Marc Jacobs has reportedly split from hubby Lorenzo Martone less than four months after the lovers tied the knot in a ceremony in St. Barts.
The Louis Vuitton creative director and brain behind the Marc Jacobs By Marc Jacobs line married the Brazilian PR executive on New Year’s Eve, but the couple have reportedly decided to separate, according to whispers heating up their NYC social circle.
“They’ve both been telling people that they broke up,” one friend told The New York Post this week.
Lorenzo is rumored to have moved out of the couple’s Manhattan apartment, and he didn’t accompany Jacobs to the wedding of the fashionisto’s business partner Robert Duffy last week.
The most successful brands share several attributes in common. One of the most important: Ownership of a single word that defines the brand. Last week, Facebook made the word “like” its own, in one of the biggest branding coups in decades.
“Like” is seemingly everywhere this week and associated with Facebook. The social network didn’t just extend the mechanism beyond its territorial borders, but claimed ownership over the word, too. Backed by the social network’s reach and popularity — approaching 500 million subscribers — and Open Graph protocol, the “Like” thumbs-up icon already appears on hundreds of thousands of Web pages outside Facebook. Perhaps then, Facebook’s branding coup is double — not just ‘like’ but the thumbs-up symbol, too.
I use Tumblr for my Odd Together blog, where the service’s subscribers can like something by clicking a heart. The point: Facebook wasn’t the only social service using a “like” mechanism. By the way, Tumblr rivals Posterous and TypePad have built-in easy support for Facebook Like. Hehe, they like Like.
Big brands do big business by claiming ownership over a single word. For Volvo it’s “safety.” For, Nike it’s “performance.” For Apple, it’s increasingly “magic.” Barack Obama claimed “change” during his presidential campaign.
In 2002, Rajendra Srivastava, Emory University Goizueta Business School professor, explained the importance of word ownership. “A brand really lies between the two ears of the consumer. The company owns the physical brand, of course, but the value of the brand really is what it means to the consumer.” What could be more meaningful than like? The word is loaded with positive and personal connotations. “I like you” or “I like this,” with the important emphasis on “I,” which is me (or is that you). Good branding also is about generating good feelings. What could be more good feeling than like, other than perhaps love?
From a broader branding perspective, word ownership is most potent when it is a verb, meaning there is action behind it. For some brands, like Google or Xerox, the word is the company name replacing a verb. People “Google” instead of “search” or they “Xerox” instead of “copy.” Facebook is never going to be a successful verb, but like already is one.
Facebook’s Like branding is atypical from a larger marketing perspective. Generally, companies take ownership over a word because they want people to buy something. Facebook wants people to vote for something by Liking it. Around those Likes — and the associated subscriber identities — Facebook is looking to profit from advertising and marketing intelligence services. As good as cookies and other tracking mechanisms are, an identity is much better. Facebook can build demographic profiles around those Likes, which are marketing gold.
Perhaps the closest atypical word branding campaign to Facebook is Barack Obama’s run for the presidency. How strange, he sought people’s votes, too — wanted more Americans to like him than rival John McCain. The Obama political campaign ran one of the most effective marketing campaigns in US history. Advertising Age named Barack Obama marketer of the year in 2008. In Nov. 5, 2008, AdAge story “What Marketers Can Learn From Obama’s Campaign,” Al Ries explains how Obama came to own “change”. He writes:
Mr. Obama’s objective was not to communicate the fact that he was an agent of change. In today’s environment, every politician running for the country’s highest office was presenting him or herself as an agent of change. What Mr. Obama actually did was to repeat the ‘change’ message over and over again, so that potential voters identified Mr. Obama with the concept. In other words, he owns the ‘change’ idea in voters’ minds.
“Change” didn’t come easy. The Obama campaign effectively used social media tools to engage and marshall supporters. In Janaury 2009, PR agency Edelman released report “The Social Pulpit: Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit.” The report explains, and to my reading surprisingly effectively, how the Obama campaign converted “everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers, donors and advocates through social networks, e-mail advocacy, text messaging and online video.” Change was Barack Obama’s message, but social media tools were the means for marshaling volunteers and voters.
