and was transported to Auschwitz the following day. However, she never saw Bernd again. She later found out that he was shot dead in the camp on 18 January 1945.<br />
It was at Auschwitz that Anka came to understand the true horror of the Nazis' actions.<br />
"We saw the chimneys spouting the smoke and fire and the smell. And it looked like hell," she says. <br />
She herself was lucky to survive more than a few hours there.<br />
"Had my mother arrived in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp holding my brother in her arms, she would have been sent straight to the gas chambers," Eva says.<br />
"But because she arrived in Auschwitz not holding a baby, and although she was pregnant again - this time with me - nobody knew, so she lived to see another day."<br />
As Eva puts it, she owes her life to her brother: "His death meant my life, which is a very strange thing to say." <br />
Anka was selected for hard labour working in an armaments factory. Food was scarce and for the next six months she slowly starved. <br />
Then, in April 1945, in the dying days of the war, she was caught up in the Nazi attempt to get rid of all living witnesses to the Holocaust. She endured a torturous three-week train journey.<br />
"It was open to the skies and it was filthy, with no food and hardly any water," she says.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Liberation</span> On 29 April 1945, Anka arrived at Mauthausen death camp. <br />
The sight of the name Mauthausen at the station was a deep shock to her, as she had heard of the camp's awful reputation early on in the war. <br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13069586#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">She always says that nobody knows what they can withstand until they have to”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Eva Clarke</span> </div><div id="story_continues_1">"She says the shock was so great that she thinks it provoked the onset of her labour and she started to give birth to me on that coal truck," Eva says.</div>"There are two reasons why we survived, and the first is that, on 28 April 1945, the Nazis had dismantled the gas chamber in Mauthausen. <br />
"Well, my birthday is the 29th so presumably - had my mother arrived on the 26th or 27th - I wouldn't be sitting here today. <br />
"And the second reason we survived was because, a few days after my birth, the American army liberated the camp. My mother reckons she wouldn't have lasted much longer."<br />
After the war, Anka remarried and in 1948 - when the communists took over Czechoslovakia - the family moved to Cardiff. <br />
Today she lives in Cambridge with Eva, who is now retired and spends her time visiting schools, telling pupils the story of how she came into the world.<br />
For her it is important to commemorate all the victims of the Holocaust.<br />
"To remember all those thousands and thousands and thousands of people who died, who were killed in the Holocaust, and especially all those thousands of people who've never ever had one single person remember them because all their families were killed," she says.<br />
And she has a huge amount of admiration for her mother: "I can hardly believe that she actually did go through it. But, you know, she always says that nobody knows what they can withstand until they have to. <br />
"And fortunately most of us are not put to the test."양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-75842448786156631832011-04-14T15:13:00.002+08:002011-04-14T15:13:36.491+08:00Staedtler and Faber-Castell's productive pencil rivalry<h1 class="story-header">Staedtler and Faber-Castell's productive pencil rivalry</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Caroline Bayley</span> <span class="byline-title">Producer, In Business, BBC Radio 4</span> </span> <div class="caption full-width"> <img alt="Pens on the Staedtler production line" height="260" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52135000/jpg/_52135176_staedtlerpens.jpg" width="466" /> <span style="width: 466px;">The proximity of Staedtler and Faber-Castell encourages innovation at both firms</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13019777#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Related Stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12447607">Why do the German and UK economies differ sharply?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12170223">German economy rebounds in 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11838365">Germany 'nearing full employment'</a></li>
</ul></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">The ancient city of Nuremberg, steeped in medieval and Nazi history, is home to a cluster of fiercely competitive pen and pencil manufacturers whose survival is driven by innovation.</div>Staedtler and Faber-Castell are both part of the Mittelstand, the backbone of German industry, made up of thousands of small and medium-sized companies. Privately-owned, many are still family businesses after several generations.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Ancient 'pencil war'</span> Staedtler celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2010, while Faber-Castell will celebrate its 250th birthday in summer 2011. <br />
But despite this, the two companies have argued about which company can rightfully claim to be the oldest, a "pencil war" that ended up in court in the 1990s.<br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13019777#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><img alt="Count Faber-Castell" height="81" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52138000/jpg/_52138155_countanton-wolfganglotharandreasfaber-castell.jpg" width="144" /> <blockquote><div class="first-child">I would have been fired a couple of times in a publicly-traded company somewhere in the US, where you are judged according to quarterly earnings per share”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Count von Faber-Castell</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Head of Faber-Castell</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">Staedtler lost the legal case, but managing director Axel Marx still points out that Friedrich Staedtler, who was born in Nuremberg in 1636, was "the first person worldwide to be mentioned as a pencil manufacturer". </div>His sons had their own pencil-making businesses. But the city's strict guild rules meant that the Staedtler company was not set up until 1835. <br />
By this point, 10km (6.2 miles) down the road in the small town of Stein, there was already a flourishing pencil company, Faber-Castell. <br />
Outside the city limits, Kasper Faber had been able to incorporate a company in 1761. <br />
The current head of the family firm, Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, is the eighth generation and a direct descendent of the founder.<br />
"I do hope the company will still flourish with the ninth and tenth generations," he says. <br />
That the disagreement over longevity continues to rankle is symptomatic of the keen rivalry that has helped to shape both companies. <br />
The need to survive in high-cost Germany - and in such close proximity to each other - has forced the companies to innovate and export. <br />
Both are profitable, global companies and still highly dependent on the same school-age consumers who use their pencils, crayons and pens. <br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13019777#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> <div class="data-table-outer"> <table class="data-table"><colgroup> <col width="33.333%"></col> <col width="33.333%"></col> <col width="33.333%"></col> </colgroup> <thead>
<tr class="heading"> <th class="left" colspan="3"> <h2>Head to head </h2></th> </tr>
</thead> <tbody>
<tr> <td class="left"> Vital statistics<br />
</td> <td class="left"> Faber-Castell<br />
</td> <td class="left"> Staedtler<br />
</td> </tr>
<tr class="row2"> <td class="left"> Founded<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 1761<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 1835<br />
</td> </tr>
<tr> <td class="left"> Turnover<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 451m euros<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 250m euros<br />
</td> </tr>
<tr class="row2"> <td class="left"> Staff<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 7,000<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 2,200<br />
</td> </tr>
<tr> <td class="left"> Factories<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 14 in 10 countries<br />
</td> <td class="left"> 5 in 3 countries<br />
</td> </tr>
<tr class="row2"> <td class="left"> Innovations<br />
</td> <td class="left"> Grip pencil<br />
</td> <td class="left"> Wopex pencil<br />
</td> </tr>
</tbody> </table></div>Source: Faber-Castell and Staedtler<br />
<ul class="links-list"><li><a href="http://www.faber-castell.com/">Faber-Castell</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.staedtler.com/">Staedtler</a></li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_3">Staedtler has an annual turnover of approximately 250m euros (£220m). It has some factories in Asia and world-wide sales but still manufactures 80% of its pencils and pens in Germany.</div>At the Nuremberg plant where it makes graphite leads and pens, it has developed an "anti-break system" for coloured pencils. <br />
This extra coating around the coloured pencil leads stops them breaking when sharpened, which Staedtler says has boosted sales.<br />
Its most recent development is the Wopex pencil, manufactured on a secret production line visitors are not allowed to see. <br />
It uses mashed up wood and therefore, the company says, is more environmentally friendly - 80% of the wood from a tree can be used, rather than the 20% used in traditional wood-cased pencils. <br />
Axel Marx describes this new production method as a "revolution", and says the pencils have double the writing capacity of older versions.<br />
He accepts that the new process will be copied in time, but is determined to exploit the window of opportunity before competitors catch up. <br />
<span class="cross-head">'Cautious' decisions</span> Staedtler is no longer in the Staedtler family. It is owned by a private foundation. <br />
It has no bank debts, and in fact the company is reluctant to take out bank loans for new projects, preferring to re-invest profits and expand more slowly. Mr Marx says this is typical of the Mittelstand mentality.<br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13019777#story_continues_4">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Find out more</h2><div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Blue Faber-Castell pencils" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52135000/jpg/_52135592_faber-castellpencils.jpg" width="304" /> </div>In Business is on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 14 April at 2030 BST and Sunday 17 April at 2130 BST.<br />
