radio news Recession, technology proving to be game changer for ad industry An extended recession has altered the way companies and even some industries now conduct their business.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 Broward County agencies shine in the glow of Addy Awards Several agencies across Broward County shared the spotlight at last week’s Addy Awards for the Advertising Federation of Greater Fort Lauderdale.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 Blue Clover says it will take more trips on interactive highway A slew of innovative marketers and new media experts will head to Austin this weekend for SXSW (South by Southwest).   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 USA Today to be sold at Starbucks McLean-based Gannett Co. Inc., battling a circulation decline for its newspapers, has a new outlet for its flagship USA Today: Starbucks. (GCI)   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 LendingTree exec now WhiteFence CEO WhiteFence Inc. has named Bob Harris as chief executive officer.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 'Alice' remains queen of box office "Alice in Wonderland's" box-office take dropped by more than 46 percent <a href="http://losangeles.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2010/03/08/daily3.html">versus last weekend</a>, but, the new take on the classic story remained the top draw at the weekend box office, according to figures from Box Office Mojo.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 Johns Hopkins names Lewis as government and community affairs head Johns Hopkins University said Monday that longtime staffer Thomas S. Lewis will represent the school and its partner health system before federal, state, local and community leaders.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 The Washington Post to launch business weekly The Washington Post announced Monday that it will launch a subscription-only business weekly called Capital Business beginning April 19.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-15 Letters: RBS is blinded by its own corporate spin and greenwash You have to feel a bit of sympathy for Andrew Cave, the head of corporate sustainability at the RBS group (Response, 11 March). He berates me for claiming that RBS is involved in financing Canadian tar sand exploitation in Alberta. Sadly for him, the bank then chooses the very day his response is published to announce that it is opening offices in Calgary, the commercial centre of the oil sands industry.Mr Cave claims that oil sands do not appear in the RBS loan portfolio. He needs to check the books. RBS is a market leader in underwriting loans, corporate debt and equity for companies such as ConocoPhillips and Shell, which are driving the tar sands disaster. Just what does Mr Cave think these oil majors are doing with the $7.5bn that RBS (ie, the British taxpayer) has provided? And what does he imagine the Calgary office will be financing? Take my word for it, we are not talking about windmills and solar panels here.It's not only campaigning groups that have raised concerns about the carbon content of the RBS portfolio. A growing number of the bank's institutional shareholders, including pension fund managers, are calling for a review of its support for companies involved in oil sands. Ironically, RBS does have a strong record in financing sustainable energy programmes, notably windpower. Mr Cave should waste less time defending the indefensible, and spend more persuading RBS management to increase sustainable lending.Kevin WatkinsOxford University• The response from the head of corporate sustainability at RBS to charges levelled by Kevin Watkins and others that RBS is funding climate chaos demonstrates how far the bank is blinded by its own spin and corporate greenwash.While funding wind power is critical, the benefits of such investments in renewables are dwarfed by RBS's involvement in underwriting loans worth more than $7.5bn in the past three years alone to companies involved in tar sands, one of the most environmentally and socially destructive energy sources of modern times. RBS has failed to learn the lessons of the conceit that saw it costing taxpayers billions of pounds in the first place.If RBS indeed had "excellent green credentials", it would desist from providing finance of any kind to companies that are actively engaged in extracting tar sands, in line with demands from local indigenous people. RBS could demonstrate its self-proclaimed commitment to sustainability and the human rights of indigenous peoples with one decision right now – to stop financing tar sands.Clayton Thomas-Muller Indigenous Environmental Network, Deborah Doane World Development Movement, Kevin Smith Platform, Charlie Kronick Greenpeace UK, Ian Leggett People & Planet, Johan Frijn BankTrack, Jess Worth New Internationalist, Duncan McLaren Friends of the Earth Scotland, Darek Urbaniak Friends of the Earth Europe, Jeni MacKay Scottish Education and Action for Development, Miles Litvinoff Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility, Nick Dearden Jubilee Debt CampaignRoyal Bank of ScotlandOilOilRoyal Dutch Shellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Charlie Brooker | My plan to save mankind The hands of time move slowly. And they're tightening round your neck . . . but fear notTime is the strangest substance known to man. You can't see, touch, hear, smell, taste or avoid it. Time makes you stronger-minded but weaker-bodied, gradually transforming you from blushing grape to ornery, grouching raisin. Time is the most precious thing you have, yet you're happiest when you're wasting it. Time will outlive you, your offspring, your offspring's robots and your offspring's robots' springs. It will outlive the wind and the rocks, the sun and the moon, Florence and the Machine. Time, in short, is King of Things.Because time is invisible, it's hard to work out which bit to focus on at any given moment. It's even hard to work out just how long "any given moment" is. Right now, as you're reading this article, are you absorbing it by the paragraph, by the sentence, or on a word-by-word basis? When I type the word "word", does time temporarily slow down while you hear the word "word" spoken aloud in your mind, or have you already leapt ahead to discover the end of the sentence doesn't sense quite make? How big a "timeslice" can your awareness eat in one go?The more time you swallow in one sitting, the wiser you become. In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, we're introduced to the Tralfamadorians, an alien race who can see in four dimensions. They experience life not as a linear sequence of unexpected events, but a timeline of inexorable peaks and troughs, occurring simultaneously. Tralfamadorians aren't upset by tragic events or overjoyed at happy events, because the concept of "events" has no meaning; to them, sunrise, sunset, birth, death, peace, war are all just notches on the same stick. When confronted with tragedy, they merely shrug and say, "So it goes." That's why there's never been a Tralfamadorian on EastEnders.Anyway, while most people don't perceive life with the worrisome scope of a Tralfamadorian, they're capable of projecting at least a little. Take joggers. They weren't born with a pre-programmed desire to jog. No. One day they decided they'd like to get fit, and chose to sacrifice their immediate comfort in favour of delayed gratification: they got off the sofa and jogged themselves slim. Every jogger is essentially a clairvoyant. They've transcended the shackles of contemporary subsistence and risen above the likes of you and me, to witness a vision of the future so captivating it blocks out the pain of the present, so enticing, they're literally compelled to run towards it. Not only that, they've been organised enough to buy proper trainers and shorts and everything, the smug bastards. No wonder everyone else wants to hit them. Here's a tip: visualise a future in which you've toned yourself to athletic perfection by fighting random joggers in the park. Here's another tip: wear some sort of mask. And maybe a cape. We'll come up with a logo for your chest plate later.Joggers are a minority, but then exercisers generally are a minority. Even though we're repeatedly told that regular exercise combats heart disease and cancer and blah blah nag nag nag, more than 60% of the population couldn't be arsed trying, because it makes their legs ache. They're not necessarily lazy, but suffering from an inability to perceive the future as a solid and tangible thing, unlike those far-sighted seers in running shoes and sweat pants. Perhaps joggers have a few additional Tralfamadorian synapses; only by experimenting on their brains can we be sure. Meanwhile, the rest of us remain stubbornly wedged into narrow individual pockets of time, moaning that we need to lose a few pounds while sobbing into our chips.And we do the same with the environment: we fail to take painful measures in the present that could ease our existence in the future, because we think they're too arduous – unless you're a spluttering contrarian, in which case you think the whole climate change thing is a load of trumped-up phooey anyway, and that all scientists are shifty, self-serving exaggerators, apart from the brave handful who agree with you. Hey, I'm no scientist. I'm not an engineer either, but if I asked 100 engineers whether it was safe to cross a bridge, and 99 said no, I'd probably try to find another way over the ravine rather than loudly siding with the underdog and arguing about what constitutes a consensus while trundling across in my Hummer.Still, it's easy to picture a collapsing bridge. Picturing a collapsing environment is trickier. Hollywood has tried its best, but all I learned from sitting through The Day After Tomorrow is that, contrary to my previous expectations, the end of the world might be boring. What we need, if we're really going to work in unison to overcome climate change is a mix of Tralfamadorian perspective and joggers' resolve: to let visions of the future dictate our present, rather than the other way round.So: we need to loosen mankind's dogged grip on a linear interpretation of time if we're going to save the planet. But how? We can't go round injecting our brains with Tralfamadorian grey matter, because it doesn't exist. Instead the closest thing we have is LSD, which must be pumped into the water supply as a matter of urgency. A couple of months of steady supply should be enough to expand our collective perception. Let's start by testing it out on Stourbridge (no reason; just picked it at random: sorry Stourbridge). The results can be televised live. It'll be funny watching them trying to eat their own ankles or chase the town hall into the sky: just like It's a Knockout, but with a sense of civic purpose.Yes. For all our sakes, this must happen NOW.Charlie Brookerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Money spent on tar