Social media is the other connection to Facebook. An April 1, 2009 FastCompany story explains “How Chris Hughes Helped Launch Facebook and the Barack Obama Campaign.” Hughes created the social networking tools vital to the campaign’s eventual success. Hughes’ now defunct blog offers insight into how volunteers used My.BarackObama.com to establish “35,000 local organizing groups” in all 50 states. Hughes also is one of Facebook’s cofounders.
Facebook and Barack Obama share somewhat intertwined fates. A Facebook founder created the social networking infrastructure that helped a presidential campaign own the word “change,” and to pull off one of the most successful branding campaigns in American political history. Now Facebook is claiming ownership over “like,” using social networking tools to drive the brand ownership/association. Did Facebook marketers learn something from Hugh’s work on the Obama campaign, or is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg just lucky? He would be the first geek to demonstrate accidental branding brilliance.
Regardless, Facebook has taken ownership over the word like. Brand marketers around the world wish they could have done something similar. They’ll cash in by association. Facebook Like is going to big marketing.
Some aspects of modern life can harm health and the environment. Environmental justice means that these effects should be shared fairly and that everyone should have the opportunity to participate in making decisions about environmental issues, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income.. Examples include:
Many inner cities still have sewer systems that are not designed to handle storm overflow, so raw sewage can flow into rivers and streams.
Farm workers, 90% of whom are people of color, may face serious health risks from pesticides.
Low income, and quite often culturally diverse populations, are more likely than other groups to live near landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste treatment facilities.
What should environmental justice look like in your community?
Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.
There are certainly concerns from many people about the fact that it’s difficult to get certain information to go away online. Hell, there’s an entire industry built around the idea of trying to either remove or hide any “bad info” about you online. However, it looks like there’s a new bill in Congress that would be a disaster for free speech and would have incredible unintended consequences. It’s an attempt to extend DMCA-style takedowns for any “personal info” posted online. This comes just as more people are recognizing that such takedowns have a high likelihood of being unconstitutional. In this case, the so-called “Cyber Privacy Act” would require any website that allows open posting of content to provide “a means for individuals whose personal information it contains to request the removal of such information” and would then be required to “promptly remove the personal information of any individual who requests its removal.”
Notice that there is no other option. You can’t respond as to why that content is reasonable and should be left available. You can’t defend basic freedom of speech. In fact, this is even worse than a DMCA-style notice-and-takedown regime, which at least has a process of counternotices and the allowance that content can be put back up under certain conditions. That does not exist in this case. And what constitutes “personal information”? According to the bill:
As used in this Act, the term ‘personal information’ means any information about an individual that includes, at minimum, the individual’s name together with either a telephone number of such individual or an address of such individual.
The bill was introduced by Michigan Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, and it seems like one of those bills that someone rushed out after hearing some moral panic about people’s information being online. But it looks like Rep. McCotter never bothered to think through the unintended consequences of making it easy to demand content be taken offline with no recourse. In many cases, things like your name, address or telephone number are, in fact, public information — and even if you don’t like that such content is out there, it doesn’t mean that it should be illegal. It’s not hard to see how this would be massively abused, just like the DMCA takedown process and create a pretty big burden for all sorts of websites. About the only “good” thing I could see if this bill passed is perhaps we’d get a precedent that could be used to invalidate the DMCA’s takedown process as unconstitutional as well.
So you couldn’t pay your taxes and you opted not to file them, or an extension, at all. Don’t sit around worrying about when the IRS will catch on and come after you; file them as soon as possible, writes consumer reporter Iris Taylor, so that you can set up a repayment plan and move on with your life. The sooner you do this, the sooner you can pay them off (you can take up to 5 years to pay them), and the less you’ll end up paying in penalties and fees over the long run.
If you can pay off the bill in the next 120 days, you can call the IRS at 800-829-1040 to let them know. (You can make free electronic payments online at www.irs.gov.) If you need more time than that, fill out Form 9465 (“Installation Agreement Request”) and send that in with your tax return, along with the set-up fee–between $105 and $43, depending on your income level and payment method. And if you owe so much money that you’ll never be able to pay it off and you can prove it, send in Form 656 (“Offer in Compromise”), which will cost $150.