<ul class="links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0106v1c">Listen via the BBC iPlayer</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/worldbiz">Download the programme podcast</a></li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_4">"You do not say, 'OK, there is a business opportunity, let's take a bank credit to realise it'. You are more on the cautious side," he says.</div>He acknowledges this approach means many Anglo-Saxon rivals consider German companies to be "a little bit conservative in financial issues".<br />
Down the road at Faber-Castell, in factories painted as brightly as the pencils that roll off its production line, Count von Faber-Castell appears to share his opposite number's philosophy. <br />
"I would have been fired a couple of times in a publicly traded company somewhere in the United States, where you are judged according to quarterly earnings per share," he says. <br />
But even without shareholders breathing down his neck, there were some in his company who were sceptical about his plan to introduce luxury pencils, a move he says was unique among pencil manufacturers. The Perfect Pencil comes in a platinum holder, and sells for 190 euros (£170).<br />
"It helped tremendously to really position Faber-Castell as a company which is making interesting products even in a dull business of pencils," he says.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Thinking big</span> Turnover for the financial year 2009-10 was 451m euros (£402m), with pre-tax profits of 46.5m euros (£41m). <br />
In contrast to Staedtler, Faber-Castell has more of its production abroad than at home, with factories in South America and Asia, but remains committed to its German presence. <br />
Ten years ago the company introduced the grip pencil which has painted dots on the outside to make it easier to hold and use. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Workers on the Staedtler production line" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52124000/jpg/_52124549_raw_staedtler_other.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Staedtler has developed an "anti-break" system</span> </div>The product won five design awards, and was one of Business Week's products of the year in 2001. It boosted sales worldwide and secured the future of the German pencil plant in Stein. <br />
With yet another large writing instrument manufacturer, Stabilo, nearby, Nuremberg mayor Ulrich Maly insists the pencil makers are "more than just companies, because they are part of the city's history". <br />
He says Nuremberg's economy depends on the Mittelstand companies like the pencil makers to provide employment. There is a great deal of loyalty to local firms, and he says pencils are bought "patriotically". <br />
And he says the relatively high labour and manufacturing costs the companies face within Germany offer their own reward.<br />
"In places where labour is expensive, the ideas simply have to be greater."양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-48008292051526262142011-04-13T23:22:00.002+08:002011-04-13T23:22:33.748+08:00Stone tools 'demand new American story'<h1 class="story-header">Stone tools 'demand new American story'</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Paul Rincon and Jonathan Amos</span> <span class="byline-title">Science reporters, BBC News </span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Stone tools (M.Waters)" height="425" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51827000/jpg/_51827880_tools_waters.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Researchers report almost 16,000 items</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12851772#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Related Stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12646364">Early man was 'ancient mariner'</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329505.stm">Faeces hint at first Americans</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8368485.stm">Mammoth dung clue to extinction</a></li>
</ul></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">The long-held theory of how humans first populated the Americas may have been well and truly broken. </div>Archaeologists have unearthed thousands of stone tools that predate the technology widely assumed to have been carried by the first settlers.<br />
The discoveries in Texas are seen as compelling evidence that the so-called Clovis culture does not represent America's original immigrants.<br />
Details of the 15,500-year-old finds are reported in Science magazine. <br />
A number of digs across the Americas in recent decades had already hinted that the "Clovis first" model was in serious trouble.<br />
But the huge collection of well-dated tools excavated from a creek bed 60km (40 miles) northwest of Austin mean the theory is now dead, argue the Science authors.<br />
"This is almost like a baseball bat to the side of the head of the archaeological community to wake up and say, 'hey, there are pre-Clovis people here, that we have to stop quibbling and we need to develop a new model for peopling of the Americas'," Michael Waters, a Texas A&M University anthropologist, told reporters.<br />
For 80 years, it has been argued that the Clovis culture was the first to sweep into the New World. <br />
These people were defined by their highly efficient stone-tool technology. Their arrow heads and spear points were formidable hunting weapons and were used to bring down the massive beasts of the Ice Age, such as mammoth, mastodon and bison.<br />
<span class="cross-head">Clovis first?</span> The hunter gatherers associated with this technology were thought to have crossed from Siberia into Alaska via a land bridge that became exposed when sea levels dropped. Evidence indicates this occurred as far back as about 13,500 years.<br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12851772#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">The Debra L Friedkin site demonstrates that people were in the Americas at least 2,500 years before Clovis”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Michael Waters</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Texas A&M University</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">But an increasing number of archaeologists have argued there was likely to have been an earlier occupation based on the stone tools that began turning up at dig sites with claimed dates of more than 15,000 years. </div>Dr Waters and colleagues say this position is now undeniable in the light of the new artefacts to emerge from the Debra L Friedkin excavation.<br />
These objects comprise 15,528 items in total - a variety of chert blades, bladelets, chisels, and abundant flakes produced when making or repairing stone tools.<br />
The collection was found directly below sediment containing classic Clovis implements. The dating - which relied on a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) that can tell how long minerals have been buried - is robust, says the team. And, they add, the observed sequence is also reliable; the sediments have not been mixed up after the tools were dropped. <br />
"The sediments were very rigid in the fact that they were clay, which worked to our advantage," explained Lee Nordt from Baylor University. "If you go to many other sites, they are loamy or sandy in texture, and they are mixed very rapidly by burrowing from animals or maybe from plant roots, etc."<br />
<span class="cross-head">Getting around</span> The newly discovered tools are small, and the researchers propose that they were designed for a mobile toolkit - something that could be easily packed up and moved to a new location. Although clearly different from Clovis tools, they share some similarities and the researchers suggest Clovis technology may even have been derived from the capabilities displayed in the earlier objects.<br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Friedkin site (M.Waters)" height="405" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51827000/jpg/_51827883_waters4hr.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">The Debra L Friedkin site lies just outside Austin</span> </div>"The Debra L Friedkin site demonstrates that people were in the Americas at least 2,500 years before Clovis," said Dr Waters.<br />
"The discovery provides ample time for Clovis to develop. People could experiment with stone and invent the weapons and tools that would potentially become recognizable as Clovis. In other words, [these tools represent] the type of assemblage from which Clovis could emerge."<br />
But anthropologist Tom Dillehay, who was not involved with the latest study, commented: "The 'Clovis first' paradigm died years ago. There are many other accepted pre-Clovis candidates throughout the Americas now."<br />
Professor Dillehay, from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told BBC News: "If you look at the prose of this paper, it bothers me a little bit because it's as if they are reconstituting the Clovis-Pre-Clovis debate and saying, 'Here's the site that kills it'."<br />
He commended the researchers on their well-presented data and "tight discussion". But he said that the OSL technique was less reliable than radiocarbon dating, which has been applied to other early American sites. <br />
And assigning the artefacts to Clovis and pre-Clovis technologies was not straightforward because the site lacked the projectile points required to reliably distinguish between the two. Clovis projectile points are unmistakeable.<br />
In addition, said the Vanderbilt anthropology professor, the tools come from a floodplain deposit that is just 6-7cm thick. This, he said, was "potentially problematic" because of the possibility that artefacts were transported around by water.<br />
Professor Gary Haynes, from the University of Nevada in Reno, US, praised the "good work" by the research team. <br />