sands projects could decarbonise western economies • Production from tar sands will rise to 4m barrels a day by 2025• Shareholders seek review of environmental impact of tar sandsThe £250bn cost of developing Canada's controversial tar sands between now and 2025 could be used to decarbonise the western economy by funding ambitious solar power schemes in the Sahara or a European wide shift to electric vehicles, according to a new report released today.The same amount of investment would also help the world to hit half of the Millenium Development Goals in the 50 least-developed countries, says the research from The Co-operative and conservation group, WWF, which is released to coincide with a new film, Dirty Oil, being premiered in 25 cinemas around the UK today. It is a hard-hitting documentary narrated by Canadian actor, Neve Campbell.The moves are all part of a concerted effort to put shareholder and public pressure on BP and Shell which are at the forefront of extracting oil from the carbon-intensive tar sands of Alberta.The Co-op claims its task has gained urgency by BP unveiling plans last week to speed up new tar sands projects through a tie-up with Devon Energy."The sums of money being invested in tar sands developments are enormous and difficult for the average person to grasp," says Paul Monaghan, head of social goals at the Co-op."This report (The Opportunity of the Tar Sands) puts things into perspective and demonstrates not only the scale of the problem, which could take us to the brink of runaway climate change, but also the opportunity being lost. It is literally a matter of life and death that these enormous oil titans are re-steered to much more sustainable paths," he adds.The production of tar sands is estimated by critics to emit three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil production. It is estimated that tar sands production will increase from its 1.3m barrels a day to at least 4m barrels by 2025.A resolution has been put down by the Co-op and other shareholders to be taken at the BP annual general meeting next month alongside a similar one for Shell asking for a review of the economics and environmental impact of tar sands.The Co-op and WWF say the combined cost of all tar sands – £250bn – could be used for clean power projects such as the Desertec scheme linking solar plants in North Africa to a "supergrid" which could produce 15% of Europe's electricity by 2050.BPRoyal Dutch ShellCo-operative GroupOilOil and gas companiesOilCarbon emissionsSolar powerCanadaFossil fuelsTerry Macalisterguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Science Weekly podcast: Paul Davies on new ways to find aliens; and the importance of sound in theatre Astrophysicist Paul Davies discusses new approaches to finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The Seti scientist's new book is called The Eerie Silence and is on a lecture tour of the UK. You can hear an extended version of this interview in our latest Science Weekly Extra podcast. Anthropologist Rick Potts is opening a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. It's called What does it mean to be human?In the newsjam we discuss the new body set up to investigate an IPCC climate change report, sequencing the genomes of an entire family, and the new energy record about to be smashed at the LHC. When it comes to theatre, sound is just as important as vision. It's the subject of a lecture this week in London organised by the Wellcome Trust. Neuroscientist Prof Sophie Scott of University College London and theatre director Jonathan Holmes go on stage at London's Bloomsbury Theatre to demonstrate. You'll hear some drama from actor Seth Sinclair. The Observer's science editor Robin McKie and Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample join the pod. Post your comments below.Join our Facebook group. Listen back through our archive.Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).Alok JhaAndy DuckworthIan SampleRobin McKie   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Animal rights activist using FOI laws to target universities Luke Steele, spokesman for Stop Animal Experiments at Bradford is forcing institutions to reveal vivisection detailsA convicted animal rights activist is using freedom of information laws to force universities to reveal details of their animal experiments, raising fears that scientists involved could suffer renewed intimidation.The requests for information, which have been sent to every university in Britain, ask for details of facilities and laboratories licensed for such experiments, as well as breeding centres and a list of different animals used, by species.The requests were sent by Luke Steele, an animal rights activist based in Yorkshire. He was last year convicted of conspiracy to interfere with a contractual relationship, so as to harm an animal research organisation, after being arrested near an isolated Lincolnshire farm that supplies rabbits for research.Several universities have already replied to the FOI requests. Steele said the information gathered would be used to publicise research and target demonstrations, some of which are planned for next month."We're putting the FOIs in just to find out what is happening with vivisection at the universities. If they've got nothing to hide, then it's not a problem for them to put the information out there," he said.Groups promoting next month's planned protests against university research, such as Stop Animal Experiments at Bradford, for which Steele acts as spokesman, encourage people to carry out "filming inside these laboratories". Steele said he did not want people to break the law, and that protestors could find imaginative ways to get inside. "Obviously we can't control what everybody does," he said. The requests from Steele have triggered concern among some university researchers. "The way these questions are phrased, I don't think this is an exercise in openness," said Syed Khawar Abbas, veterinary officer at the University of Leeds. "This information can be used for intimidation. In the wrong hands, this information can cause problems for our scientists."An information officer at a different university, who did not want to be identified, said: "This has caused a great deal of concern among our staff who are worried about receiving threats or worse. Most scientists faced with FOI requests are happy to put stuff into the open and welcome the scrutiny, but in this case they are having to second guess the motives of people who might use this information."Some of the information requested by Steele is already published, in summaries of Home Office licenses and academic papers. Other details, such as specific laboratory locations, can be refused under FOI exemptions.One university scientist said: "The most likely motivation here is that they want to catch somebody out. If they can find some bad wording in minutes from a meeting, then they can use that to claim we are up to no good."Animal researchMedical researchAnimal welfareAnimalsActivismDavid Adamguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 IPCC under fire in blogosphere for 'sealevelgate' From RealClimate, part of the Guardian Environment NetworkImagine this. In its latest report, the IPCC has predicted up to 3 meters of sea level rise by the end of this century. But "climate sceptics" websites were quick to reveal a few problems (or "tricks", as they called it).First, although the temperature scenarios of IPCC project a maximum warming of 6.4 ºC (Table SPM3), the upper limit of sea level rise has been computed assuming a warming of 7.6 ºC. Second, the IPCC chose to compute sea level rise up to the year 2105 rather than 2100 – just to add that extra bit of alarmism. Worse, the IPCC report shows that over the past 40 years, sea level has in fact risen 50% less than predicted by its models – yet these same models are used uncorrected to predict the future! And finally, the future projections assume a massive ice sheet decay which is rather at odds with past ice sheet behaviour. Some scientists within IPCC warned early that all this could lead to a credibility problem, but the IPCC decided to go ahead anyway.Now, the blogosphere and their great media amplifiers are up in arms. Heads must roll!Unthinkable? Indeed. I am convinced that IPCC would never have done this.But here is what actually did happen.In its latest report, the IPCC has predicted up to 59 cm of sea level rise by the end of this century. But realclimate soon revealed a few problems.First, although the temperature scenarios of IPCC project a maximum warming of 6.4 ºC (Table SPM3), the upper limit of sea level rise has been computed for a warming of only 5.2 ºC – which reduced the estimate by about 15 cm. Second, the IPCC chose to compute sea level rise up to the year 2095 rather than 2100 – just to cut off another 5 cm. Worse, the IPCC report shows that over the past 40 years, sea level has in fact risen 50% more than predicted by its models – yet these same models are used uncorrected to predict the future! And finally, the future projections assume that the Antarctic ice sheet gains mass, thus lowering sea level, rather at odds with past ice sheet behaviour.** Some scientists within IPCC warned early that all this could lead to a credibility problem, but the IPCC decided to go ahead anyway.Nobody cared about this.I mention this because there is a lesson in it. IPCC would never have published an implausibly high 3 meter upper limit like this, but it did not hesitate with the implausibly low 59 cm. That is because within the IPCC culture, being "alarmist" is bad and being "conservative" (i.e. underestimating the potential severity of things) is good. Note that this culture is the opposite of "erring on the safe side" (assuming it is better to have overestimated the problem and made the transition to a low-carbon society a little earlier than needed, rather than to have underestimated it and sunk coastal cities and entire island nations). Just to avoid any misunderstandings here: I am squarely against exaggerating climate change to "err on the safe side". I am deeply convinced that scientists must avoid erring on any side, they must always give the most balanced assessment they are capable of (and that is why I have often spoken up against "alarmist" exaggeration of climate science, see e.g. here and here).Why do I find this IPCC problem far worse than the Himalaya error? Because it is not a slip-up by a Working Group 2 author who failed to properly follow procedures and cited an unreliable source. Rather, this is the result of intensive deliberations by Working Group 1 climate experts. Unlike the Himalaya mistake, this is one of the central predictions of IPCC, prominently discussed in the Summary for Policy Makers. What went wrong in this case needs to be carefully looked at when considering future improvements to the IPCC process.And let's see whether we learn another lesson here, this time about society and the media. Will this evidence for an underestimation of the climate problem by IPCC, presented by an IPCC lead author who studies sea level, be just as widely reported and discussed as, say, faulty claims by a blogger about "Amazongate"?p.s. Recent sea level results. A number of broadly based assessments have appeared since the last IPCC report, which all conclude that global sea level rise by the year 2100 could exceed one meter: The assessment of the Dutch Delta Commission, the Synthesis Report of the Copenhagen Climate Congress, the Copenhagen Diagnosis report as well as the SCAR report on Antarctic Climate Change. This is also the conclusion of a number of recent peer-reviewed papers: Rahmstorf 2007, Horton et al. 2008, Pfeffer et al. 2008, Grinsted et al. 2009, Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009, Jevrejeva et al. 2010 (in press with GRL). The notable exception – Siddall et al. 2009 – was withdrawn by its authors after we revealed numerical errors on Realclimate. This is a good example of self-correction in science (in stark contrast with the climate sceptics' practice of endlessly perpetuating false information). Rather bizarrely, Fox News managed to turn this into the headline "More Questions About Validity of Global Warming Theory".