Finally, consider getting a loan to repay the taxes you owe. Obviously you’ll have to compare the total cost to see which method is better, but a tax manager tells Taylore that it could be “cheaper than paying penalties, interest and fees to the IRS,” and that “you’ll get more consumer protection… and you also might be able to deduct the interest that you borrow.”
After waiting patiently for the Nexus One to arrive on Verizon’s network, customers have learned today that there will be no such animal. The official Google Phone store has removed the placeholder indicating a spring launch and replaced it with a blurb about buying the “similarly feature-packed cousin”, the Droid Incredible. No word has been been given as to why the Nexus One was scrapped.
Related to 3G issues? Worry over cannibalization of Droid Incredible? Fear that it wouldn’t sell as compared to the latest and greatest? Chime in with your guess below!
The U.S. Treasury could see a substantial windfall as it begins to sell its shares of Citigroup, which were obtained as a condition of its bailout. Officials announced this morning that they would begin sales of the government’s 7.7 billion shares of the banking behemoth as early as today, with a 1.5 billion initial offering. The total shares offered amount to around 27% of Citi’s shares outstanding. If sold at current share prices, then the Treasury will do quite well on its investment.
How well? It paid $3.25 per share, which accounted for $25 billion of Citi’s bailout. If it sold all its shares at the stock’s price of $4.70 as of noon, it would produce $36.2 billion — a profit of $11.2 billion, which is about a 45% return. Who knew the government was such a savvy investor?
Of course, it’s a little unclear whether the Treasury will manage to secure that price or not. The government appears to be at least as concerned with who will be purchasing these shares as for how much. The press release takes time to note that the Treasury told its broker “to provide opportunities for participation by small broker-dealers, including minority- or women-owned broker-dealers.” If this wasn’t the government we were talking about, all parties would be forced to pay the prevailing market price, but since the Treasury isn’t a profit-seeking entity, politics could be put ahead of price.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that the government chose Morgan Stanley as its broker to sell the shares. One can only imagine the populist anger that would have erupted if the Treasury had instead chosen Goldman Sachs, given the SEC inquiry announced earlier this month. Morgan Stanley is one of Goldman’s biggest competitors. According to the stock sale prospectus, the bank stands to make between $0.003 and $0.0175 per share on commission. For the 7.7 billion shares, that will amount to between $23 million and $135 million.
The fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the heroic young Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews before he was arrested by the Soviets in Budapest in early 1945, is one of the great unresolved mysteries of World War II. For decades, the official story from Moscow has been that Wallenberg died in Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison on July 17, 1947—two and a half years after he was captured. But many questions have surrounded that story, and now the Russians themselves have come up with startling new information suggesting that Wallenberg did not die on that date.
The new information appears in an 8-page letter from FSB (Federal Security Service) archivists to a pair of U.S.-based researchers, Susanne Berger and Vadim Birstein, who have been working on the case for years. In the letter, the FSB reveals that Wallenberg was “in all likelihood” the “prisoner number 7” who was interrogated in Lubyanka for sixteen hours on July 23, 1947, along with his driver in Budapest, Vilmos Langfelder, and Langfelder’s cellmate, Sandor Katona (both Hungarians). If the FSB is right, this is, first of all, a chilling admission that Wallenberg was subject to far more abuse than previously thought: it was known that he had been interrogated by the Soviets, but not in this extreme way; we can only imagine what he must have suffered at the hands of his brutal NKGB interrogators—and they were notoriously brutal—during that sixteen-hour session. More importantly, it also means that Wallenberg was still alive six days after July 17.
Why does this matter? Above all, as Susanne Berger told me, it re-opens the Wallenberg case by raising new possibilities about his fate. Wallenberg could have been killed immediately after (or during) his July 23 interrogation or he could have been kept in severe isolation in Lubyanka for several months and then executed. Another possibility is that he was sentenced and transferred to a distant prison, such as Vladimir, 250 kilometers east of Moscow, where quite a few witnesses said they met or heard of Raoul Wallenberg after 1947. Also, the new FSB evidence strongly suggests that—contrary to what the Russians have long maintained—documents related to Wallenberg still exist in the Russian archives. It may well be possible to determine, once and for all, the truth about his fate.