But he said it was plausible that natural processes could have caused some stone tools to migrate downwards in the clay - giving the impression of a pre-Clovis layer.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-5942502975574365752011-04-13T23:20:00.002+08:002011-04-13T23:20:30.312+08:00'Music of the stars' now louder<h1 class="story-header">'Music of the stars' now louder</h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Jason Palmer</span> <span class="byline-title">Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Washington, DC</span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Soho image of the sun (SPL)" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51342000/jpg/_51342081_51342072.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Kepler studies of distant stars will help us understand our own local star, the Sun, much better</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12507032#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Related Stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1994038.stm">Distant star makes music</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1418291.stm">First stellar 'heartbeat' heard</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6213150.stm">Mission guide: Corot</a></li>
</ul></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">The Kepler space telescope measures the sizes and ages of stars five times better than any other means - when it "listens" to the sounds they make.</div>Bill Chaplin, speaking at the AAAS conference in Washington, said that Kepler was an exquisite tool for what is called "astroseismology".<br />
The technique measures minuscule variations in a star's brightness that occur as soundwaves bounce within it.<br />
The Kepler team has now measured some 500 far-flung stars using the method.<br />
Bill Chaplin of the University of Birmingham told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that astroseismology was, in essence, listening to the "music of the stars".<br />
But it is not sound that Kepler measures. Its primary job is spotting exoplanets, by measuring the tiny dip in the amount of light that it sees when a planet passes in front of a distant star.<br />
Such precision light-level measurements also work for astroseismology, because as sound waves resonate within a star, they slightly change both the brightness and the colour of light that is emitted.<br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12507032#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">I could literally spend the rest of my research career working on these data”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Bill Chaplin</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">University of Birmingham</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">Researchers can deduce the acoustic oscillations that gave rise to the ripples on the light that Kepler sees. </div>Like a musical instrument, the lower the pitch, the bigger the star. That means that the sounds are thousands of times lower than we can hear. <br />
But there are also overtones - multiples of those low frequencies - just like instruments, and these give an indication of the depth at which the sound waves originate, and the amount of hydrogen or helium they are passing through.<br />
Since stars fuse more and more hydrogen into helium as they grow older, these amounts give astroseismologists a five-fold increase in the precision of their age estimates for stars.<br />
"With conventional astronomy, when we look at stars we're seeing the radiation emitted at their surfaces; we can't actually see what's happening inside."<br />
"Using the resonances, we can literally build up a picture of what the inside of a star looks like - there's no other way of doing that. It's not easy to do, but we're now getting there, thanks to Kepler."<br />
Kepler is not the first mission to lend itself to astroseimology; Canada's Most and Esa's Corot satellites, for example, are designed specifically to collect similar data. <br />
But just the first few months of observations by Kepler has provided scientists with data on hundreds of stars, whereas Dr Chaplin said that only about 20 have been studied in detail before.<br />
"Suddenly we have this huge database to mine," he said. <br />
"I could literally spend the rest of my research career working on these data - we're just starting to mine them."양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-67503944598361749032011-04-13T23:19:00.002+08:002011-04-13T23:19:42.120+08:00New York set to be big loser as sea levels rise<h1 class="story-header">New York set to be big loser as sea levels rise </h1><span class="byline byline-photo"> <img alt="Richard Black" src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/media/images/50221000/jpg/_50221822_rb112.jpg" /> <span class="byline-name">By Richard Black</span> <span class="byline-title">Environment correspondent, BBC News, Vienna</span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="New York (Image: BBC)" height="350" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52068000/jpg/_52068811_nybbc.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Places like New York are projected to experience an above average sea level increase</span> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13011073#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Related Stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12687272">Ice loss quickens, raising seas</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8399036.stm">Battling against the rising tide</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7935159.stm">Sea rise 'to exceed projections'</a></li>
</ul></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">New York is a major loser and Reykjavik a winner from new forecasts of sea level rise in different regions.</div>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in 2007 that sea levels would rise at least 28cm (1ft) by the year 2100. <br />
But this is a global average; and now a Dutch team has made what appears to be the first attempt to model all the factors leading to regional variations. <br />
Other researchers say the IPCC's figure is likely to be a huge under-estimate.<br />
Whatever the global figure turns out to be, there will be regional differences.<br />
Ocean currents and differences in the temperature and salinity of seawater are among the factors that mean sea level currently varies by up a metre across the oceans - this does not include short-term changes due to tides or winds.<br />
So if currents change with global warming, which is expected - and if regions such as the Arctic Ocean become less saline as ice sheets discharge their contents into the sea - the regional patterns of peaks and troughs will also change. <br />
"Everybody will still have the impact, and in many places they will get the average rise," said Roderik van der Wal from the University of Utrecht, one of the team presenting their regional projections at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna. <br />
"But places like New York are going to have a larger contribution than the average - 20% more in this case - and Reykjavik will be better off."<br />
Of the 13 regions where the team makes specific projections, New York sees the biggest increase from the global average, although Vancouver, Tasmania and The Maldives are also forecast to see above-average impacts.<br />
<strong>Gravity trap</strong><br />
One peculiarity of the projections is that areas closer to melting ice sheets will experience a smaller sea level rise than those further away.<br />
<div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13011073#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Graphic showing sea level variations (Eumetsat)" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52068000/jpg/_52068809_44571175.jpg" width="304" /> </div>Sea level rise is not set to be consistent around the globe<br />
<ul class="links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8399036.stm">Battling against the rising tide</a></li>
</ul></div><div id="story_continues_2">This is because ice sheets such as those on Greenland or Antarctica gravitationally attract the water.</div>This pulls the water towards the coast, effectively making it pile up to an extent that can be measured in centimetres.<br />
If the ice begins to melt, it raises the average sea level simply by entering the sea; but the gravitational pull is now smaller, so locally the sea level may go down.<br />
"So if the Greenland sheet melts more, that's better for New York; but if Antarctica melts, that's worse for New York - and it's equally true for northwestern Europe," Professor van der Wal told BBC News.<br />
The effects are particularly pronounced for Reykjavik, the closest capital to Greenland, which is projected to receive less than half the global average sea level rise.<br />
<strong>Ice sheet question</strong><br />
Roderik van der Wal is one of scientists working on the sea level projections that will be included in the next IPCC assessment, due out in 2013-4.<br />
Before then, other scientists are likely to have completed more regional models that can be put into this mix<br />
"We're right at the beginning of making regional projections, and at this point there is still a lot of uncertainty," commented Stefan Rahmstorf, a sea level specialist from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.<br />
"But it is clear that some parts of the world will feel sea level rise much more quickly than other parts; and an additional factor is land movements.<br />
"In some places such as a lot of the Scandinavian coastline, the land is rising so fast that they will not have any problem with sea level rise in the near future, whereas in other places the land is subsiding - that includes some of the world's big delta cities."<br />
Just before the last IPCC report came out in 2007, Professor Rahmstorf published research showing that sea levels had been rising faster that climate models predicted.<br />
Since then, he and others, using various techniques, have concluded that somewhere between half a metre and two metres is likely by the end of the century.<br />
He came to the EGU with a further analysis putting the likely range at 0.75-1.9m - the range reflecting uncertainties in how ice sheets may melt, and in how society may or may not respond to the findings of climate scientists by controlling greenhouse gas emissions.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-54249156197879191742011-04-13T23:16:00.002+08:002011-04-13T23:16:41.595+08:00Nazi family history put to good use by Inge Franken<h1 class="story-header">Nazi family history put to good use by Inge Franken </h1><span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Stephen Evans</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News, Berlin</span> </span> <div class="caption body-width"> <img alt="Inge's father" height="261" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51874000/jpg/_51874767_soldiers.jpg" width="464" /> </div><div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12882336#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Related Stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10618638">Is 'Nazi' ever an acceptable jibe?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8261002.stm">Is it OK to collect Nazi memorabilia?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7777866.stm">Holiday camp with a Nazi past</a></li>
