Keeper Phil Ridges explains how Emmie the gorilla responds to being tickled
Thought it was just humans that are ticklish? Think again - scientists are studying how animals respond to being tickled in a bid to shed light on how laughter evolved.
Tickling a gorilla is not for the faint-hearted. But keeper Phil Ridges is not worried at getting into the enclosure with Emmie at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent.
The gorilla, now 19, was hand-reared, and Phil has been her keeper for most of her life.
He says she has a tendency to be "a little bit frosty", but if she is in the mood, she cannot resist a chortle when she is tickled.
"I've worked with gorillas for a long time, and I've often seen gorillas tickling each other, so it is a nice feeling when they have accepted you enough and they don't mind you tickling them," he says.
But it is Emmie's response that has intrigued scientist Marina Davila-Ross from the University of Portsmouth, because the gorilla's reaction sounds a lot like human laughter.
Dr Davila-Ross says: "I was amazed about the way apes responded to being tickled - the apes seem to behave in the same way humans and children behave when they are being tickled."
Friday, December 30, 2011
Scientists tickle animals to find laughter clues
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Ben Breedlove
Ben Breedlove was an Austin teenager who had a popular YouTube channel
("OurAdvice4You") where he gave dating advice to viewers. He also had
a life-threatening heart condition he fought every day growing up.
The brave 18-year-old lost his life on Christmas night from a heart
attack. The week before, he recorded the below videos where he shared
his feelings about death, after "cheating" it three times.
He also shared a vision that came to him when the paramedics were
reviving him at his school: he stood in a white room, wearing a suit,
and was joined by his favorite rapper, Kid Cudi.
"I then looked in the mirror, I was proud of myself of my entire life,
everything I have done. It was the BEST feeling," he wrote.
Cudi posted the following message on his blog in response to the news
of Breedlove's death: "I am so sad about Ben Breedlove. I watched the
video he left for the world to see, and him seeing me in detail, in
his vision really warmed my heart. I broke down... To Ben's family,
you raised a real hero, he's definitely mine. You have my love."
Watch Breedlove's videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmlTHfVaU9o&feature=player_embedded
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Christmas gift to America 20 years ago – a Russia to be thankful for
In a Christmas gift on Dec. 25, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. The “evil empire,” as Ronald Reagan rightly called it, was erased from the map. On its territory, Russia and 14 newly independent states emerged.
In the rush of the past two decades, “things have changed so fast we have not yet taken time to be astonished,” the late Czech President Vaclav Havel once observed. The tendency of bad news to drive out the good is well known. How often does a story about positive developments lead television coverage or make the front page? Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that he will run again for the presidency (and undoubtedly win) casts a cloud that accentuates the negative.
RELATED: Billionaire as Russia's next president? The 5 richest men in Russia
Nonetheless, as Americans pause during this holiday season to give thanks and reflect, it is appropriate to review what has happened in the new Russia’s first 20 years. Assessed strictly from the perspective of what matters most to Americans, the good news is that the nightmares that experts realistically expected at the time have not happened.
Who imagined the Evil Empire disappearing – without war?
Who imagined US victory over its cold war rival – with a whimper rather than a bang?
Who imagined a revolution that buried communism – without blood?
OPINION: After Russia's elections, public anger at Putin: Can he fix corruption?
Who imagined that 20 years on, not one single nuclear bomb from the entire Soviet arsenal would have been found loose outside Russia? (Recall that in December 1991, on “Meet the Press,” then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney forecast: “If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons … and they are 99 percent successful, that would mean you could still have as many as 250 [warheads] they were not able to control.”)
Who imagined that the nation that would do more than any other over these two decades to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional states would be Russia? (Russia took the lead, with a significant American assist, in preventing Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus from inheriting major strategic nuclear arsenals.)
Who imagined that a state that had been defined for the previous 700 years by continuous imperial expansion, having just seen its borders rolled back to lines last known under Peter the Great, would have acquired no new territory in these two decades? (To be precise, after the conflict with Georgia in 2008, Russia recognized two provinces of Georgia as new independent states. But it did not annex them.)
IN PICTURES: Russians protest Putin's party
Who imagined that the biggest contributor to increases in global oil and gas exports that keep downward pressure on gas prices in America would be Russia?
Who could have imagined that the nation that now provides the most significant lifeline to 100,000 American troops fighting in Afghanistan would be Russia?
Who could have imagined that the only way US astronauts can get to the International Space Station today is to hitch a ride on Russian spacecraft?