Several years ago I wrote a piece about Wallenberg for the New York Review, in which I discussed the findings of the Swedish-Russian Working Group on Raoul Wallenberg after the Russian archives first became accessible in the 1990s. Back in 1957 Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had handed over to Swedish authorities a report signed by a Lubyanka prison doctor, stating that Wallenberg had suffered a fatal heart attack on July 17, 1947. But documents released from the Russian archives in the 1990s suggested that the heart attack never occurred and the doctor’s report was a cover-up. If Wallenberg had indeed died on July 17—the Russians insisted on this date, while the Swedes and independent experts for the working group remained unconvinced—it was probably by murder.
Until recently Russian archival officials claimed there were no more relevant documents on Wallenberg to be found, and the Swedish government stopped pressing the Russians for answers. But Wallenberg’s half-brother, Guy von Dardel (who died last year) and several other researchers who took part in the working group, including Berger and Birstein, insisted that the Russians were holding back key evidence. In 2001—inspired in part by von Dardel’s unflagging efforts to find out what happened to his brother—Berger and Birstein began corresponding with the officials who run the FSB archives about some of the unresolved questions.
Over much of the past decade, little progress was made. But in January 2009, a top FSB archival official, Vasily Khristoforov, suddenly admitted—in a long article in the Russian daily Vremia Novostei—that important questions about Wallenberg remained unanswered: Why did the Soviet special services need Wallenberg? What were the circumstances of his imprisonment? And, finally, how and when did he die? In stressing that the case was by no means closed, Khristoforov seemed to suggest that more information was forthcoming. That information came in late 2009, when the FSB sent the 8-page letter to Berger and Birstein. (Although the letter was delivered to the researchers via the Swedish Embassy in Moscow last November, they kept it under wraps until late March of this year; before going public they wanted to study its contents and ask for further clarifications from the FSB archivists, as yet unanswered.) Why did the FSB reverse its position and raise the curtain, if only slightly, on a murky episode of the Stalin era?
Igor Gavrilov/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
An interrogation room inside Lubyanka prison, which was housed inside the old KGB headquarters, Moscow, November 1, 1991
The FSB would not take such a significant step in the Wallenberg case without the approval of the Russian leadership. It is probably no coincidence that the FSB’s revelation about Wallenberg has been followed by the Kremlin’s recent recognition of the 1940 Katyn massacre, in which the Soviet secret police executed more than 20,000 members of the Polish armed forces. In addition to allowing a Polish documentary about this terrible Soviet atrocity to be shown on Russian state television, the Russian government has for the first time acknowledged the historical significance of Katyn, in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s comments at the 70th anniversary commemoration of the massacre in early April. (A subsequent event, that was to have involved the Polish and Russian presidents, was horrifically overshadowed by the crash of the Polish delegation’s plane, though there is some hope that the tragedy will result in stronger Polish-Russian relations.)
Given the Kremlin’s blatant disregard for historical truth about the Soviet era, especially since Putin became president in 2000, this openness comes as a surprise. As recently as September 2007, at Putin’s behest, then FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev handed over purported archival documents on Wallenberg to the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, for inclusion in a proposed Museum of Tolerance. Among the documents was the fake report saying Wallenberg had died of a heart attack.
The motivations behind the Kremlin’s recent shift remain unclear: perhaps it wants to obtain economic concessions from Europe, or perhaps there is a broader recognition by Russian leaders that coming clean about the Stalin period will bring them respect from the West and make it easier to advance Russian foreign policy aims. But surely the documentation about Prisoner No. 7 in the interrogation register did not appear out of the blue; there should be a larger file. And if Wallenberg was ultimately sent to a prison away from Moscow, there might be documentation in the archives of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs). It’s time for the Swedish government (and perhaps the Americans and other Western leaders) to press the Kremlin leadership directly for answers.