</ul></div><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Inge Franken is a sprightly 70-year-old who lives in an apartment on two floors in Berlin. She has a task, a mission. She tours schools educating children about her - and their - country's dark history.</div>She shows the class a photograph of two young boys (see photo) who pose in Nazi regalia, and she seeks reaction. One has his chest puffed out in pride, the other seems reluctant. It is for today's children to decide which they would rather be.<br />
If the school visit goes well, she says, a child will say that he or she is going home to ask the parents and grandparents what happened in the war in their family. It makes Inge feel that she has set people thinking and asking.<br />
She was spurred to this mission by her own past, a past hidden in a suitcase - and her mother's mind. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Inge" height="405" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51874000/jpg/_51874771_ingetable_cut.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Inge was 40 when she read letters detailing her father's activities during the war</span> </div>She was only two when her father died in the Siege of Leningrad, so she never knew him, or knew him only through the letters that her mother would read to her on Sundays.<br />
"She said, 'Come, sit down. I will read some parts of father's letter. You should know him because he is not here and you can't see what a wonderful man he was'."<br />
<span class="cross-head">Letters from the front</span> But Inge the child noticed gaps, sections that her mother skipped over, and those gaps nagged her for decades into adulthood. At the age of 40, she asked her mother if she could read the letters in full.<br />
What she discovered was that the gaps were detailed descriptions of bad events in which her father seemed to be implicated. He was a committed Nazi who joined the party in 1933 and an officer on the Russian front, and he had clearly been involved in terrible things.<br />
"More than 30 partisans are hanging on the trees," one letter said. There was a sense of pride in his letters at the might of the German war machine. <br />
<div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12882336#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2><blockquote><div class="first-child">My mother was a proud widow because she was widow for the Fuhrer, for the leader, for Hitler”</div></blockquote><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Inge Franken</span> </div><div id="story_continues_2">"I phoned my mother and she said, 'Oh Inge. I didn't want you to read this because it was terrible'."</div>Over the years, Inge's mother, herself, had undergone a rebirth. When war broke out, she and her husband were both staunch Nazis, and when her husband died she had grieved with pride. <br />
"My mother was a proud widow because she was widow for the Fuhrer, for the leader, for Hitler," says Inge. <br />
She had a certificate from the Nazi authorities telling her that her husband had died "in the struggle for the freedom of Greater Germany". She kept photographs of him taken in uniform on the Russian front, his chest puffed out in pride. <br />
<div class="caption"> <img alt="Boys in Nazi regalia" height="299" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51876000/jpg/_51876343_ingeboys.jpg" width="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Inge uses this picture of two boys in her lessons on moral choice</span> </div>And, then, with total defeat, she found she had lost everything - her home, her husband and her ideology.<br />
And shame gradually came to her, helped by her daughter, so when Inge asked her about the events in the letters, her mother was very ashamed. <br />
<span class="cross-head">Jewish connections</span> The discovery prompted Inge to help the descendants of Holocaust survivors and victims to find their history, and also to talk in schools. <br />
"When I started to make connections with Jews in Germany and elsewhere, my mother said, 'You are doing this for me, too'."<br />
Throughout Germany, there are people like Inge, seeking out the painful past - tending cemeteries and synagogues, creating museums, simply documenting.<br />
Arthur Obermayer, who is Jewish, used to visit Southern Germany with his wife to trace their families' pasts. <br />
<div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img alt="Nazi certificate" height="304" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51876000/jpg/_51876348_certificate.jpg" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Inge's mother was initially proud of her husband who died in the Siege of Leningrad</span> </div>"In every town, we found people who on a volunteer basis were preserving Jewish history and culture," he says. <br />
"And they were doing it just because they felt that as Germans it was the right thing to do, because they felt that there was no other constructive way they could respond to Germany's horrible past."<br />
Inge has called a family meeting for this summer. "In my family it was a long time before we could talk about the family history because a lot of the family have been Nazis," she says.<br />
Will it be an easy, amicable meeting? "No," she roared. "People my age say: 'Why are we talking about it? Everybody knows what happened in the family'. And then the next generation says, 'Father, you never told me. I knew nothing about the family background'.<br />
"But now they can come. They can listen. They can read a lot of letters and documents.<br />
"And people are coming. Young people are coming".<br />
It should be said that Arthur Obermayer feels great hope for Germany. Inge, too, says that much is being done. A past is being confronted - painfully.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-90276030202978702522011-04-09T18:03:00.001+08:002011-04-09T18:03:54.461+08:00Has feminism blocked social mobility for men?<h1 class="story-header">Has feminism blocked social mobility for men?</h1> <div class="has-icon-comment dna-comment-count-simple"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12970105#dna-comments"><br /><span class="dna-comment-count-number"></span><span class="gvl3-icon gvl3-icon-comment"></span></a> </div> <div class="caption body-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52028000/jpg/_52028589_pair.464.jpg" alt="Male and female worker" width="464" height="261" /> </div> <div class="embedded-hyper"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12970105#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <div class="hyperpuff"> <h2><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine">In today's Magazine</a></h2> <ul><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302254723664" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416">The rise of LOL</a> </li><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302193686143" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12998204">7 days news quiz</a> </li><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302230709033" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12986535">Men without wedding rings</a> </li><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302149328193" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12308437">A mind-boggling building job</a> </li></ul> </div> </div> <p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Feminism provided an obstacle to social mobility for working-class men, Cabinet minister David Willetts has controversially argued. But is he right?</p> <p>They were meant to welcome a new era of fairness and opportunity for all. Instead, a minister's remarks have prompted debate over the effect of women's entry into higher education and the professions.</p> <p>In a briefing to journalists ahead of the government's social mobility strategy, David Willetts, the universities minister, appeared to suggest that feminism had made it harder for working-class men to get ahead in life.</p> <p>Asked what was to blame for a lack of social mobility, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8420098/David-Willets-feminism-has-held-back-working-men.html#">the Daily Telegraph quoted him saying:</a> "The feminist revolution in its first-round effects was probably the key factor. </p> <p>"Feminism trumped egalitarianism. It is not that I am against feminism, it's just that is probably the single biggest factor." </p> <p>His remarks sparked <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/01/david-willetts-feminism-lack-of-jobs">a wave of criticism,</a> and Mr Willetts made it clear that he supported the move of women into the workplace and higher education. But to some the notion that more jobs for females equals fewer opportunities for males will be a convincing one.</p> <div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12970105#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>An economist's view</h2> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52027000/jpg/_52027451_welder_thinkstock.jpg" alt="Welder" width="304" height="171" /> </div> <p><strong>Alan Manning, professor of economics, LSE</strong></p> <p>"The expansion of university education was faster among women - they went from being a minority of students to a majority.</p> <p>"But it's not true that if one group takes something, there's automatically less for the other.</p> <p>"The deterioration in employment opportunities among young men was primarily the consequence of the decline in manufacturing.</p> <p>"It's not the case that all these apprenticeships were suddenly taken by lots of young women. It's that the manufacturing jobs just weren't there anymore."</p> </div> <p id="story_continues_2">Certainly, there is no question that the number of female workers in the UK has increased significantly over the past four decades.</p> <p>Labour Force Survey estimates suggest that the employment rate for women aged 16 to 59 rose from 56% in 1971 to 73% in 2004.</p> <p>Whereas in 1971 there were nine million women over the age of 16 in work, by 2004 that figure stood at 13 million.</p> <p>At the same time, social mobility for men appears to have fallen back over the same period. </p> <p>According to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/news/magazine-12970105/ext/story-body/download.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/-/http://download.