** About the numbers stated above. Regarding the actual IPCC AR4 numbers, adjust the IPCC upper estimate of 59 cm by adding 15 cm to make it apply to 6.4 ºC warming (not just 5.2 ºC) and 5 cm to make it go up to 2100 (not just 2095). That gives you 79 cm. Add 50% to adjust for the underestimation of past sea level rise and you get 119 cm.For the hypothetical case at the start of this post, just introduce similar errors in the other direction. Let's add 31 cm by going up to 7.6 ºC and the year 2105 (in fact that is "conservative" but it gives a nice round number, 150 cm). Now assume you have a model compared to which actual sea level is rising 50% slower (rather 50% faster): now you're at the 3 meters mentioned above. For details, see The IPCC sea level numbers.Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)Sea levelClimate changeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 TfL: escalating issues Last week a reader wondered if the financial and environmental benefits of switching off an escalator at Victoria Tube station were worth it. Might the benefits be outweighed by the possible effects of doing this, such as creating inconvenience for passengers and perhaps persuading them to take alternative forms of transport that add to congestion and pollution and generate more CO2? He used Transport for London's own recent figures to calculate that the economic value of the energy saved was less than £2 an hour.TfL provided me with a response. It went like this:London Underground carried out a study which looked at 65 stations with banks of three escalators, and that found that limiting use of the third escalator to peak times could halve power consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as save up to £500,000 a year across the Tube network. These measures were implemented at selected stations from early November 2009.There followed some example figures, based on a "typical station" and a 15 metre escalator. If such an escalator operates for 20 hours each day (or 7,300 hours a year) its energy consumption and CO2 emission profile looks like this: Wattage 29,000 WAnnual Power Consumption 211,700 kWhAnnual Energy cost (based on 7p/KWh): £14,819Electricity Emission Factor 0.537 kg CO2/kWhAnnual CO2 Emissions 113,683 kgThis is a higher annaul cost than the very highest mentioned in the TfL document my reader quoted from: £14,819 per year compared with a maximum of £12,000, but that figure was from 2008. However, the main point in TfL's reply to me is that if their model 15 metre escalator is run for only nine hours a day instead of 20 - 3,285 hours a year instead of 7,300 - that profile changes as follows: Wattage 29,000 WAnnual Power Consumption 95,265 kWhAnnual Energy cost (based on 7p/KWh): £6,668.55Electricity Emission Factor 0.537 kg CO2/kWhAnnual CO2 Emissions 51157 kgAnnual Saving 62,526 kg CO2TfL's conclusion? The CO2 emissions savings are considerable, as well as the energy savings (116,435 kWh @ 7p per kWh = £8,150). LU network has 65 'third escalators' so the total estimated annual cost saving is around £520,000.Taking the running time down from 20 hours to nine means switching the escalator off between five and eight in the morning, ten in the morning and noon, two and four in the afternoon and eight in the evening until midnight. That's quite a lot of shutting down, and some would argue that it is too much at some of those times of day, especially from the point of view of the very young, the very old and the disabled - a point that has been raised by the Lib Dems' Caroline Pidgeon on behalf of a constituent. Also, the TfL figures don't directly address the main concern of my reader, who wondered if the energy saving benefits of the policy were greater than the drawbacks that might result from it.These might be hard to calculate with precision, but thinking about it does exercise the mind wonderfully. A final thought: among several interesting comments inspired by the initial post on this subject was one from Dave Cole, who wondered what the saving might be from switching off some of the electronic adverts that line some escalators these days. Good question. Would the power savings be greater than any loss of revenue resulting from advertisers demanding lower rates? We could be here all day...LondonLondon politicsTransport policyDave Hillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Stuart Tocher obituary My brother, Stuart Tocher, who has died suddenly, aged 38, from cardiac sarcoidosis, was a gifted climber and all-round adventurous spirit. Having experimented with windsurfing, hang-gliding and snowboarding in his early 20s, he was introduced to rock climbing and it soon became his passion.Born in Aldershot, Hampshire, he spent his working life as a highly skilled vehicle technician, working at various times on Honda, Citroën and Fiat cars (one year, he reached the British final of Fiat's top technician award). But he lived for his climbing and most weekends he would be off to places that offered fresh challenges: the Peak District, the Avon and Cheddar Gorges, Snowdonia, the Wye Valley, and especially to the sea cliffs near Swanage in Dorset (where he tackled climbs with names such as Hangover, Resurrection and Old Lag's Corner – and enjoyed cream teas in the local tearoom).It was on trips abroad that he truly excelled and he climbed regularly in the French and Swiss alps, conquering, among other peaks, Piz Badile, Mont Blanc, the East Ridge of Aiguille du Chardonnet, the Dent du Géant, and the Contamine-Mazeaud Route on Mont Blanc du Tacul (an ice-climbing classic). Other trips saw him bouldering at Fontainebleau, climbing the Calanques (the sea cliffs of Marseille) and, only last December, trying new climbs in the Costa Blanca, Spain. One of his finest achievements was climbing in the beautiful Tuolumne Meadows, near the Yosemite Valley in California, where Cathedral Peak (including Eichorn's Pinnacle) was successfully tackled.But Stuart was no solitary man of the mountains: he partied as hard as he climbed, was extremely gregarious and had the ability to make anyone laugh. He never married, but spent 14 years with his ex-partner, Lea, and was very proud of the role he played in helping to bring up her two children, Danny and Sabrina. He spent his last 18 months in Fareham, Hampshire, where he was happy socialising and passing on his climbing skills to younger friends.On the Saturday before what would have been Stuart's 39th birthday, 31 of his friends and family members (and two dogs) hiked to the summit of Snowdon. Apparently the weather had been bad up there for months, but by the time we reached the summit, the sun had come out for us to toast Stu with a can of Guinness, his favourite drink, and eat a slice of birthday cake. He is survived by myself, our sister Janice and parents, Marion and Tom.MountainsExtreme sportsSnowboardingAlpsSnowdoniaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Time to talk dirty At last a piece of good news in the slow, uphill struggle for a better world - I mean, of course, our painful progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. On water, we are almost there! A report from the joint monitoring programme set up by the World Health Organisation and Unicef says "the world is on track to meet or even exceed the drinking-water target". Or even exceed. You don't see anything like that in reports on maternal mortality or HIV.So celebrations are in order. The "Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water – 2010 Update Report," says that 87% of the world's population, which is around 5.9 billion people, have safe drinking water. But - oh why does there always have to be a but - alongside water goes sanitation. And sanitation, sadly, is a long way off target still.Let's be clear here. We're talking about one of the last things people are willing to talk about. We're talking about shit. I sat next to a very interesting and dynamic doctor from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine last Wednesday night in the glitzy ballroom of London's Park Lane Hilton Hotel at the BMJ Group awards dinner, where the great and good of medicine were dressed up in black tie and glamorous gowns (not both at the same time) and we lamented the general willingness to talk about shit. It's her job, in a manner of speaking. Dr Val Curtis is a behavioural scientist and director of the London School's Hygiene Centre. She ought to know. Just one of the facts her unit promulgates - handwashing with soap could save perhaps a million lives a year. I hope to write more on what she is trying to do about it at a later date.So back to the WHO/Unicef report which has dismal statistics on how far we have to go. Unhappily this is far more familiar MDG territory. Almost 39% of the world's population - more than a third of the people on the planet - do not have imporved sanitation facilities. "If the current trend continues unchanged, the international community will miss the 2015 sanitation MDG by almost one billion people," they say.Open defecation, they say, is on the decline, from a quarter of people on the planet in 1990 to 17% in 2008. But this most risky of all sanitation practices is still widespread in southern Asia, says the report, where 44% of people still defecate in the open. Maybe it doesn't need spelling out for a sophisticated western audience who enjoy flush toilets behind closed doors, soap dispensers and taps that pour water if you so much as wave at them, but some of the worst diseases that kill small children are spread from hand to mouth - and that's unwashed hands that have been in contact with the shit that is lying around. I can't get the image of the sewage ditches running through Indian streets out of my head."Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene claim the lives of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five each year," says the report. It may not be as big a conversational issue as Aids or malaria, but it sure matters, and this one is not just amenable to healthcare improvements. It needs poverty reduction and education - the basic stuff of development - just as much.WaterInternational aid and developmentWorld Health OrganisationSarah Boseleyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Well designed and made: cycle menswear Peter Walker test-rides menswear from the bspoke range, designed for people who want practical cycling clothes that can be worn in the officeIt is, of course, a concept that would baffle the average cyclist in countries such as the Netherlands or Denmark. Clothes you can wear on your bike and in work? Don't you just mean everyday clothes?But in the UK, particularly in big cities, there are plenty of commuters who worry that their delicate office gear will get grubby or crumpled on a bike and yet either have no taste for Lycra or don't have anywhere to change when they get into work.This, supposedly, is where bspoke comes in, with its outfits designed for people who "love cycling but not traditional cycling clothing".We've previously mentioned bspoke on the Bike blog, but have now had a chance to properly test out some of their range for men and women. I'm doing the first bit and Helen Pidd will be test-riding their selection of women's garments. So how did they fare on a drizzly commute – and, more to the point, inside the office?First, a confession: as commuters go I'm something of a Lycra fan. I'm only too aware that I'm reaching an age when the full gimp suit is less than dignified but I don't care: it's comfy and breathable as I meet my daily exercise needs with a flat-out ride to work, showering on arrival.But I'll concede this – bspoke clothes are carefully designed and well made. Along with its capacious pockets, the muted black Holborn cycling jacket features a clever pouch for an mp3 player, complete with a little hole for the headphone cable. The Holland cycling trousers have a neat little velcro strap on the right cuff, a sort of built-in cycling clip.They're not cheap – £130 and £60 respectively – prices likely to provoke guffaws of disbelief from more ascetic riders. I'd counter that there can be an economic (even moral) case for occasionally choosing something long-lasting and well made, rather than a £5 sweatshop-sewn special from a cheap supermarket, though that's perhaps an argument for another day.Both items certainly pass muster in the office. The trousers have a fairly generous cut in the thigh, giving a suspiciously MC Hammer-type feel when you put them on, but colleagues assured me they looked perfectly smart. The jacket, too, is very much on the inconspicuous side, even down to the subtle reflective trim.The moleskin-feel trousers are made from some supposedly hi-tech fabric which repels oil and other road nasties, and they certainly looked clean after a few damp rides to the office. Their cut makes them more comfy to ride in than, say, a pair of jeans.Sadly, the jacket was less of a success. It's supposedly breathable, but even on a low-temperature winter commute I soon had that sticky, boil-in-the-bag feeling, even with the underarm zip vents wide open. I hate to think what it would be like on a more temperate day.Overall marks out of fiveStyling: 4Comfort: 3Practicality: 3Value for money: 3CyclingFashionEthical and green livingMen's fashionPeter Walkerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 ... they answer: Ethical Consumer magazine Ethical Consumer will be online this week to give advice and explain the methodology it uses to rate brands – post your questions belowWant to know how to tell the good guys from the bad guys? Talk to this week's You ask, they answer guest, Ethical Consumer magazine. For the past two decades, its experts have been helping consumers to avoid brands and companies with a poor social and environmental track record, and reward those with a positive one, by rating products from TVs and mobile phones to pushchairs and chocolate bars.Want to know who's up and who's down in the list of eco-villains and heroes, and whether bete noires such as Primark have cleaned up or not? Need some help on a big buying decision and want Ethical Consumer's advice on the greenest and fairest choice? Or would you like to know more about the methodology it uses to rate brands? Just post your green shopping questions below - the magazine's team will be online from Monday to Friday this week to answer.Ethical and green livingCorporate social responsibilityFashionFood & drinkConsumer affairsAdam Vaughanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Green building: The Strata 'Razor' tower The 'Razor' is an environmentally innovative new tower block in Elephant and Castle, south London, that will boast three wind turbines. Take a ride to the top with these exclusive pictures   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-15 Red shirt protest Your pictures of the red shirt protest in Bangkok   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 BA strike 'We just want a resolution and to carry on working'   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Do summits ever work? An international wildlife summit is aiming to save bluefin tuna from extinction. What can really be achieved?   bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 From BBC Sport: Beckham to miss World Cup David Beckham's dream of playing in a fourth World Cup looks over after an injury. Send us your views   bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 How can the commute to work be made easier? The CBI has called for a "radical overhaul" of road travel to avoid gridlock. How can commuting be improved?   bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Should police scrap 'stop and search'? Black and Asian people are still unfairly targeted in the use of stop and search. Does stop and search reduce crime?   bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Bloc Party star to play solo gig Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke has announced details of his first solo live gig, playing this summer's Ibiza Rocks series alongside The Prodigy and Dizzee Rascal.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15

radio news 'Lost' Shakespeare play published A play which was first discovered nearly 300 years ago has been credited to William Shakespeare.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 French singer Ferrat dies aged 79 French singer and songwriter Jean Ferrat, whose communist views saw many of his songs banned from broadcast in the 1960s, dies aged 79.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Alice still leads US box office Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland holds firm at the top of the US box office chart for the second week running.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Big rise in online music revenues The royalties UK songwriters get from online sales are now growing faster than the decline from CDs and DVDs.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Street star out of Dancing on Ice Coronation Street actor Danny Young is voted off ITV1's Dancing on Ice following a costly mistake in the skate-off.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Cotillard receives French honour Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard receives one of France's highest cultural honours at a ceremony in Paris.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-15 Ex-CBC host Mittelholtz dies Long-time CBC radio personality Gary Mittelholtz died while cross-country skiing near Sussex, N.B., on Saturday. He was 55.   cbc.ca   2010-03-14 Selling off Africa's resources isn't 'development'. It's greed | The big issue Governments rich and poor have failed to support smallholder farmers in the developing worldSovereign African governments are complicit in the new scramble for Africa ("How food and water drive a new foreign land grab in Africa", News). The result will be recently disenfranchised farmers working for wages. Oil supplies are being depleted and soon the major land grab in Africa will be to grow sugar cane and palm oil to keep the gas guzzlers running. The African governments may call it development but the fact is they are selling off their resources to line their own pockets – just as the chiefs once sold off their human resource.Vali JamalNairobi, KenyaOne billion people live with hunger and there are more than 100 million hungry people today than there were 18 months ago. This is in stark contrast to the global promise to halve world hunger by 2015.Governments rich and poor have failed to support smallholder farmers in the developing world. Between 1980 and 2006, aid to agriculture was cut almost in half with disastrous effects. Some 50m hectares of fertile land in developing countries have now been acquired or are being negotiated to grow food crops and biofuels, most of which will be exported to richer nations. To put that into perspective, ActionAid estimates that 50m hectares could be the equivalent of some 75-100m tonnes of maize if grown in East Africa. This would be enough to feed the 1 billion hungry people for about four months of every year. The right kind of investment can end hunger, but these landgrabs will only make things worse.Meredith Alexander, Head of Trade & Corporates,ActionAidLondon N19What is wrong with turning Africa into the "food basket" for parts of the world that do not have sufficient land to feed their people? When farms in the UK sold out to the Dutch farmers, were we being "colonised" by the Dutch? Most of these African countries do not have the finance or technical knowledge to carry out development. The statement that hundreds of people lose their jobs is not quite accurate, as, although the farmer whose land has been "grabbed" may not till his subsistence farm, he is employed in the packing areas, tractor driving, irrigation etc, so all is not bad.Peter HealClare, SuffolkUnlike in the past, African nations are not being compelled at gunpoint to cede their land to foreign invaders. The socio-political context of some African countries such as Ghana or Mali is propitious enough for civil society groups to ensure that before deals are signed, the locals' interests are safeguarded.In Ethiopia, Sudan and other repressive African countries, the presence of foreign investors is not the problem. The problem lies in the existence of dictatorial governments. They know that they do not need the support or approval of their people to perpetuate themselves in power, as they rely on foreign aid, funds and support to do so. As a result, they do not hesitate to subordinate their people's interests and needs to those of foreigners.Sylvie Aboa-BradwellExecutive director, African Peoples AdvocacyGillingham, KentThe key to a land grab is its title. Who owns the