Bandanas everywhere continue to fly at half-mast as doctors look for the source of a severe brain bleed that left former Poison frontman and Celebrity Apprentice contestant Bret Michaels fighting for his life in the ICU of a Texas hospital.
Michaels remains in critical condition, but was conscious and talking with slurred speech after suffering a brain aneurysm, his publicist said on Sunday.
“Bret is a fighter and we are hopeful that once all is complete, the slurred speech, blurred vision and dizziness etc will be eliminated and all functions will return to normal,” the statement added.
[JURIST] Lawyers for victims of the July 7, 2005 London transit bombings argued on Monday in the Royal Courts of Justice that UK authorities possessed information that could have helped them prevent the attacks. The theory for the case is built on intelligence that British security service MI5 and the London police had uncovered about the four suicide bombers prior to the attacks. Counsel for bereaved families argued that the UK government breached obligations to its citizens under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for the right to life. MI5 and the Home Secretary argued in response to the prosecution’s arguments that the matter has already been investigated in the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) and that the intelligence could undermine law enforcement efforts if made public. The hearing is scheduled to last for three days.
In January, the UK government introduced a scheme for compensating victims of overseas terrorism, using a plan that closely mirrors that used to compensate families of the July 2005 bombings. In November, London police reached a settlement with the family of a man mistaken for one of the terrorist suspects involved in the bomb plot. In April 2008, the UK Court of Appeal rejected the appeal of four men found guilty of plotting the London attacks. The 2005 bombings targeted three trains and one bus, killing 52 people and injuring at least 770.
Zagato, the coach-building brand for Alfa Romeo created quite a stir when the teaser images of its TZ3 Corsa Race Car were first unveiled. The physical version of the car has now been unveiled at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy and it sure has the fanatics excited.
This race car is purpose-built to mark 90 years of collaboration between Zagato and Alfa Romeo. The race car is a two-seater and is powered by a rear-wheel driven mechanism with a mid-front mounted engine. What makes it a scorching racer is its low weight which is the courtesy of its handmade aluminum body. The TZ3 is powered by 4.2 liter V8 with 420 PS and the best part is that the engine calibration is manually adjustable. The commuter can dash from 0 to 100 km/h in a matter of 3.5 seconds.
Algunos aspectos de la vida moderna pueden afectar la salud y el medio ambiente. El término justica ambiental quiere decir que estos efectos se deben compartir de un forma justa y que todos debemos de tener la oportunidad de participar en la toma de decisiones sobre problemas ambientales independientemente de la raza, color, nacionalidad o nivel económico. Algunos ejemplos incluyen:
Muchas áreas urbanas continúan teniendo sistemas de alcantarillados que no están diseñados para procesar escorrentías después de una tormenta. Esto ocasiona que aguas residuales desemboquen en ríos y otras corrientes de agua.
Los agricultores, 90% de los cuales son personas de color, pueden enfrentar serios riegos a la salud a causa de los pesticidas.
Personas de bajos recursos económicos, y a menudo poblaciones de otras culturas, están más inclinadas que otros grupos a vivir cerca de basureros, incineradores, y instalaciones de tratamiento de desperdicios peligrosos.
¿Cómo debe de ser la justicia ambiental en su comunidad?
Former Senate Democratic spokesman Patrick Scully says the state should drop its long-running plans for the New Britain to Hartford busway.
The proposal has been the subject of numerous press conferences through the years, and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell went to New Britain during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign to announce progress on the line. The buses still aren’t running.
The plan calls for 11 stops in four communities that include downtown New Britain, East Main Street, Cedar Street in Newington, Newington junction, the Elmwood section of West Hartford, Flatbush Avenue near the West Hartford-Hartford border, New Park Avenue, Park Street in Hartford’s Frog Hollow section, Sigourney Street and Union Station in downtown Hartford.
On the 7th of December, 2008, in the heart of Scotland, a chimpanzee called Pansy died peacefully. She was over 50 years old and lived on an island in Blair Drummond Safari Park with three other chimps – her daughter Rosie, another adult female called Blossom, and Blossom’s son Chippie.