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/social-mobility/opening-doors-breaking-barriers.pdf">the government's own social mobility strategy,</a> the proportion of males born in 1958, with parents who were in the bottom fifth of earners, moving upwards was 70%. For those born in 1970, the figure was 62%.</p> <p>In 2008-09, 51% of young women entered higher education, according to figures released earlier this year by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, compared with 40% of young men.</p> <p>It was the first time more than half of women went on to higher education - 20 years previously, only about one in five young women went into higher education and a decade prior to that it was about one in 10. </p> <p>It is figures like these that may have led Mr Willetts to conclude that greater opportunities for women have resulted in fewer for men.</p> <div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12970105#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Mind the gap</h2> <ul><li> The 2010 gender pay divide, which was the closest since figures started in 1997, showed UK men took home 10% more pay than their female counterparts</li><li> The Office for National Statistics data shows that, in April 2010, the UK workforce was made up of 12.7 million men and 12.3 million women.</li><li> However, work patterns were vastly different between the sexes. Some 88% of men worked full-time, but only 58% of women worked full-time</li><li> Women tended to have lower hourly rates of pay in general, the figures show</li></ul> </div> <p id="story_continues_3">Rod Liddle, the son of a train driver who has risen to become a prominent journalist, says he does not like the manner in which the minister made his point. And Liddle insists the move of women into the workplace was just and correct.</p> <p>But he says such statistics demonstrate that the arrival of middle-class women in large numbers into the universities and professions has restricted the prospects for men with working-class backgrounds.</p> <p>"The move of women into the workplace is absolutely right - it should be guaranteed," he says. </p> <p>"But what Willetts said in down-the-line, factual terms is right. It annoys me when the left refuse to accept that it's harder for men or that the process has had an effect on the family. That doesn't mean it was wrong."</p> <p>Of course, the number of job opportunities on offer and the nature of the labour market did not stand still as women began to make up a greater proportion of the labour force.</p> <p>As a result, many academics regard such an interpretation of the data as simplistic.</p> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/52030000/jpg/_52030682_factory.304.jpg" alt="Factory" width="304" height="171" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Men used to achieve social mobility by rising through the factory ranks</span> </div> <p>Karen Mumford, professor of economics at the University of York, says it is "woolly-minded" to assume that the number of job opportunities has remained static.</p> <p>In the days before feminism, she says, those working-class men who achieved upward social mobility tended to do so by moving through the ranks at their workplace.</p> <p>But, Prof Mumford adds, the decline in manufacturing - which traditionally was a source of better-paid jobs for a predominantly male workforce - has meant that these opportunities are no longer available.</p> <p>The number of jobs in manufacturing fell to 2.5 million in 2010, according to figures from business organisation, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). This is equal to just 9% of the total workforce. In 1978 over seven million people were employed in the sector, equal to 28.5% of the workforce.</p> <p>She points out, additionally, that the rise in the proportion of women attending higher education mirrored a huge increase in the number of places available for both genders. Government figures show an all-time high of 45% of young people going to university in 2008-09 compared with only about one in 20 in the early 1960s. </p> <p>As a result, Prof Mumford says, there was never a pre-feminist golden age in which large numbers of working-class men attended universities.</p> <div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12970105#story_continues_4">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>A feminist for Willetts</h2> <p><strong>Janice Turner, Times columnist </strong></p> <p>"I don't like to defend government ministers.</p> <p>"But I don't think David Willetts was saying feminism is wrong or evil. </p> <p>"It's not about social mobility per se. What's happened is that middle-class parents aren't just getting their sons into university, they're now getting their daughters in as well.</p> <p>"That's just a fact. We need to have a clearer debate about these things. The issue needs to be unpicked."</p> </div> <p id="story_continues_4">"It was very rare then and it's very rare now," she says. "They are not competing. The problem isn't feminism.</p> <p>"What's happened is that those middle-income working class jobs with which a man used to be able to keep a family have disappeared, while the number of lower-skill service sector jobs, which women have always tended to do, has expanded."</p> <p>She acknowledges that the number of better-paid "problem-solving" occupations at the top of the income scale which require a university education have increased, but that this has benefited male and female workers alike.</p> <p>Moreover, feminists would point to the fact that men in the UK took home 10% more pay than their female colleagues in 2010, according to the Office for National Statistics.</p> <p>Kate Saunders, feminist writer and novelist, says the idea that greater female participation in the workforce is to blame for a decline in male social mobility ignores the large numbers of women working in badly paid service sector jobs that many men don't want.</p> <p>"So many things have changed, not just the number of women in the workplace," she says. </p> <p>"Years ago many working-class men used to work in the factory at the bottom of their street, it just doesn't happen like that anymore and that's not the fault of women. They aren't to blame for things like the decline of the manufacturing industry in this country."</p> <p>But as long as there is a debate over social mobility, there will also be debate about the repercussions of feminism.</p>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-10705789144657735622011-04-09T17:56:00.000+08:002011-04-09T17:58:07.232+08:00Why did LOL infiltrate the language?<h1 class="story-header">Why did LOL infiltrate the language?</h1> <div class="has-icon-comment dna-comment-count-simple"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416#dna-comments">Comments <span class="dna-comment-count-number">(286)</span><span class="gvl3-icon gvl3-icon-comment"></span></a> </div> <span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By James Morgan</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News</span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51912000/jpg/_51912572_101342141.jpg" alt="LOL graphic (Copyright: Thinkstock)" width="304" height="171" /> </div> <div class="embedded-hyper"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <div class="hyperpuff"> <h2><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine">In today's Magazine</a></h2> <ul><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302193686143" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12998204">7 days news quiz</a> </li><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302230709033" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12986535">Men without wedding rings</a> </li><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1302149328193" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12308437">A mind-boggling building job</a> </li><li> <a class="story" rel="published-1294317529605" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2011/04/10_things_we_didnt_know_last_w_179.shtml">Paper Monitor</a> </li></ul> </div> </div> <p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">The internet slang term "LOL" (laughing out loud) has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, to the mild dismay of language purists. But where did the term originate? And is it really a threat to our lexicon?</p> <p>"OMG! LOL's in the OED. LMAO!"</p> <p>If you find the above string of letters utterly unintelligible, you are clearly an internet "noob". Let me start again.</p> <p>Golly gosh! The popular initialism LOL (laughing out loud) has been inducted into the canon of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary. Blimey! What is going on?</p> <p><a href="http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/291168">The OED defines LOL</a> as an interjection "used chiefly in electronic communications... to draw attention to a joke or humorous statement, or to express amusement". </p> <p>It is both "LOL" where all the letters are pronounced separately, but also commonly "lol" where it is pronounced as a word. </p> <p>The phrase was ushered in alongside OMG (Oh My God), with dictionary guardians <a href="http://www.oed.com/public/latest/latest-update/#new">pointing to their growing occurrence</a> "in e-mails, texts, social networking... and even in spoken use".</p> <p>As well as school playgrounds, words like "lolz" and "lolling" can be heard in pubs and offices - though often sarcastically, or in parody.</p> <div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>OED definition</h2> <p><strong>LOL</strong> (ɛləʊˈɛl/lɒl) colloq.</p> <p>A. <em>int.</em> Originally and chiefly in the language of electronic communications: 'ha ha!'; used to draw attention to a joke or humorous statement, or to express amusement.</p> <p>B. <em>n</em>. An instance of the written interjection 'LOL'.</p> </div> <p id="story_continues_2">Love it or loathe it, "lol" is now a legitimate word in our lexicon, says Graeme Diamond, the OED's principal editor for new words.</p> <p>"The word is common, widespread, and people understand it," he explains. </p> <p>The word serves a real purpose - it conveys tone in text, something that even the most cynical critics accept.</p> <p>"I don't 'LOL'. I'm basically someone who kind of hates it," says Rob Manuel of the internet humour site b3ta.</p> <p>"But the truth is, we do need emotional signifiers in tweets and emails, just as conversation has laughter. 'LOL' might make me look like a twit, but at least you know when I'm being arch."</p> <span class="cross-head">Death of the dictionary</span> <p>But for young internet entrepreneurs like Ben Huh, of the Cheezburger Network of comedy sites, "LOL" is much more than a necessary evil. It's both a tool and a toy.