land? Actually, nobody, and everybody. Customarily, land in Africa is not held in title by any single person, but by its population's consensual usage of it. The country's government might think it "owns" the land, but it certainly does not. What it does "own" is the power to arbitrarily decree to itself title to land previously untitled, and the power to enforce that title, to the great detriment of the people who are living on it, and who won't be living on it (and off it) for very much longer.Then, where do they go, and what do they do? Lorenzo Cotula says: "Lack of transparency... opens the door to corruption." Get real, pal. The door's already wide open.Hugh EdwardsBenbeculaOuter HebridesAgricultureFarmingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 The innovator: Matthias Kauer The 39-year-old inventor who created a solar cell that can generate 100 times more power than an ordinary cell"Small is beautiful" is a longstanding eco mantra – and its latest example is a stamp-sized incarnation of the solar panel. Even with its minute proportions, the new solar cell generates three to four times the amount of power (10-12 watts) that a conventional cell could at the same size. "But the real point," explains Matthias Kauer of the Sharp Solar Research & Development Laboratory, "is that once you add in a comparatively cheap bit of kit like a lens, this tiny cell can then generate 100 times more power than an ordinary cell."It's exactly the power surge solar photovoltaic panels need. PV panels use a thin layer of semi-conducting material, usually silicon, to generate an electric charge when exposed to sunlight. They are often derided, the assumption being that they don't generate a useful amount of energy, but Dr Kauer is quick to point out that even the average panel is 15 to 20 times more efficient at converting solar energy than plants.His solar cell is superior still. It's already 35.8% efficient in sunlight, and he's confident that in future years that can increase to 50%. At the heart of the pint-sized innovation is the new material in the cell. The day the research team found the right proportions of indium gallium arsenide nitride, the super cell began to come together. "Those breakthrough days are good," says Kauer. "I've had a couple in my 10-year career so far, and this one was major."If only we lived in a sun-soaked country. "That's a common misconception," says Kauer. "The UK has as much sun as parts of Germany, where solar panels are commonplace." The average amount of sun hitting an area 30cm in diameter is equivalent to the power of 20,000 AA batteries. "The exciting thing is that we can keep gaining efficiency," says Kauer, "and one day have cars, planes, ships and entire cities running on free solar power." The outlook is sunny.Solar powerEthical and green livingLucy Siegleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Farming is mainly to blame for the loss of our native plants and wildlife Report by Natural England warns of risk to species and habitatsEngland was given an uncomfortable reminder last week of the impact of its swelling number of inhabitants. Over the past two millennia, hundreds of its native plants and animals have been rendered extinct because the human population has risen from about one million to more than 51 million.Victims have ranged from the great auk and the lynx to the humble blue stag beetle and Davall's sedge. More to the point, 480 of the 492 species made extinct since Roman times have disappeared in the past two centuries. Rates of eradication are rising, a trend that bodes badly for the future of the countryside, a report states.Produced by Natural England, the government agency responsible for the countryside, "Lost Life: England's Lost and Threatened Species" focuses only on wildlife on English soil, although it has broad lessons for all of Britain. We live on "a fortress built by Nature for herself", Shakespeare claimed. If so, she is now paying a heavy price for its construction, as the study makes clear.According to the report, a total of 24% of butterfly species and 22% of amphibians have been wiped out in England, along with individual types of wildlife such as Mitten's beardless moss; York groundsel, a weed only discovered in the 1970s; and Ivell's sea anemone, which was last seen in a lagoon near Chichester. Add to this the wolf, the wildcat and other large mammals and the level of devastation of our wildlife becomes chillingly apparent.Indeed, the situation is far worse than the one outlined in the study, its lead author Dr Tom Tew, chief scientist of Nature England, admitted last week. The agency was as conservative and careful as it could in compiling the report, he told the Observer. "We wanted to avoid accusations of being alarmist." As a result, "Lost Life" underestimates, by a fair amount, the numbers of extinctions of animals and plants in England that have taken place in recent years. "There are many more species that we think we have lost, but we have not included them because they are not officially extinct." Examples include the golden eagle and the sturgeon. Both are occasionally seen in England but no longer breed here. In addition, the banded mining bee, the brilliant moon beetle and the lichen, Opegrapha paraxanthodes, have also been posted missing, presumed extinct.The report highlights a number of culprits, though it is emphatic about the worst offender: habitat loss. The great inroads made into the English countryside by farmers and builders has had a devastating effect on our wildlife, destroying food sources, shelter and homes for hundreds of species."Urban spread is one cause of habitat loss, of course, but farming has had the greatest impact by far," added Dr Tew. "We have ploughed over the landscape, ripped up woods and drained our wetlands – and rare mosses, damselflies and corncrakes have disappeared as a result." Intriguingly, analysis shows extinctions occurred in two main waves, both based on farming revolutions.Dr Tew explained: "The first wave of extinctions occurred when the Victorians' post-industrial revolution started to take effect on land management. We started using steam tractors and devices like that. In addition, there were large numbers of men still employed as gamekeepers." The impact in use of this machinery and intensive landkeeping was a peak of extinctions between 1900 and 1910, a time when wildlife like the agile and moor frogs as well as the orache moth disappeared.Then, after 1945, there was a major push to ensure food security, with the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides increasing. Again this triggered a peak in extinctions that included those of plants like the purple spurge and insects like the Norfolk damselfly."Other factors are involved, of course – such as pollution and invasion by non-native species," said Dr Tew. "However, habitat loss remains the worst offender, although trends are beginning to shift. Climate change is beginning to have an effect, and by the middle of the century I am sure it will be accounting for the vast majority of future extinctions of English wildlife."ConservationWildlifeRobin McKieguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 The world's smallest sea horse Hippocampus satomiae, little bigger than a pea, has been found on reefs in IndonesiaLittle bigger than a pea, the smallest known sea horse, Hippocampus satomiae, was discovered at a depth of about 15 metres on reefs in Indonesia, from Derawan island to northern Sulawesi and Borneo. Like other pygmy sea horses, its size and camouflage make it difficult to spot. This species resembles, in texture and colour, the sea fans with which it lives. It has a pouch in which it carries its young, which are only 3mm in length. Animal names ending in -ae honour women, in this case Satomi Onishi, a diving guide who collected the first specimen.Quentin Wheeler International Institute for Species Exploration, Arizona State University, www.species.asu.edu/ ZoologyAnimalsWildlifeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Six of the best from the Natural History Museum The Natural History Museum has one of the world's greatest collections, capturing the earth's huge biodiversity. Ahead of a major new BBC TV series – Museum of Life – six members of their world-class team of 300 scientists each pick a treasureThe statistics defy comprehension. The mammal collection on its own contains 860,000 items, ranging from the skeleton of a blue whale to a dormouse. Yet this array of old bones and fur represents a mere slice of the contents of the Natural History Museum.Over the three acres of storage space that forms a labyrinth around the museum in South Kensington, London, there are rooms that contain the remains of 58 million animals, drawers of five million pressed plants, and cupboards filled with nine million fossils. For good measure, this magnificent terracotta edifice – designed by Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1881 – also provides a home for 300,000 rocks and minerals as well as 2,000 meteorites. This, quite simply, is one of the planet's most important natural history collections, a repository of the biological and geological wonders that have appeared on earth over its 4.6 billion-year history.Yet only a tiny minority of these marvels is ever seen by the public. The rest are kept behind the scenes at the museum, although these artefacts are still of tremendous importance to researchers, as a new BBC2 TV series, Museum of Life, intends to show. Six documentaries examine some of the star specimens among the museum's scientific treasures and will demonstrate how they are being used as tools to understand, and improve, the planet's threatened ecology. Thus we will learn of the importance of giant tortoise excrement to the regeneration of the ebony forests of Mauritius and come to understand the usefulness of making moulds of dinosaur skeletons.As Richard Fortey, one of the museum's most important palaeontologists, explains: "The golden rule of museum life is simple. Don't throw anything away. You never know – a technique or technology could come into existence and reveal a new scientific use for it."As to the identity of the greatest treasures to be found within the walls of this scientific Hogwarts, there is, inevitably, disagreement. So the Observer asked some of the museum's personnel to name their favourites and explain why they have selected them.Of course, opinions change over time and future generations will no doubt take a very different view – a point demonstrated by the museum's own walls. Waterhouse stipulated there should be carved images of living species on the west wing's walls while the east would only have those of extinct creatures. These included the coelacanth, then thought to be extinct, but which was discovered, very much alive, in 1934. As a result the coelacanth now finds itself commemorated on the wrong wall.Museum of Life starts on ThursdayThe diplodocusMike Dixon, director of the Natural History