Their reaction to her passing was recorded by the park’s cameras (see video above) and many of their actions seem remarkably human. The others seemed to care for Pansy in her final minutes, examine her body for signs of life, and avoid the place where she died. Rosie even conducted the equivalent of an all-night vigil.
This footage provides a rare glimpse into how one of our closest relatives deal with death, and it’s one of two such examples that have been published today. The second took place several thousand miles away in the forests of Bossou, Guinea. In 2003, a respiratory epidemic killed five of the local chimps, including two babies called Jimato and Veve.
Their mothers, Jire and Vuavua, carried their babies’ lifeless bodies around for 68 and 19 days respectively. They groomed the dead youngsters and chased away the flies that circled them (see image and video below). Even after both babies had completely mummified into dry, leathery husk, the mothers still carried them, and other groups members investigated them.
These examples of quiet, calm behaviour are incredibly different from previous anecdotes. At Gombe National Park in Tanzania, the death of a male who fell from a tree was greeted by an eruption of noise. The others made alarm calls and aggressive displays, and they touched and held each other. They stared and sniffed at the corpse, but no one touched it and after four hours, the group left.
Elsewhere, in the Tai Forest, a leopard fatally mauled a young female and the same mass excitement ensued. This time, the others frequently touched the body and some males even dragged it for short distances before abandoning it. And in other cases, chimps have been shown to attack or even cannibalise the corpses of dead infants, despite the protestations of their mothers.
In stark contrast, Pansy’s peers were calm and restrained. When studying animal behaviour, it is always important to avoid the trap of anthropomorphism, but one cannot help but draw comparisons between Rosie, Blossom and Chippie’s actions and the responses of humans to peaceful death.
Pansy’s final hours were documented by Alasdair Gillies, head keeper at Blair Drummond. She started becoming lethargic in November and started receiving veterinary care. Her fellow chimps seemed to know that something was up. Instead, of sleeping on their usual platforms, they nested near her. At 4pm on December 7th, she started breathing erratically and laboriously and Gillies let the others join her.
They groomed her with unusual frequency in the 10 minutes before her death and afterwards, they seemed to test for life by inspecting her mouth and lifting her limbs. More unusually, Chippie attacked Pansy’s corpse on no less than three occasions (see video below); Gillies thinks that he may have been trying to rouse her or expressing frustration or anger. Blossom groomed her son for an extraordinary amount of time, perhaps an act of consolation or social support.
Rosie, meanwhile, stayed with her mother’s body throughout the night, on a platform that she had never previously slept on. All the three surviving chimps slept restlessly and the next morning, they were all subdued. They removed straw from Pansy’s body, ate less than normal, and watched silently as the keepers took Pansy away. When they were allowed to return to the sleeping area, Blossom and Rosie did so hesistantly, but Chippy refused. His alarm calls drew the other two back to the day area, where the trio spent the night. For the following week, none of the chimps nested on the platform where Pansy died, even though all of them had frequently done so before.
Legendary primate researcher Frans de Waal says, “I have seen chimpanzees die in captive colonies, sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes after a long illness, and the reactions described here correspond with my experiences. There is even a dramatic photograph that reached cyberspace.”
The tale of the African chimps, told by Dora Biro from the University of Oxford, differs in its details but has many parallels. Vuavua paid such care to her dead baby that by the time she abandoned him, his body was largely intact albeit mummified. Jire did the same, although she carried Jimato along for so long that his facial features were largely unrecognisable. Did Jire and Vuavua know that their babies were dead? It’s hard to say. Certainly, they seemed to treat the corpses like live babies, at least for a few days. Towards the end, they started carrying them in positions that they never use for healthy youngsters.
Other chimps touched, poked and sniffed the bodies, and lifted their immobile limbs. Some of the other youngsters even carried them in bouts of play. Even though the bodies’ were starting to deform and smell intensely, only one of the chimps ever reacted in a way that looked like repulsion (see video below). Biro never saw a single act of aggression.