</p> <div class="caption"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51933000/jpg/_51933388_ben_headshot_high_res.jpg" alt="Ben Huh, CEO, Cheezburger" width="224" height="299" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Ben Huh says LOL is 'a part of everyday life'</span> </div> <p>"'LOL' is a part of everyday life. I use it all the time in e-mail exchanges. It's a polite way of acknowledging someone," he says.</p> <p>"And yes, I do say 'LOL' out loud. In almost an ironic sense, like a slow handclap after a bad joke. 'Lol' means 'yes, I understand that was funny, but I'm not really laughing'."</p> <p>But no matter how much irony we cake it in, the L-word grinds the ears of many people over the age of 25. </p> <p>"The death of the dictionary" is how one blogger greeted its induction to the bastion of English.</p> <p>While on Facebook, there are at least half a dozen "anti-LOL" groups, where lol-ophobes dream of loll-ageddon:</p> <p>"If something is funny, 'ha', 'hehehehe', or 'hee hee' is perfectly fine depending on the joke, and more descriptive than 'lol'," writes one hater.</p> <p>Another complains that lol "doesn't sound anything like laughter. In fact you physically CAN'T say it while smiling. I'm all for bastardisation of the language, but with lol, that thing you thought was rubbish really is rubbish".</p> <p>Wags point out that "LOL" is almost always disingenuous. "How many people are actually laughing out loud when they say LOL?" asks David Crystal, author of Language and the Internet.</p> <div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>LOL around the world</h2> <ul><li> <strong>mdr </strong>(and derivatives)</li></ul> <p>French version, from the initials of "mort de rire" which roughly translated means "dying of laughter"</p> <ul><li> <strong>חחח/ההה</strong></li></ul> <p>Hebrew version. The letter ח is pronounced 'kh' and ה is pronounced 'h'. Putting them together makes "khakhakha"</p> <ul><li> <strong>555</strong></li></ul> <p>Thai variation of LOL. "5" in Thai is pronounced "ha", three of them being "hahaha"</p> <ul><li> <strong>asg</strong></li></ul> <p>Swedish abbreviation of the term Asgarv, meaning intense laughter</p> <ul><li> <strong>mkm</strong></li></ul> <p>Afghan abbreviation of the Dari phrase "ma khanda mikonom", which means "I am laughing"</p> <p>Source: <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/lol--3">Know Your Meme</a></p> </div> <p id="story_continues_3">But those laughing least of all are the language purists, who lament "LOL" as a hallmark of creeping illiteracy.</p> <p>"There is a worrying trend of adults mimicking teen-speak," says <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336310/Adults-deliberately-dumbing-language--putting-proper-English-peril.html">Marie Clair of the Plain English Campaign, in the Daily Mail</a>.</p> <p>"They [adults] are using slang words and ignoring grammar. Their language is deteriorating."</p> <p>But is "LOL" really a lazy, childish concoction?</p> <p>When the OED <a href="http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/291168">traced the origins of the acronym</a>, they discovered 1980s computer fanatics were responsible.</p> <p>The oldest written records of "LOL" (used to mean laughing out loud) are in the archives of Usenet, an early internet discussion forum.</p> <p>And the original use was typed by Wayne Pearson, in Calgary, <a href="http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/%7Ecrwth/LOL.html">who says he wrote the first ever LOL</a> in reply to a gag by someone called "Sprout".</p> <p>"LOL" was "geek-speak that filtered through to the mainstream", says Manuel.</p> <p>"I first saw it in the 1990s - at the end of emails. Then it got picked up by the young kids. Then it went naff. But it came back ironically - with people saying things like 'megalolz'."</p> <div class="caption"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51933000/jpg/_51933395_bizcat.jpg" alt="A lolcat" width="224" height="224" /> <span style="width: 224px;">Lolcats brought the phrase to a whole new audience</span> </div> <p>Grandparents, for example, often adopt "LOL" as one of their first "internet words", says Huh. "'LOL' and 'OMG' are like momma and dada."</p> <p>But many mistake "LOL" for "lots of love", leading to some unintended "LOLs", such as the infamous tale of the mother who wrote: "Your grandmother has just passed away. LOL."</p> <p>It has also lent its name to some wildly popular internet crazes, like <a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/">Lolcats</a>, whose appeal spread far beyond the realms of cyber-geeks.</p> <span class="cross-head">More than funny</span> <p>So why has "LOL", above all other web phrases, become such a phenomenon?</p> <p>Because it's simple and multipurpose, says Tim Hwang, founder of <a href="http://roflcon.org/">ROFLCon</a>, a whole festival dedicated to "internet awesome".</p> <p>"The magic of LOL is that it's both exclusive and inclusive," he says. "On one level, it's simple to understand. </p> <p>"But it also conveys something subtle - depending on the situation. It means more than just 'funny'. For example, if I had my bike stolen, my friend might reply 'LOL'. It helps overcome an awkward moment."</p> <p>For school kids, acronyms like "LOL" and "KMT" (kiss my teeth) are a kind of secret code, a badge of belonging, says Tony Thorne, author of the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang.</p> <div class="story-feature wide "> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416#story_continues_4">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>LOL-ternatives</h2> <ul><li> <strong>:D (smileys)</strong></li></ul> <p>Simple and clear but may appear childish. Are you a Comic Sans fan?</p> <ul><li> <strong>ROFL, LMAO, BWL</strong></li></ul> <p>Even more annoying than LOL.</p> <ul><li> <strong>!!!</strong></li></ul> <p>One is fine, three reeks of desperation: 'Look!!! I made a joke!!!' Yes, we noticed.</p> <ul><li> <strong>Haha, Hehehe, Arf arf</strong></li></ul> <p>The safe option. Effective but not very imaginative. Were you really laughing?</p> <ul><li> <strong>Hilarious! How funny!</strong></li></ul> <p>You are living in the dark ages.</p> </div> <p id="story_continues_4">"I go into schools and record slang words - all the new terms kids are saying - words like 'lolcano'. And if you talk to kids they will say this is our language - this is what identifies us."</p> <p>But aren't these slang words also harmful to children's vocabulary? Not at all, says Thorne.</p> <p>"Government educationalists get all worked up about words like LOL - they see them as substandard and unorthodox.</p> <p>"But the small amount of research on this issue shows that kids who use slang abbreviations are the more articulate ones. It's called code switching."</p> <p>If we have a literacy crisis, it's among adults as well as children, says Thorne. And slang is not the culprit. In fact, it is enriching the language.</p> <p>Diamond agrees: "There will always be a minority who want the English language to remain as a frozen beast, that doesn't admit changes," he says.</p> <p>"But language is a vibrant, evolving animal."</p>양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-20942107345820910392011-04-07T01:17:00.001+08:002011-04-07T01:17:42.579+08:00A Rallying Cry From Atheists<h3 class="post-title"> A Rallying Cry From Atheists </h3> Written by my atheist friends from a local Singapore Atheist Group, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Atheisthaven</span>:<br /><br /><br />Atheism is an abject failure.<br /><br />As atheists we are in a unique situation. While we are ostracized,<br />marginalized, persecuted, prosecuted, abused and generally deprived of<br />our rights by unsympathetic regimes and autocratic systems in the real<br />world, it is in cyberspace where we can express ourselves freely to<br />some substantial degree. It is in this virtual realm that we dare<br />challenge theists and other proponents of illogicality and come away<br />truly victorious.<br /><br />However, these victories, impressive as they are, cannot but feel<br />hollow. For all the reasoning and logic which made us, dare I say it,<br />ubermensch, we are unable to demonstrate our superiority where it<br />really matters. Dawkins and Hitchens might have made the world stand<br />up in recognition of the fallacies of religion, but is this<br />proliferation of truth and rationality changing the way people really<br />behave?<br /><br />Sadly, the answer is no. Superstition still holds sway. To many,<br />atheism is a passing fad. People remain attached to their cherished<br />beliefs. After all, knowing the truth does not equate its acceptance.<br />Not only do people want to believe in something, they need to feel<br />wanted. Religion provides a very strong support in satisfying this<br />emotional need, as evident by the number of support groups, cell<br />groups, social and community structures the religious have put<br />together to bind its adherents.<br /><br />It must be intoxicating knowing that `Someone' will always love you.<br />That `Someone' will look after you in every situation and never falter<br />in His efforts. To have this preposterous notion `validated' by your<br />fellow humans who actually help you in times of difficulties while the<br />`Someone' never makes an appearance must seem an affirmation to the<br />desperate. What religion does so effectively is to make each and<br />everyone of its followers feel special. Logic goes out of the window<br />in the face of this compelling emotional assault. It is an irony,<br />considering that rationality is painted over by a very real human need<br />which in turn is satisfied by an illusion instead.<br /><br />This is where atheism fails so miserably. Atheists do not help each<br />other just because they believe in the same creed. The theists,<br />however, do so because their doctrine specifically wills it. For all<br />our arguments and justifications we do not deign to help one another<br />because we take the point of `not giving a damn about God' one step<br />further to include ourselves. I see friends who are Christians support<br />each other within their own church and cell groups. What do I see when<br />I look upon my fellow atheists?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Theist : 1 Atheist : 0.