Museum"It is hard to believe that the great skeleton of Dippy, our fossil diplodocus, has not always dominated the museum's entrance hall. The two look as if they had been made for each other: a vast cathedral-like space filled by that wonderful 26m-long skeleton of a long-extinct dinosaur. It is a sight that never fails to hypnotise youngsters when they first set foot in the museum."Yet we were without Dippy for the first 24 years of our existence. Indeed, it might never have ended up here at all had not King Edward VII asked for a copy of the newly discovered dinosaur when he visited the Carnegie Museum in America. Over the next 18 months, casts of the fossilised bones were made from five different diplodocus skeletons and shipped to Britain in 36 crates. Dippy was assembled and formally introduced to the public on 12 May, 1905, in the reptile gallery before ending up in the great hall in 1979."He has also changed over the years. For a long time we reckoned the diplodocus must have lumbered about in swamps because its body would have been too heavy to move about on dry land and would have needed water or mud for support. However, our ideas about sauropod dinosaurs have changed and we now believe they were much more dynamic and active than we had thought. So we have raised Dippy's head and also his tail, which would have acted as a counterbalance. Essentially, though, he is the same old Dippy that has entranced visitors to the museum for more than 100 years."The Nakhla meteoriteCaroline Smith, curator of meteorites"There are about 38,000 meteorites in museum and private collections in the world but this one is special because it's one of only a handful that are known to have come from another planet: Mars. About 12m years ago an asteroid or comet crashed on to Mars. The resulting blast blew pieces of rock into space and into orbit round the Sun. Then, in 1911, the Earth passed through that orbit and swept up some of those pieces of rock and these fell over the Nakhla area of Egypt. There was a fireball, a detonation and then a shower of stones. Locals claimed a dog was killed – which would have made the animal the only known victim of an interplanetary attack. However, the story is pretty suspect."The piece, which is a star specimen in our vault gallery, has a beautiful shiny black exterior. This is known as a fusion crust and was created by the intense heat of the meteorite's fiery passage through the atmosphere. Its interior is mostly a mixture of iron and magnesium silicates called pyroxene and olivine. Some scientists say they can see signs of fossil bacteria-like entities in the meteorite but I am not convinced. On the other hand, it is now clear some of that the minerals that make up the meteorite could only have been created in the presence of water. This shows that Mars – at least in the distant past – must have been a wet, fairly hospitable place."ArchaeopteryxAngela Milner, research associate in the palaeontology department"Archaeopteryx has unique, iconic importance for a very simple reason: it is a perfect example of evolution in action. It looks half-way between a bird and a small meat-eating dinosaur which, of course, is exactly what it is."It was found inside a piece of limestone in southern Germany and brought in 1862 to the museum, where Thomas Huxley recognised it is a transitional fossil that links modern birds with dinosaurs. Thus it became a key piece of evidence in the debate about natural selection. Our specimen is 147m years old and is the earliest known fossil of an animal that we can definitely call a bird. In other words, its lineage had only relatively recently evolved from dinosaur predecessors. It is wonderfully preserved despite the age, however. You can see its feathers in perfect detail."Archaeopteryx would have been about the size of a magpie and would have had a long tail like a magpie's. However, in its case this tail was made out of bone. Since then, birds have evolved tails that are made out of feathers. Intriguingly, we actually have two versions of this particular archaeopteryx. It was preserved in a slab of lithographic limestone which was split apart to reveal the bird inside."Both sides reveal detailed impressions of the bird. A copy of one is displayed in the earth gallery and another in the bird gallery."The Broken Hill SkullChris Stringer, research leader of human origins at the museum"This is a beautifully preserved skull of an early human being who we think lived about 300,000 years ago. It is also a fossil of special historical importance. In the 19th century, Charles Darwin had predicted science would show that the origins of humanity lay in Africa. But for the next 50 years the only fossils dug up were in Europe and Asia. The Broken Hill Skull – which was found in a mine in Zambia (then Rhodesia) in 1921 - changed that perspective and helped show our birthplace is, indeed, an African one. It has personal importance as well. When I saw a replica of the skull in the museum when I was a youngster, I was captivated, and decided, there and then, to study evolution."The skull of Broken Hill Man – we believe it is male from its size – was coated in ore when it was dug up. However, the huge brow-ridges over its eyes marked it out as special and it was sent to the museum.Today we now believe it belongs to a species called Homo heidelbergensis: big-brained, powerfully built hunter-gatherers who may also have been our direct ancestors."The skull – a replica is displayed in our human evolution gallery - also reveals clear evidence of illness among ancient people. It has a hole at the back which was probably caused by a small tumour or brain abscess which burst through the skull wall. However, to judge from the subsequent bone growth around the hole, this appears to have partly healed."In fact, it is more likely his teeth killed Broken Hill Man. These, and his upper jawbone, were riddled with abscesses that would have caused him immense pain and may even have led to the spread of a fatal infection."The arapaima fishOliver Crimmen, lead curator in the fish group in the zoology department"When I was young I was fascinated by the aquarium at London zoo and, in particular, by the tank that contained marine creatures from the Amazon. There was one fish, called the arapaima, which I thought was especially exciting. It was huge, around two metres, and looked truly spectacular."Then one day I found the tank had been closed and was being cleaned out. I never found out what happened to the arapaima – until I went to work for the Natural History Museum. There I came across a specimen preserved in alcohol. It was only when I checked the label that I discovered it had come from the zoo. It was, in fact, the very fish that had drawn me to the aquarium a decade earlier and begun my fascination with marine biology. The arapaima seems to have haunted my life."In fact, it is a really intriguing fish – not just because of its unusual size. For example, the adult arapaima looks after its young by keeping a shoal of them in its mouth to protect them. The fish is also rare in that it breathes oxygen from the water - and from the air."Unfortunately, the arapaima is easily harpooned because of its size and because it swims near the surface. As a result, it is suffering a serious loss of numbers in the wild. On the other hand, it is also being bred today in fish farms. I doubt if I could eat one though."Darwin's pigeonJo Cooper, curator of anatomical collections in the museum's bird group"Charles Darwin collected many bird specimens on his voyage on the Beagle. However, his research had only just begun when he returned to Britain in 1836. Still seeking evidence years later, he began studying domestic animals – and the pigeon turns out to be a surprising favourite. Darwin brought together many different breeds of the bird – which helped to demonstrate the general point that a wide variety of animals can be created from a single originating type. Between 1855 and 1858, Darwin devoted a large part of his time to pigeon breeding – just as fellow scientists, such as Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker, were pressing him to publish his ideas about evolution. Just write something - 'pigeons, if you please' - but make sure you get your theory into print, Lyell urged."Then, in 1858, Darwin got a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace outlining his own version of natural selection, and he dropped everything to write On The Origin of Species. Crucially, this includes many observations about domestic animals – including the pigeon. Later Darwin left his pigeon specimens to the museum and these have turned out to be some of the best preserved items in all his collections. My favourite is a skeleton that has been carefully labelled, in Darwin's own handwriting, and dates back to 1856, just when his ideas about natural selection were crystallising. It is not on permanent display but it is usually included in most, behind-the-scenes tours of the museum."Natural History MuseumFossilsDinosaursWildlifeRobin McKieguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Can I buy underwear and be green? Say pants to the pesticides used in manufacturing cotton!You might be doubtful that your choice of briefs can be a catalyst for global change, but consider the statistics. The UK underwear market was valued at £4.1bn in 2009. Most of that money is spent on multinational-produced pants. Some are constructed from a mixture of oil-based synthetics, including nylon (which results in emissions of nitrous oxide, a poisonous greenhouse gas).Received wisdom tells us that cotton, the main underwear fibre, is the type of natural material we need in these delicate regions. Received wisdom is wrong. Although cotton covers less than 1% of the earth's landmass, it soaks up 25% of all pesticides and herbicides. A single pair of cotton pants uses 10ml of pesticides.In the past year a number of NGOs have got their knickers in a twist about cotton pesticide endosulfan, banned in 62 countries. It is linked to reproductive and developmental damage in animals and humans and is manufactured by pharmaceutical brand Bayer. PantsToPoverty.com, a leader in fairtrade cotton underwear, instigated a "pants amnesty" whereby protestors sent their worst pair of pants to Bayer – which quickly pledged to phase out endosulfan by the end of 2010.Greenknickers.org offers zero-carbon pants from recycled sources. Whomadeyourpants.co.uk is a workers' co-operative in Southampton employing women who have been granted asylum but find it difficult to get work. They take knickers seriously (like Alan Greenspan, who has said he looks at sales of men's underwear to indicate the direction of the economy). Ethical smalls can become a big deal.Fair tradeUnderwear (men)PesticidesAlan GreenspanEthical and green livingLucy Siegleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Ian McEwan's Solar: it's green and it should be read | Nick Cohen At last, global warming inspires good