This is hardly the first time that a chimp mother has been seen carrying the mummified corpse of her baby; the first such sighting was made in 1992 and was very similar to the latest ones. De Waal says, “The carrying of dead infants by chimpanzee mothers is well known, and has also been reported for other primates, although never of such long duration. 68 days is longer than any previous report that I have seen!” He says that ape physiology drives an enormous attachment between mother and infant, that doesn’t rapidly shut down when the infant dies. For example, a chimp’s reproductive cycle grinds to a halt for four years after giving birth.
“It would also not be adaptive to abandon an infant every time it gets sick,” says de Waal. “The best option is for mothers to keep hope and keep caring. A rapid shutting down of attachment would be maladaptive: it might lead mothers of near-dead infants to abandon them prematurely.” Why did Jire and Vuavua eventually let go? As their reproductive cycle restarted and all the associated hormonal changes kicked in, the mums could have been psychologically prepped to raise another generation. The fact that Jire carried her dead child for longer than Vuavua may be because she had already had 7 previous children, while Vuavua was a first-time mother.
Both of these examples suggest that chimpanzees have a better awareness of death and dying that people have previously thought. In many ways, this shouldn’t be surprising – these animals are self-aware and empathetic towards each other. Another intellgent animal, the African elephant, also shows remarkably sophisticated behaviour on the death of their peers. De Waal says, “I don’t think this is the same as what elephants do, which visit burial sites long after the death of a companion. But I wouldn’t be surprised if elephants also showed reactions like these (minus the aggressive displays, which seem typically chimp) to the actual death of another.”
Do chimps truly understand the concept of death? Based on the stories of Pansy, Jire and Vuavua, de Waal says, “Definitely, they seem to recognize the death of another, and perhaps realize that this is a permanent change, and a permanent loss. This by itself is already very significant, and reports like these help us understand the depth of their understanding.” But he also adds that we can’t draw any conclusions about whether they understand their own mortality. “To understand one’s own mortality would require extrapolating from what happens to others to one’s own situation. We cannot rule this out, of course, but it would require another big mental jump and for the moment we have no way of knowing if species other than us have made this jump.”
In the meantime, James Anderson, who led the Scottish study, says that the work could affect the way that elderly chimps in zoos and research facilities are cared for. It might, for example, be more humane to let the old-timers die naturally, surrounded by peers and familiar surroundings, than to resort to isolated treatment or euthanasia.
Reference: Current Biology, references unavailable at time of writing
Hey Amazon, et. al., I think we just figured out how you can solve your Stupid Shipping Gang problem: switch over to this kind of box that fits every item, no matter what size, perfectly. It’s called the “Universal Packaging System” and it’s amazing.
Designed by Patrick Sung, the “UPS” is a piece of corrugated cardboard pre-scored with a grid of triangles. The board is then wrapped around the object(s), conforming to its size. If you got some extra, you can just cut it off and use it on the next shipment. No more sending USB drives in cavernous boxes!
Its been a long wait for LG Expo owners, but the Snapdragon-totting smartphone is now finally able to join in the custom ROM flashing fun, thanks to the efforts of Dark9781.
The ROM runs the latest 23563 build of Windows Mobile, and has been stripped of superfluous AT&T apps.
Read more about the new ROM and any associated issues in this XDA-Developers thread.
Technology: GSM Announced Carrier: n/a Announced Release Date: May, 2010
The BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9105 model differs from the 9100 by featuring a 14-key traditional phone keyboard. Other key features include optical trackpad. , SureType software, WiFi, BlackBerry Media Sync, 624 Mhz processor, and 256 MB of flash memory.
Buried in news of a partnership with Vodafone and Verizon is the somewhat surprising (or perhaps somewhat expected, depending on your school of thought) news that the Google Nexus One will not be headed toward Verizon anytime soon (if at all) – or at least that’s how I’m reading between the lines.
Instead, the post on Google’s official Nexus One blog reads: “In the US, if you’ve been waiting for the Nexus One for Verizon Wireless’ network, head over to http://phones.verizonwireless.com/htc/incredible to pre-order the Droid Incredible by HTC, a powerful new Android phone and a cousin of the Nexus One that is similarly feature-packed. It will be available in stores on April 29th.”