</span><br /><br />Our endless debates with theists achieve little. We are wasting<br />precious time trying to convince people who do not want to be<br />convinced. People would rather live a happier life believing in a lie<br />than accept things as they really are and being less happy as a<br />result. Reading about the articles atheists post on the Internet makes<br />me think that all these well-meaning writers want are to amass as many<br />hits for their sites and to comment favorably on each other's writings<br />in the hope that the praised party, overjoyed at being appreciated,<br />would return the favor. We hide behind monikers like `infidel' and<br />`heretic', perhaps to impart some perceived quality in our cause, but<br />we do not back our words with concrete action. I have more respect for<br />the religious folk (the non-violent ones) who preach their gospel and<br />live their life accordingly than for self-proclaimed atheists who<br />cannot even be bothered to scrap their addled brains off the computer<br />screen to think: I am an atheist. What does this mean? What do I do?<br /><br />Atheism is on precarious ground in this respect. And it is time to<br />stop the rot.<br /><br />We must acknowledge that we are on our own. We have no god(s), no<br />temples, no institutions and nothing to rely upon. Social structure<br />and cultural norms, influenced to some extent by religion does not<br />give the atheist credence. In many parts of the world, atheism is<br />punishable by stoning. In more civilized climates, a priest who<br />incites violence against non-believers is at the most given a slap on<br />the wrist – he might even be lauded for his sense of justice. But an<br />atheist who gives credible reasons for his rejection of religion, and<br />quotes from reliable sources – he is making `seditious' remarks and<br />persecuted for being `anti-religion' . It is obscene. You can say that<br />people are treated equally in these modern times, but you cannot deny<br />that some are more equal than others.<br /><br />In view of the many difficulties atheists face, I propose we take care<br />of our own. And we can do this through support groups.<br /><br />A support group need not have a club-house or a fixed physical<br />location where members can convene. We can host a bulletin board<br />(forum) in cyberspace, much like what Atheisthaven is doing. However,<br />instead of `ghost members' and people who pack only rhetoric and<br />little else, such a group must consist of dedicated individuals who<br />genuinely want to make a difference. While we do not restrict the<br />membership to atheists (the non-religious, freethinkers, agnostics,<br />even Buddhists - especially those leaning towards a philosophical<br />bent may join), members must be committed. As this commitment takes<br />the form of certain obligations, we want positive individuals who<br />truly believe in improving themselves and others. Atheism by its own<br />nature, promotes self-reliance and an internal locus of control. All<br />efforts should have an egalitarian spirit in its core, mutual aid as<br />its strength, and self-actualization its ultimate goal.<br /><br />This is strictly an informal group. No membership fee is required. We<br />only ask that members make an effort to know each other and to<br />interact, preferably face-to-face. This fosters cohesiveness which is<br />very important because people tend to help their own friends than<br />relative strangers.<br /><br />What form should this aid take? At the most basic level, information<br />exchange. People who have questions can post them on the group site,<br />and those with the answers can promptly reply. Questions can range<br />from anything – potential job openings, which university to choose,<br />even where to get the best bargains! At a deeper level, members can<br />work on some task together or maybe enjoy a little soiree.<br /><br />While we encourage members to look after each other's interests, we do<br />not look kindly to people who join for ulterior motives. This is not a<br />MLM (multi-level- marketing) scam, nor is it a dating agency. Promoting<br />any political agenda is also a no-no. In a nutshell, the group is<br />similar to a normal theist cell group, minus the praying and speaking<br />in tongues. Think of it as a secular social network, where normal<br />people (without a faith) make friends and chill out.<br /><br />We must succeed in this endeavor. If sodden theists can organize<br />themselves, it would be a crying shame if intelligent atheists cannot<br />even produce a similar response. The time has passed for talking. Let<br />us show people that we are capable of doing great things, even without<br />divine edicts… because In Humanity We Trust.<br /><br />Liu Weixian and Liang Xianghong<br />- 14/03/2008양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-7753725512426129512011-04-07T01:16:00.000+08:002011-04-07T01:17:00.168+08:00Interview Transcripts: Atheism, & What It Means To Be An Atheist In Singapore<h3 class="post-title"> Interview Transcripts: Atheism, & What It Means To Be An Atheist In Singapore </h3> In my previous post, I mentioned that I had the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ignominious</span> honour of being interviewed by a Straits Times journalist (Straits Times is a national, major newspaper in Singapore), who, upon chancing upon my post with regards to the issue of <a href="http://atheisthaven.blogspot.com/2007/06/interfaith-dialogues-exercise-in.html">interfaith dialogues</a>, decided to conduct a email interview, with what I presume as a further query with regards to the atheistic point of view.<br /><br />Transcripts of the interview was sent to me on the 3<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">rd of</span> July, and my reply was sent out on the following day.<br /><br />While I was hoping that the interview would be published (knowing full well the conservative nature of Straits Times, I was expecting a watered-down version of it), but the latest word I have received was that the journalist concerned, Ms Li (I shall not divulge the full name. For those who are infinitely curious, leave a note in my email or this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">blog's</span> comments) seems to be occupied with her work.<br /><br />So, without further ado, the transcripts, as follows. My replies, in <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">red:</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><br />1) As an atheist, do you feel marginalised in Singapore? Why/why not? If so, do you have any specific examples?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">With regards to feeling marginalized, I feel that much of what has been said and touched on about faith is mostly centered on two or three faiths, namely Catholicism, Christianity and its related denominations, and most important of all, Islam.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Take the latest issue on interfaith dialogues. We have imams, priests, reverends and even the odd Confucian scholar who gets invited. But no one, none from the scholastic circles, such as <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">historians</span>, scientists and the like, gets invited to such talks, much less atheists.<br /><br />What is it about religion that allows them this privilege to get a piece of the limelight and spread their propaganda in such a manner? Are we saying that, short of discussing each other's religion, people from the various religions can't really communicate beyond mere religion? Or are atheists and other members of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">free thought</span> community so highly ostracized that we aren't even allowed a whiff of these bunch of self-appraised folks?</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Dialogues are a good thing, but dialogues such as these are much political tools fabricated by people who wish to glamorize religion and portray a falsified unified front of various religious views.</span><br /><br />2) Do you feel that because of the sensitivity of religious issues and the emphasis on inter-religious harmony in Singapore, you do not have freedom of expression, when it comes to airing your views?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">I think a few years back, two young people or teenagers were arrested and charged with the Sedition Act, one for slandering Islam and the other for drawing Jesus-zombies munching cute little babies.<br /><br />To talk about freedom of speech in Singapore is pretty much like playing Russian roulette: You can heap as much vitriol as you want, but once you bothered some higher-ups, get prepared to be slapped with ignominous charges, such as the ISA (Internal Security Act) and the Sedition Act.</span><br /><br />3) Do you think that atheism is a faith in itself? And should it be accorded the same "respect" that other religions have?<br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Atheism, by its very definition (Atheist from the Greek word, atheos: A, without, theos, God), refers to a negative position of non-belief. An atheist, in essence, is a person who does not believe in God due to the absence of proof (To some atheists, it means observable, empirical proof).<br /><br />Faith requires an element of belief. In the case of faith, it is more aptly described as "Belief in things unseen", which really boils down to blind belief.<br /><br />If anything, atheism is the exact polemic of faith: One is an atheist because one sees no proof to validate the claim, while a person who dwells in faith believes because he or she has subjected to himself or herself a creed irregardless of evidence.<br /><br />As for the question of respect, I feel that we should respect everybody who is generally law-abiding. The case of the gay movement (which I did wrote on my blog), for example, is one that deserves respect, because gays have long been marginalized and in a way, segregated from the majority heterosexuals because of this misguided notion that sex outside the realms of procreation is an abominal sin, a view justified and mortified by the biblical code of stoning gays to death.<br /><br />Just as law-abiding gays deserve respect, recognition and dare I say, the rights to marriage, atheists deserve to have their voices and views heard. Unfortunately in Singapore, the religious right has mostly reserved for themselves the right to be heard, and many times, their views are highly eschewed by their belief systems. For example, one would not expect a priest to extol the virtues of condoms and other contraceptives, despite the devastating effects of AIDS and other sexual diseases. To the priest, sex for pleasure is a sin, regardless of the outcome.</span><br /><br />4) Do you think that atheists should be allowed to set up an organisation to propagate their views, such as Christians have church organisations, Muslims Islam organisations and Buddhists Buddhist organisations to propagate their tenets? Why/why not? How do you think the society and the Government will react?