Who could have imagined that Europe would be seeking euro-bolstering loans not only from China but also from Russia?
Assessment of the past two decades from the perspective of Russian citizens presents a different question. But from the perspective of impact on American national interests, despite continuing differences on issues like Iran and Syria today, this glass is certainly closer to full than to empty.
The Monitor's View: Russia protests and other 2011 uprisings
Russia remains the land of matryoshka dolls and Potemkin villages. One penetrates one layer only to discover another, each reflecting truths that compete with contradictory realities within and beyond. Two decades on, the story is unfinished. Relative to our brightest hopes, Russia disappoints today and will do so in the future. Compared to our darkest fears, we have much for which to give thanks.
Graham Allison is director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Lessons from The Arab spring
The 'Arab spring' and the west: seven lessons from history | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
There's a real sense in which, more than any other part of the former colonial world, the Middle East has never been fully decolonised. Sitting on top of the bulk of the globe's oil reserves, the Arab world has been the target of continual interference and intervention ever since it became formally independent.
Carved into artificial states after the first world war, it's been bombed and occupied – by the US, Israel, Britain and France – and locked down with US bases and western-backed tyrannies. As the Palestinian blogger Lina Al-Sharif tweeted on Armistice Day this year, the "reason World War One isn't over yet is because we in the Middle East are still living the consequences".
The Arab uprisings that erupted in Tunisia a year ago have focused on corruption, poverty and lack of freedom, rather than western domination or Israeli occupation. But the fact that they kicked off against western-backed dictatorships meant they posed an immediate threat to the strategic order.
Since the day Hosni Mubarak fell in Egypt, there has been a relentless counter-drive by the western powers and their Gulf allies to buy off, crush or hijack the Arab revolutions. And they've got a deep well of experience to draw on: every centre of the Arab uprisings, from Egypt to Yemen, has lived through decades of imperial domination. All the main Nato states that bombed Libya, for example – the US, Britain, France and Italy – have had troops occupying the country well within living memory.
If the Arab revolutions are going to take control of their future, then, they'll need to have to keep an eye on their recent past. So here are seven lessons from the history of western Middle East meddling, courtesy of the archive of Pathé News, colonial-era voice of Perfidious Albion itself.
France leads world as gloomiest over economy: poll
France leads the world as the "most pessimistic" country in terms of the economic outlook, with the lowest recorded score in more than 30 years, according to a global poll published on Friday.
The "End of Year" survey by Gallup International of 51 countries found that France beat second placed Ireland and third placed Austria for the dubious recognition as most pessimistic, economically-speaking.
Its score of negative 79, a drop of 20 points from last year, was the lowest the poll has recorded since 1978.
"Even in 1978, after the second oil crisis that called into question an entire economic system, the French have never shown themselves as pessimistic as today," said the poll.
"Europe leads in despair, followed by North America," it said. "The rest of the world, lead by Africa, remains mostly optimistic."
With an April presidential election on the horizon and a euro zone crisis threatening havoc at home and on the continent, French voters are increasingly gloomy.
Concerns are pervasive over high unemployment, dwindling purchasing power and the fear that France's traditionally strong social support system is unraveling, even though France has mostly been spared the austerity measures taken in countries such as Greece and Spain.
"After the Second World War, there was reconstruction and our country was one of the pioneers of Europe. Today the French 'Savior State' model, praised by both Left and Right for decades, is basically considered obsolete," said the poll. "What can the French be proud of tomorrow?"
Among a list of 51 countries, Nigeria was found to be the most optimistic country, when considering economic prosperity, followed by Vietnam and Ghana.
Between 500 and 2,700 people were interviewed in each country either by phone, via the Internet or in person between October 26 and December 13.
The survey in France, conducted by BVA, took place between December 2 and 4.
(Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Matthew Jones)
2011 "Year of the Tyrant," 2012 ominous for Syria, Iraq
It all began with a slap and a slur hurled at a poor vegetable seller by a policewoman in a provincial Tunisian city. Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in a protest that ignited a chain of fires across the Arab world. Twelve months after his death, he would scarcely recognize the region he knew.
From the Atlantic coast to the shores of the Gulf, popular uprisings against entrenched autocrats swept the region, unleashing long pent-up yearning for change in a world that democracy had passed by.
The balance sheet so far seemed inconceivable as 2011 got under way: four dictators gone, in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen; another under siege in Syria; and nearly every other Arab leader feeling tremors under his throne.