This seems contrary to Google’s original plan to sell their self-branded phone through their own online store, and frankly I’m confused. Additionally, what does this mean for the Sprint N1? When Verizon announced they would have an N1 come Spring, Sprint was quick to jump on the bandwagon and say ‘We’re getting the N1 too!’ Now I’m beginning to wonder if the HTC EVO 4G will end up being Sprint’s version of the N1.
As usual time will tell, but I’m getting increasingly interested to see what Google’s plan is, and whether they have one. Perhaps the Nexus One is a concept as well as a branded device that is supposed to spur innovation among superphone makers, and if so, maybe this isn’t so bad after all. If you have any insight, fell free to leave it in the comments, as usual!
Update: I don’t know how I missed this the first time around, but it really seems like Google is changing their game plan in a major way. Not only is the Nexus one coming to Vodafone UK (with no plans of being sold on Verizon), but you can pre-order the phone from the Vodafone website, and not the Google store site. Go here to see what I mean. Could this be the beginning of a Nexus One migration to retail stores?
The bill is not dead but it’s in E.R., and on life-support. Today Senators John Kerry (D- Mass.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and lone Republican Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), were set to release their energy and climate change bill. A legislation that enjoys support from key industry leaders, environmental groups, and unlike other key Obama legislation had some aura of bi-partisanship.
But on Friday night Senator Graham walked away from the bill over attempts by the Senate leadership and the White House to push through immigration reform over climate change and energy. This week immigration became a top priority after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) signed into law one of the country’s strictest immigration law on record. On Friday President Obama called the law “misguided.”
Graham, already vulnerable in his home state, partly because of his willingness to work with the White House on climate change and other key issues, wants climate change and energy to go ahead of immigration. The bill has been a year in the making and is obviously much farther along than any immigration reform bill.
In his letter he wrote:
“Expecting these major issues to be addressed in three weeks — which appears to be their [the White House] current plan based upon media reports — is ridiculous…. Let’s be clear, a phony, political effort on immigration today accomplishes nothing but making it exponentially more difficult to address in a serious, comprehensive manner in the future.”
From our perspective what’s hard to understand is why shake the deck, so close to the end-goal. While the 60 votes weren’t secured (yet), the Kerry -Lieberman -Graham legislation enjoyed wide industry support (ConocoPhilips was on board); It was bi-partisan, all factors that could have helped twist some arms to get to 60 during the floor debate.
At least for now pragmatic politics has won the day. Senator Reid faces a tough reelection in his home state of Nevada, which has a large Hispanic population. Pushing a comprehensive immigration reform with provisions that could legalize millions of illegal workers would play well with his Hispanic constituents.
In a statement released shortly after Graham’s letter, Reid downplayed the riff.
He wrote:
Immigration and energy reform are equally vital to our economic and national security and have been ignored for far too long. As I have said, I am committed to trying to enact comprehensive clean energy legislation this session of Congress. Doing so will require strong bipartisan support, and energy could be next if it’s ready. I have also said we will try to pass comprehensive immigration reform. This too will require bipartisan support and significant committee work that has not yet begun.”
Senators Graham, Kerry and Lieberman are expected to meet later today. Lieberman seemed optimistic, saying it should be sent to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a full economic analysis, a process that’s expected to take five weeks to do.
Supporters of the bill are angry, not Graham but at the White House and Reid. On CBS’s Face the Nation New York Times columnist Tom Friedman said the political gamesmanship played over the climate change bill was a “disaster,” and a “travesty.”
He added:
“The result is, right now … in Beijing, they are high-fiving each other… ‘Oh yeah baby. This means the Americans are going to be paralyzed on green tech for another couple of years. China is already leading the world now in wind production; China is already leading the world in solar production. Where industry goes, where research goes.’
Joe Romm on his Climate Progress blog wrote:
Obama cannot possibly be a successful president from a historical perspective if he doesn’t have a domestic climate bill, since that would essentially doom the chance for an international climate deal. Who really is going to care about accomplishments in banking regulations and immigration when they are suffering through Hell and High Water?
Its been a long wait for 