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">I feel that the atheist community in Singapore is too small at the moment: Unlike the American Atheists (AA), atheists here are mainly closeted and disjointed, so no, at the moment, atheists should simply focus on getting out of the closet, which itself is a difficult thing to do, especially for those who are stuck in very strict, fundamentalist sects like I was in the past.<br /><br />If an atheist organization were to exist here, I cannot really fathom the framework which we should go about in setting up such an organization. Religion in Singapore is something that is held in excessive awe and respect, even rationalized in the form of moderate belief systems. If the organization seeks to be just a freethought organization, then I would feel that there is no need for an atheist organization, or for myself to joing one. An active atheist organization that is highly vocal against religious irrationality may be too hot a potato for a distinctively conservative and highly cautious society here in Singapore.</span><br /><br />5) Do you think that a Singaporean atheist would be allowed to write a book like that of Richard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Dawkins</span>' or Christopher <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Hitchens</span>'?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">The problem here in Singapore, I suspect, is that in higher academic circles here, is that any academic must be strictly neutral, or at worst, slightly sympathetic of religiosity in order to continue their research here.<br /><br />That aside, most publishers in Singapore would baulk at publishing such controversial material here. If there is even an outside bet that one could actually sneak past such works, I would gladly be the first one to try.</span><br /><br />6) Do you feel that there are increasing tensions between those who are religious, and those who are secular, within Singapore? Some will call you a "secularist fundamentalist". Do you agree with such a label?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">One of my earliest blog posts (still there, but I have abandoned it) was about this pastor in a megachurch who actually proclaimed that "the red colour of the Singapore flag symbolizes the blood of Christ".<br /><br />I had attended that service on the behest of a friend,and was profoundly shocked to hear this lie being spoken life in front of 20,000 church members.<br /><br />While it is too early to say whether the secularity of our nation is under threat, I think there are people in Singapore who definitely enjoy the idea that the tenets of our Constitution is somehow aligned with the Ten Commandments, even if it clearly isn't.<br /><br />At present, I do not detect this threat in the Parliament. To me, the status quo quo of "Equal playing ground" still holds true up to a point, and I for one would definitely not want to see our nation turn into a fascist theocracy.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The final question with regards to "secular fundamentalist" was left out, because I find that such a term is indeed a grave insult to rational people, religious or otherwise, who do not seek to widen the religious scope towards the secular sector, be it in government institutions or even to the tenets of government.</span><br /><br />Frankly, I doubt this interview would ever be published in our closeted media, and hence I have decided to publish this without the permission of the journalist.<br /><br />In concluding this article, I urge all Singaporeans to speak up in the face of religious domination within our media. We must find a voice in a society that continuously trumpets the need for religious reconciliation, without sparing a thought for the 13%-15% of us who refuse to be part of this hypocrisy of grovelling towards religious moderates who, ironically are the major source of inspiration for fundamentalists and their dastardly plans of terror and extremism.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20647237.post-78576952283133651982011-04-07T01:14:00.000+08:002011-04-07T01:15:54.228+08:00The Invisible Atheists of Singapore?<h3 class="post-title"> The Invisible Atheists of Singapore? </h3> I must admit: in recent weeks, I have been thoroughly frustrated (to put it mildly) by the hypocrisy that has surrounded the recent rise of Atheism brought about by the meteoric rise of Richard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Dawkins</span> and other prominent atheist authors.<br /><br />In response to this trend, the local media in Singapore has decided to entrench itself with the religious right. This pro-right stance is so pervasive that much of the opinions from the pro-left are either ignored, or moderated to a point that they do not offend "religious sensitivities". Our pro-religious <a href="http://www.singaporeunited.sg/cep/index.php/web/news_room/comments_from_dpm_and_minister_for_home_affairs_mr_wong_kan_seng_on_cep">Ministry of Home Affairs</a> has actively supported inter-faith dialogues that effectively cater to the major official religions, effectively ignoring the non-religious communities altogether. Everyone in Singapore is either religious to the hilt, or are merely non-Singaporeans to begin with.<br /><br />In short, atheists and the non-religious do not exist within the Singaporean clique.<br /><br />According to this article, written by <em>Today,</em> atheists do not even feature in the sectarian landscape. No atheists. No infidels. Period.<br /><br /><em>Excerpts From Today Online</em><br /><em><a href="http://www.todayonline.com/articles/200000.asp">Tug of War for America's Soul</a></em><br /><em><a href="http://www.todayonline.com/articles/200000.asp">14<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">th</span> July 2007</a></em><br /><em>By Tiffany Tan</em><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><em>A wave of secularisation is again sweeping through industrialised nations, but will it come around to our corner of the world? Even though Singapore is on the same economic development scale as secular Western countries, experts say atheism in the city-state is a <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">distant possibility</span>. In a study, Dr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Pereira</span> discovered that Singaporeans value religiosity and it is "<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">deeply embedded in society</span>".<br /><br />For some religious leaders, atheism is no reason to lose sleep over.<br /><br />"<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">If there is a war, it has been going on for the last 300 years and atheism is clearly not winning</span>," said Dr Simon Chan, a professor of systematic theology at Singapore's Trinity Theological College.<br /><br />"Previous generations of atheists had been no less vehement and hopeful, but a vast majority of the world's population are too incurably religious to be bought over." </em></span><br /><em><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span></em><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A distant possibility??? For the love of Zeus, I don't know where these journalists got their facts from, but just for the sake of "objective journalism", we shall take a sneak peek into a population <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">consensus</span> report taken in the year 2000 (Link <a href="http://www.singstat.gov.sg/keystats/c2000/religion.pdf">here</a>).</span><br /><br />According to the report, <strong>340,094</strong> Singaporeans have <strong>no religious affiliation, </strong>out of a population of <strong>2,494,630.</strong> The minimum age group of this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">consensus</span> was in the 15-19 category, so we can <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">safely</span> surmise that no kids were involved, which would have muddled up the numbers and give the religious ranks a higher boost in numbers.<br /><br />With these figures, one can assume that at least 13% of Singaporeans do not <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">subscribe</span> to any religion. Unfortunately, there is no way to break the figures down further into atheists, agnostics, deists and other non-religious affiliates, but surely, there ought to be atheists amongst them?<br /><br />Quite contrary to the news article, religion has not been "embedded deeply" into the fabric of society. Considering that there were only <strong>9733 </strong>Sikhs reported by the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">consensus</span>, the non-religious community occupies a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">sizable</span> chuck across the sectarian board.<br /><br />And then there is the "vehement" culture of atheists. Of course, we are riff-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ruffs</span> of the sort that really do speak out against religious abuse, but hey, we aren't the ones strapping bombs and flying planes to skyscrapers for the sake of paradise and some 72 virgins (I am sure most atheists like sex, but we are not delirious enough to believe in bullshit of this nature), or for any particular father figure in the sky.<br /><br />Not a good word, it seems, can be said about atheism. If this article is to be taken as gospel truth, then atheists are no more than invisible shrews, so to speak, good only for spewing vitriol at our persecuted <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">religious</span> counterparts.<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Ignoring the Non-Religious Community In Singapore</span></strong><br /><br />But why are we, the non-religious sector, constantly ignored by the mass media? Are they trying to tell us that we do not belong here, or that we are, at least in the metaphorical sense, "expendable"???<br /><br />On a more personal note, I have had an email interview with an ST journalist, who has somehow stumbled on one of my articles regarding interfaith dialogue. While she did not promise to mention about it from her political correspondence desk, I doubt she will ever publish it (again, to my frustration) because of the anti-religious nature of my replies.<br /><br />Perhaps it is time for the atheist community in Singapore to rally together and break this religious monopoly within the ranks of the mass media. Only then, will our voices be heard by those who will spare no afford to undermine the interests of the non-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">religious</span> community.양사민 estelwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00560307985196180239noreply@blogger.com0