A new Middle East order is messily beginning to emerge, captured dramatically in images scarcely imaginable a year ago.
The revolutions have emboldened people across the region, impelled by a melange of sectarian, religious, ethnic, political and economic grievances but united in their demand for dignity, to rise up against decades of repression by autocratic leaders.
Ironically, the Arab despots unseated in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen are being replaced through the ballot box by Islamists they sought throughout their rule to crush.
The darker side to this still unfolding tale is the way historically-embedded sectarian hostilities -- ostensibly suppressed by decades of pan-Arab nationalist ideology -- were and are being stoked, leaving swathes of the region polarized between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.
The violent re-emergence of these centuries-old divisions began in Iraq with the toppling of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, and the rise to power of a new Shi'ite ruling elite, unleashing sectarian carnage inside the country and a Sunni-Shi'ite struggle for power across the region, with Saudi Arabia facing off against non-Arab Shi'ite Iran.
"Some of the older narratives are and will reassert themselves in the region whether in Bahrain or Iraq now. We will see, particularly around the Gulf, Lebanon, the Sunni-Shi'ite schism arise again," said Salman Shaikh of the Brookings Institute in Doha.
ASSAD'S YEAR
With 2011 dubbed "The Year of the Tyrants," observers predict that 2012 will be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's final year in power while warning of the bloody cost and regional ramifications his demise might cause.
"In Syria, the protesters are not going to back down. They have gone too far. And whatever Assad is suggesting in terms of unity government, reforms..., no one is paying any attention to it," Shaikh said.
"2012 should be the year of Assad leaving."
Syrian experts doubt that the international community will intervene militarily at this stage in Syria, waiting instead for a bloodbath with spillover effects into politically sensitive neighboring countries - Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan -- that might justify a U.N. mandate for military action.
In the meantime, Syrians themselves appear desperate and divided in their belief whether Assad, defying nine months of a nationwide uprising, will step down or be forced out next year.
"I wish I could stop everything and go back to before the revolution. We are tired of the dead on the two sides and everyone knows that Assad will not step down unless by force or foreign interference and this is not what we want," said Natasha, a government employee at the Ministry of Agriculture.
While the outcome in Syria hangs in the balance, the mood in those countries where dictators have already been overthrown is mixed. Popular euphoria and joy at their leaders' departure has given way to frustration, grievance and fear.
While Tunisia seem to be passing through a relatively smooth transition after a peaceful election, the revolutions in Egypt and Yemen are still raging, while Libya is still working out how to share power in a complex tribal structure that has taken on menacing shape as a result of the war against Muammar Gaddafi.
ISLAMISTS TAKE REINS OF POWER
Most startling of all is the way the young protesters who drove these rebellions have seen the far more organized Islamist parties reap the fruits of revolt at the polls.
The moderate Islamist Ennahda party came out on top in Tunisia. But the Egyptian election result, where the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood is leading the polls but hardline Salafi fundamentalists are picking up about a quarter of the vote, has sent shock waves across the region.
"Egypt is deeply worrying and can spiral out of control," said Shaikh, referring to violent protests against the army which has stalled in handing over power to civilian control despite the ousting of Mubarak.
Mirroring the grievances of many young Egyptians, Mohammad Abdel Halim, 21, said he was happy to see his peers overthrow one of the most ruthless dictators of the Arab world in only 18 days but expressed deep concern about the rising violence and instability. He said the revolution has replaced his frustration with Mubarak with worries about his future in Egypt.
"The horror the majority of Egyptians face every day is having to deal with one question that does not escape their minds. What will happen to us now?" said Halim, who was forced to close his accessories shop near Tahrir square, the scene of recurrent violence, and complains of sleepless nights worrying whether his business will still be there.
OMINOUS PROSPECT FOR IRAQ
While Syria and Egypt -- not to mention a poverty-stricken Yemen gripped by factional struggle -- are new causes of worry, other unresolved problems are re-emerging with a vengeance.
The moment American troops this month folded their flag and rolled their tanks off Iraqi soil, a new and sinister round of sectarian feud and violence broke out, pitting Shi'ites against Sunni rivals, raising the specter of a relapse into civil war and disintegration of Iraq.
Geographically the country is splitting up into sectarian and ethnic fiefdoms, with the Kurds already consolidating their autonomy in the north, the Shi'ites dominant across the south and entrenched in Baghdad, with the Sunnis exploring whether to set up their own autonomous region in the centre and west.