fiction. And scientists are the rightful heroesGossip columnists long ago supplanted the literary editors in media hierarchies, and a writer must be grateful if the press greets the publication of his or her book with anything so quaint as a discussion of its literary merit. When Martin Amis released The Pregnant Widow in February, he discovered that the big issue for journalists was not how he expressed his ideas but whether he had upset Anna Ford. The former newsreader proved she is not at her best when the autocue is off by accusing him of smoking in the hospital room where her husband was dying in 1988 – he didn't, apparently – and of being a neglectful godfather to her daughter, a charge that even if true had nothing to do with his book.After this, Ian McEwan must be grateful that Angela Rippon is not greeting the publication of Solar by announcing that he stood her up on a date in 1976, or that Fiona Bruce is not telling the papers he snubbed her at a dinner party during Blair's first term.The "story" about McEwan nevertheless remains as irrelevant to his fiction as the babbling about whether the atheist Amis was a good godfather. Inspired by the Sunday Times, the pack has decided that McEwan is satirising a voyage in which he accompanied Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley and other enlightened artists to see the effect of global warming in the Arctic.McEwan does indeed acknowledge his debt to the Cape Farewell expedition, and includes a scene in which the cynical hero contrasts the idealistic conversation of his progressive companions when they are together at dinner with the naked selfishness with which they steal each other's gloves, scarves and helmets in the ship's boot room. "Four days ago the room had started out in orderly condition, with all gear hanging on or stowed below the numbered pegs," says Michael Beard. "Finite resources, equally shared, in the golden age of not so long ago. Now it was a ruin… How were they to save the Earth when it was so much larger than the boot room?"As scoops go, however, the hacks' effort was five years late – and so did not even qualify as yesterday's news. When he returned from the Arctic in 2005, McEwan made the contrast between the highmindedness of the dinner table and the low scramble for petty advantage in the boot room in a speech you can still find on the internet. More pertinently, he understands that the contradiction is at the heart of contemporary environmental concerns. Far from mocking fears about climate change, McEwan is struggling to find a way to write them.Opposition to global warming has been a good cause which has failed to inspire good fiction. I do not claim encyclopaedic knowledge, but Solar is the first novel I have read to tackle it successfully. The difficulty was that there appeared to be no space for any emotion except despair. If Europe slashed its carbon emissions, would America reciprocate? Even if it did, how could you persuade one billion Chinese consumers not to buy cars or hundreds of millions of Indians and Africans to abandon self-enrichment? The campaign against climate change ran against the grain of human nature.McEwan has found a way out by turning to the pioneering green thinkers James Lovelock and Stewart Brand, who have been begging environmentalists to stand their old opposition to technology on its head. They want them to see nuclear power, mega-cities and GM food as innovations that can slow down emissions. To put it another way, they hope to use 21st-century science to limit the damage caused by 19th and 20th-century science.McEwan tells me that he prefers technicians to humanities graduates who spout apocalyptic predictions. He sniffs in some the same fanaticism that inspired millenarian religion, communism and fascism, and suspects they want to compensate for the knowledge of the inevitability of their own deaths by imagining that the species will go down with them.The optimism – and it may be a false optimism – new technologies bring allows McEwan to create a protagonist who is not an impossibly righteous hero or the gritty survivor of a coming catastrophe but an all too fleshy adulterer and glutton. Michael Beard is a Nobel Laureate whose glory days are long gone. He steals the work of an equally lecherous colleague, who dies, appropriately, by slipping on a polar bear-skin rug. Beard realises the robbed research could create a new source of clean energy and goes on a slob's progress through the arguments against global warming as he tries to cash in.When his American business partner wonders if the denialists of the Tea Party movement may be right, Beard delivers a devastating account of the arguments for manmade global warming, which ends with the unanswerable point that in the unlikely event of the vast majority of qualified scientists being wrong, we'll be hitting peak oil soon and will need alternative energy anyway. He neatly illuminates the link between Palinism and postmodernism by forcing Beard to endure an audience at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, which bellows that his so-called science is nothing but a "social construct" designed to preserve the "hegemonic arrogance" of the "white male elite". My colleagues should note that McEwan shows that the ICA rather than the Cape Farewell project has been the true butt of satirists ever since Amis invited its relativist crowd to raise their hands if they thought they were morally superior to the Taliban and only one third did. ("So many?" I hear you gasp. Yes, I was surprised too.)The novel's burning question comes when Beard asks an audience of City investors, "How can we slow down and stop while sustaining our civilisation and continuing to bring millions out of poverty? Not by being virtuous… For humanity en masse, greed trumps virtue. So we have to welcome into our solutions the ordinary compulsions of self-interest, and also celebrate novelty, the thrill of invention [and] the pleasures of ingenuity."McEwan attempts the difficult trick of blending raucous comedy with science and politics. I think he pulls it off magnificently. But given the current state of British criticism, I accept that you may want to hear what the newsreaders have to say before deciding for yourselves.Ian McEwanMartin AmisClimate changeArcticNick Cohenguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Fishing in troubled waters | Sylvia Earle and Susan Lieberman Fish populations once thought to be inexhaustible now face the prospect of extinction if policy changes are not made soonIt has been said that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, though if you teach a man to fish you feed him for life. But times have changed. Now we know that only if you save species of fish from overexploitation will there be hope of providing food for a lifetime, let alone for generations that follow. Fish and other sea creatures historically valued solely as commodities are critically important to healthy ocean ecosystems, which in turn provide benefits to humankind. Yet the ocean is in deep trouble. Fish populations once thought to be inexhaustible now face the prospect of becoming extinct for any commercial purpose – and even completely disappearing – if policy changes are not made soon. Iconic species such as bluefin tuna (pdf) and many kinds of sharks demonstrate the gravity of the issue. Optimistic reports find that between 18% and 28% of Atlantic bluefin tuna remain from the number in the sea half a century ago; others estimate that there are fewer than 10%. Meanwhile, a number of shark species (pdf) have declined by more than 90% in some areas, due largely to the growing international trade in shark fins.It is not too late to save these animals and reverse their decline. Protection for whales, while not universal, has resulted in a gradual recovery of several greatly depleted species. African elephants, poached in many countries to a fraction of historic numbers for their ivory tusks, began to recover following a ban on international ivory commerce. International trade controls are working to give ocelots, jaguars, alligators and crocodiles, hunted for their skins, a better chance for survival.Governments belonging to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), a treaty used to protect wild animals and plants from overexploitation for international commerce, will soon meet in Qatar. There, they will decide whether or not Atlantic bluefin tuna and several shark species receive needed protections.The treaty, among 175 countries, provides a vital, enforceable tool to prevent the depletion and eventual disappearance of species subject to trade. It limits or prohibits international trafficking in plants and animals that are at risk owing to such trade. If populations recover and sustainable use can be demonstrated, restrictions may be removed.An expert panel assembled by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation agrees that the Atlantic bluefin tuna merits a Cites Appendix I listing, which stops trade completely. International seafood markets and expensive sushi restaurants the world over prize these animals, giving them the distinction of the world's most expensive fish. They are being targeted relentlessly by modern industrial scale fishing operations that serve a high-end luxury market.Delegates to the Cites meeting will also consider eight species of sharks for a level of protection that does not ban trade but requires export permits for any transactions once trade is confirmed to be legal and sustainable. As many as 73 million sharks are killed every year for their fins, a delicacy in China and other Asian markets. Some sharks, taken for their meat, may live for decades and have unusually low reproductive rates – characteristics that lead to rapid decline when fished commercially.Unfortunately, delegations at many international fisheries management meetings have been led by each country's fisheries agency, and typically maintain close ties to the very industry they regulate. Over the years, these organisations have failed to prevent declines in Atlantic bluefin tuna and other heavily exploited species. With fish populations at a fraction of historic levels, it is time to act. International trade controls can make a difference for these species where the actions of individual countries have repeatedly failed.The increased attention that will be focused on marine fish at the Cites meeting in March is welcome, given the dire status of bluefin tuna, hammerhead sharks and others that will be considered. It may take decades for these species to recover, but unless actions are taken now, the future appears bleak. Our children may condemn us for allowing them to disappear. Or maybe, just maybe, they will salute us for taking action while there still is time.FishingFoodEndangered speciesSylvia EarleSusan Liebermanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Councils concerned nuclear assessment hand-outs would create bias Under new planning rules, energy companies