Iraq's neighbors, jostling for influence as the U.S. withdraws, add to its volatility. The long fingers of Shi'ite Iran and Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia are scratching for influence in the deeply divided state, where majority Sunni Turkey has attempted to play a moderating role.
Yet the Shi'ite-led government of Nuri al-Maliki has moved closer to Iran, perhaps in anticipation that the fall of Iran's ally, Syria's Assad, whose Alawite sect is a Shi'ite offshoot, could shift power to Syria's Sunni majority on Iraq's doorstep.
Maliki, from the Shi'ite Islamist Da'wa Party, has sharply raised the temperature by trying to arrest Tareq al-Hashemi, his Sunni vice-president, who has fled to Kurdistan, prompting threats from Baghdad against its autonomous government.
It is during such episodes of sectarian gridlock that Sunni jihadists habitually resume their bombings against government targets. They have already started with a string of bomb attacks that killed more than 63 people this week.
"Iraq is deeply worrying," Shaikh said. "Iraq is soil that has been festering for some time. It's the politics of the country that could break it apart. In fact, some of us do have real concerns that we could end up with another civil war with regional players again playing a role in that."
SHI'ITE-SUNNI CONTEST
While Iraq could become a front line once more in the regional contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Saudi kingdom itself appears to have beaten back the first waves of dissidence lapping at its shores.
For most young Saudis, the Arab Spring was instead experienced online, where the images of revolt were shared on Facebook and Twitter but failed to inspire a mass movement.
As uprisings moved from North Africa to neighboring Yemen and Bahrain, King Abdullah reached into the kingdom's deep pockets and produced an estimated $130 billion of social and housing benefits aimed at the sort of young, unemployed people who had led protests elsewhere.
Yet, the arrival of civic unrest in majority Shi'ite Bahrain was a shocking turn of events for Gulf Arab monarchies, who operate more as a club of intermarried Sunni ruling families.
The Bahraini demonstrations started as a campaign for a more democratic and representative constitutional monarchy but the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family and their Gulf allies alleged this was a plot by Iran-backed Bahrainis to set up a Shi'ite Islamist state.
Fearful that the disturbances could seep into Saudi Arabia's neighboring eastern province, which holds most of the kingdom's oil and nearly all its minority Shi'ites, the Gulf Arab monarchies, egged on by Riyadh, sent tanks to quash weeks of unrest by the disgruntled Shi'ites of Bahrain.
Saeed Shehabi of the exiled Bahrain Freedom Movement said Western powers are still banking on the Al Khalifas weathering the storm through some reform, but he considered them incapable of doing enough to keep people quiet this time, and that the wounds opened by the repression of this uprising are deeper than those inflicted by previous bouts of unrest on the island.
"If the regime implements fundamental reform, it could survive, but it needs to let people take part in government, hold real elections and make the (ruling) family a symbolic monarchy... The regime is not capable of this, and it is easier to bring it down than make it institute real reforms," he said.
NEW ARAB ORDER
The Saudis have another headache on their southern borders in Yemen, already a failed state with strong Islamist influence, which has been the anomaly in the Arab Spring.
It is far from clear whether anyone can control the country now that Ali Abdullah Saleh has ostensibly stood down after more than three decades juggling a dizzying array of competing interests in power.
Abdul Ghani al-Iryani, a leading Yemeni analyst, said the success of the Yemen revolution will depend on the ability of the country's rulers to draft a new social contract that would give a share to the country's mosaic of tribes and factions.
"If we do not allow each group to have their own share, then we can really mess it up," he said, adding that the country, already facing a secessionist movement in the south, a Shi'ite rebellion in the north and a burgeoning al Qaeda presence, could splinter into semi autonomous regions run by local militias outside central government control.
Yet, across the region, revolutionary change is still at a very early stage. The forces shaping the new order are still feeling their way. But the formulas emerging are recognizably local.
"We have a remarkable new model in the Arab world. People from different ends of the political spectrums of civil society, including secularist liberals, are forming coalitions with Islamists. That is something that continues to gain some strength, especially as we see Islamists come to the fore," Shaikh said.
"We have to look forward, especially if you accept that we are only in the very early stages of a change not only in one country but transformation essentially of an entire Middle East and North Africa region."
(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Erika Soloman in Beirut, Andrew Hammond and Joseph Logan in Dubai, Asma Alsharif in Jeddah; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Friday, December 23, 2011
Analysis: Arab Spring boosts political Islam, but which kind?
More democracy is bringing more political Islam in the countries of the Arab Spring, but Islamist statements about sharia or religion in politics are only rough indicators of what the real effect might be.
The strong showing of Tunisia's moderate Islamists in Sunday's election and a promise by Libyan National Transitional Council leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil to uphold sharia have highlighted the bigger role Islamists will play after the fall of the autocrats who opposed them.
These Islamists must now work out how to integrate more Islam into new democratic systems. Many terms used in the debate are ambiguous and some, especially the concept of sharia, are often misunderstood by non-Muslims.
Jan Michiel Otto, a Dutch law professor who led a recent study of how 12 Muslim countries apply sharia, said political Islam covers a broad spectrum of approaches.
"If sharia is introduced, you don't know what you'll get," said the Leiden University professor, editor of the book Sharia Incorporated. His study indicated that, contrary to what many Western observers might think, more Islam did not always mean less liberty.
Yasin Aktay, a Turkish sociologist at Selcuk University in Konya, said Sharia itself was not a defined legal code and not limited to the harsh physical punishments seen in Saudi Arabia or Iran.
"That's a fetishised version of sharia," he said.
Ennahda leads the way
Many Middle Eastern constitutions already enshrine Islam as the official religion and mention sharia as the basis of law, but also have civil and penal codes based on European models.
Apart from Saudi Arabia, which has only Islamic law, Middle Eastern countries apply a complicated mix of religious and civil law. Sharia can be applied almost symbolically in one country, moderately in another and strictly in a third.
Ennahda, the Islamist party leading the vote for Tunisia's constituent assembly, is the first in the Arab Spring countries to have to start spelling out how much Islam it wants.
It says it respects democracy and human rights and wants to work with secularist parties to draft a new constitution. Its leader Rachid Ghannouchi has long advocated moderate Islamist policies like those of the AKP, the ruling party in Turkey.
The Tunisian constitution declares Islam as the official religion but does not mention sharia as the foundation of the legal system. Given the country's strong secularist traditions, Ennahda would face serious opposition if it tried to have sharia declared the basis of law there.
Aktay said Ghannouchi's writings in the 1980s helped to influence Turkish Islamists to shift their paradigm from seeking a state based on sharia to entering democratic politics.
Since then, the AKP's success in Turkey has served as a model for Ghannouchi as he entered practical politics in Tunisia, he added.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood
Egypt, which is due to elect a new lower house of parliament by early December, describes Islam as the state religion in its constitution and calls it the main source of laws.
The Muslim Brotherhood is expected to emerge as the largest party. Its bid to build a "Democratic Alliance" has foundered, with most of the liberal and rival Islamist groups splitting away to run on their own or form other blocs.
"I don't believe the Brotherhood will claim more than 25 percent of the parliamentary seats, which is an important bloc but not a majority," said Hassan Abu Taleb from Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Egypt has also allowed several Salafist groups to run. The Salafists, who Abu Taleb said could take up to 10 percent of the vote, want strict implementation of Islamic laws, including those their critics say are anti-democratic.
Libya
In Libya, former dictator Moammar Gadhafi ruled by decrees that included mention of Islam as the state religion and sharia as the inspiration for at least some laws.
NTC chairman Jalil surprised some Western observers on Sunday by saying sharia would be the source of Libyan law, but he had already spoken in more detail about it.
"We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where sharia is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions," he said in early September, adding that "extremist ideology" would not be tolerated.
The exact place of sharia in the legal system in practice will only be settled once a new constitution is written by a constituent assembly and approved by a referendum.
Libya's Muslim Brotherhood has fewer than 1,000 members because under Gadhafi recruitment was secretive and restricted to elites, said Alamin Belhaj, a member of the NTC and a senior member of the group.
Syria
Syria, where an uprising against President Bashar Assad has been raging since March, has a secularist government but mentions Islam as the source of law in its constitution.
The main opposition body, the National Council, has so far named 19 members to its general secretariat. Four are members of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood and six are independent Islamists.
It has yet to spell out its platform or make clear what kind of a state should take over, if Assad is overthrown.
"In Syria, the Islamist current is a moderate movement," said Omar Idlibi, an activist with the grassroots Local Coordination Committees.
Tom Heneghan is the religion editor for Reuters.
Snaptu: TV hosts turn cannibal for their audience
Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno, hosts of the Dutch TV show "Preojfkonijen" ("Test Rabbits") ate bits of each other's flesh before a studio audience. There is no report whether it tasted like chicken. From NY Daily News: "The punchline of the show is…
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