pay local authorities to assess their planning applications, but some councils do not have the resources or expertiseLocal authorities are concerned that relying on cash hand-outs from companies to assess applications to build nuclear reactors and other major projects "creates a sense of bias", the head of the government's new planning quango has told the Guardian.Sir Michael Pitt, chairman of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which came into operation this month, also admitted that some local authorities are struggling to secure the funds they need to do the work.Under the government's new planning regime, a developer pays a local authority to review its own application after the two sides agree how much it will cost. With an estimated £200bn of new energy infrastructure required over the next decade, local authorities do not have the resources or expertise to assess applications, particularly complex ones to build nuclear reactors. The Local Government Association and local authorities unsuccessfully lobbied for public funds to be made available or for all developers to be required to contribute money into a "blind" pool, which officials could tap.Sir Michael said: "A number of authorities have said to me that they feel concerned that they are seen by their local public to have received funding from the applicant that is promoting the project, and whether that creates a sense of bias, and that is obviously a consideration." Asked if they felt compromised by the funding arrangement, he admitted: "That is what they said to me."He added that some local authorities were having difficulty securing enough funding. "I know of one or two examples where local authorities have argued forcibly with the [project] promoters that [a funding] agreement should be entered into. I have come across difficult conversations between applicants and promoters."But he insisted it would count against a developer if the IPC feels that local authorities have not been able to do all the necessary work as a result of a shortage of funds. "An application that comes to the Commission where major issues do not appear to be addressed would mean the application is not accepted or if it is accepted, during the evaluation process Commissioners would be asking the same questions the local authority have asked a year earlier."EDF Energy has submitted its first planning report for a new reactor at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, which it claims will be operational by the end of 2017.The Conservatives have promised to abolish the IPC if it is elected, but they have not said whether they would change the way a developer pays a local authority to review its own application. The Conservatives claim that local interests will be overruled by a centralised "undemocratic" planning body such as the IPC, which, rather than the secretary of state, will make the final decision on whether to approve an application.Energy industryLocal governmentLocal politicsNuclear powerTim Webbguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 Council to approve plan to send nuclear waste to landfill Waste management company Augean is seeking to use a site in the village of King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, to store up to 250,000 tonnes of radioactive debris a yearCouncillors in an area at the centre of a scandal linking toxic materials with birth defects are expected to approve the use of a local landfill site for dumping nuclear waste, in response to an application from a company with a blemished environmental record.The planning committee at Northamptonshire county council is to rule on Tuesday in a landmark case in which Augean, a waste management company, is seeking to use a repository in the village of King's Cliffe to store as much as 250,000 tonnes of radioactive debris a year.If the local authority agrees to the request, it is likely to influence planning decisions in other areas, such as Cumbria, where waste companies want to extend landfill facilities for the disposal of nuclear materials.King's Cliffe residents, who have formed a pressure group called Waste Watchers, are furious about the proposal, which has been given a green light by planning officers and the Environment Agency.Ann Garratt, whose house overlooks the landfill site, formally known as the East Northants Resource Management Facility, calls the whole idea "bloody awful", saying that no company's promises can be relied on. "We have already seen the road have to be resurfaced because the liquid dripping out of the back of lorries dissolved the tarmac."Clare Langan, who lives in the centre of King's Cliffe, is equally opposed to the scheme. "I doubt [the potential health risk] would affect me, or even perhaps my children, but who knows after that? They are offering us a 'community fund' of £5 per tonne but who wants a couple of tennis courts and a five-a-side football pitch when nuclear waste is sitting at the end of the road?"Josien Chalmers, who bought a house close to the former clay pit before it was licensed for any kind of waste disposal, has seen the site used first for ordinary landfill and then for toxic waste a few years later. "I am completely against this proposal. There are too many lorries going in already, and no independent monitoring by anyone on site," she says.The move at King's Cliffe – a stone-built village mentioned in the Domesday Book – has particularly angered Waste Watchers because of a high court case involving a nearby council.Families of 18 children born with deformities allege they were exposed to an "atmospheric soup of toxic materials" when Corby borough council oversaw the redevelopment of a local steelworks.Augean's reputation has been sullied in the eyes of critics after it was fined by Staffordshire and Peterborough courts for breaches of environmental regulations in 2006. The following year, Corby magistrates fined eight different waste disposal companies for 18 offences related to attempting to dispose of liquid and inflammable waste at King's Cliffe.Augean was not the owner of King's Cliffe when those last offences took place but, in its 2009 interim financial report, the company said that it had set aside £200,000 for prosecutions by the Environment Agency.Protesters also point out that Augean has no prior history of handling nuclear waste, and that the materials are likely to come from as far away as Bradwell in Essex and Harwell in Oxfordshire.Waste Watchers campaigners believe waste should be stored near to where it is produced, and fear that if the application at King's Cliffe gets the go-ahead, other landfill sites nearby – at least one of which is owned by Augean – will also eventually be licensed.Residents at Lillyhall and Keekle Head in Cumbria are facing similar moves by waste companies. Augean, Energy Solutions and Sita (UK) are responding to a government decision to allow the use of local landfill sites instead of the low-level waste repository at Drigg in Cumbria, which is filling up fast as old nuclear stations are dismantled.The government argues that the waste would have an extremely low level of radioactivity and would not be harmful to humans. It says much of it could be relatively uncontaminated rubble and it would make no sense to put this in expensive facilities such as Drigg.In the case of King's Cliffe, Augean said that it was aware that some local residents were opposed to the scheme but that it was heartened by the support of planning officers and the lack of objections from agencies representing the scientific and environmental communities."The planning officer's report does conclude that the deposit of low-level waste on the site and up to the levels planned does not represent a threat to human health or the environment," said a spokesman from an outside public relations firm acting for Augean.Asked whether he would object to such a scheme at the bottom of his garden, the spokesman said: "In the 20 years I have been dealing with planning issues there might have been occasions when I might not have wanted to have been asked that question."But I can honestly say I would not object to this, given that the maximum level of radiation allowed will be less than 1% of the average that is normal even in an office like yours."Augean was unable to provide details of the fines imposed against it on the grounds that the relevant company executives who would know about this were away on holiday. But the spokesman said: "There were a lot of legacy issues at King's Cliffe that took time to clear up."But Garratt, whose house sits adjacent to a 24-hour-a-day trucking depot and a working farm, and has RAF Harrier jets screaming overhead much of the day, is unmoved by Augean's responses."I have lived around this area all my life and I am certainly not a nimby who makes a song and a dance about every bit of noise and disruption," she says. "But you don't know what's going to happen in future. This is not just my issue, or a local issue, it's a national one and it's out of order."Nuclear wasteEnergy industryTerry Macalisterguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-14 'Poor service' Your experiences of out-of-hours doctors' care   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-14 Tributes to music venue founder Tributes are paid to the founder of one of Wales' longest established rock venues, who has died in hospital.   news.bbc.co.uk   2010-03-14 Roto-Rooter’s Arquilla to appear on ‘Undercover Boss’ CBS’ “Undercover Boss” series will star Rick Arquilla, Roto-Rooter Inc.’s president and chief operating officer, in an upcoming episode, the network said Friday. (CHE)   bizjournals.com   2010-03-13 U.S. wine exports fell 9.5% in value last year, 14.9% by volume Wine exports by U.S. producers, 90 percent of them from California, fell nearly 10 percent in value last year, to an estimated $912 million, due to the global recession, the San Francisco-based Wine Institute said Friday.   bizjournals.com   2010-03-13 KENS-TV will create early afternoon newscast Later this year, CBS affiliate station KENS-TV will launch a new 30-minute broadcast airing weekdays at 4 p.m. (BLC)   bizjournals.com   2010-03-13 What would be in your Noah's ark? | Open thread The US says polar bears should be granted the highest level of protection. Tell us which animal you'd most like to saveThe United States is lobbying for the polar bear to be granted the highest level of protection as a species. The move would make all international trade in polar bear products illegal. The Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species is also considering applying its appendix 1 status to elephants, tigers, rhinos and bluefin tuna.If you're an animal-lover, what species would you like to see protected? From the cute and cuddly, to the downright bizarre, which animals would have first place in your personal Noah's ark?Animal welfareAnimalsClimate changePolar regionsWildlifeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds   guardian.co.uk   2010-03-13