Newly released for Apple Iphone

Huff Puff Volley Pro 1.0


Category: Games
Price: $0.99 (iTunes)

Description:

*** NOW ON SALE COMMEMORATION! *** till April 4

Professional version of Huff Puff Volley Pro is now on SALE!
Enjoy the world ranking and Bluetooth matchup!

Introducing Huff Puff Volley, a comical, addictive, fully 3D action game for iPhone/iPod touch!

Play a match of badminton against the computer, or challenge a friend to a one-on-one challenge.

* Story
"Deep within the mountains of China is the Kingdom of Huff Puff. Once every 4 years, the resident animals of Huff Puff gather for a Huff Puff badminton competition. Join your Huff Puff animal friends in fierce competition along some of the Kingdom's best mountain-side and lake scenery!"

* Game Play
Control the movement of your character by tilting the device left or right.
When it's time to strike, hit the birdie by blowing into your iPhone's microphone.
You can also hit the birdie by tapping on the screen, so iPod touch users can play too!

The rules are just like badminton. Get in a miracle shot by placing the birdie within the boundaries.

* 1 Player Mode
You can see your score at the upper-right-hand side of the screen.
Let's aim at a high score by magnificent play.
The number of matches can be changed by the setting. Even if you lose, you can try again!
You can play more difficulty levels by clearing levels.

* 2 Players Mode
You can challenge a friend by playing over Bluetooth.
The number of matches can be changed by the setting of the HOST side.

To play against others, you will have to enable Bluetooth for your device.
From the "Settings" page of your device, tap "General", then "Bluetooth" to enable Bluetooth.
Bluetooth peer-to-peer connectivity is not available on the original iPhone or iPod touch (1st generation).

* Time Attack Mode
You can see how long you've been playing at the upper-right-hand side of the screen.
Try to bring down your opponents as quickly as possible.
The stages will change after every two matches. Even if you lose, you can try again!
You can play more difficulty levels by clearing levels.

* Survival Mode
You can see how many rivals you defeated is displayed at the upper-right-hand side of the screen.
Try to defeat rivals as a lot as possible.
The first scoring side will win the game, and the stages will change after every matches.
When you are defeated, game will be over immediately.
You can play more difficulty levels by defeating four or more rivals.

* Practice Mode
The first time you open the app, you will be taken to a tutorial mode to learn how the basic gameplay.
You can go back to the tutorial at any time by selecting "Practice" from "How to Play".

* High Scores
In "High Scores", you can see your gameplay results, as well as the results of top players around the world.
You must input a user name from the "Settings" view to appear in the world ranking.
See if you have what it takes to compete among the Huff Puff elite!

* Sound and mic settings
Since the game uses the iPhone's mic, silent mode is disabled.
You can now turn the sound off by selecting "off" in the settings menu.
If you have a mic attached to your headphones, be sure to use that mic if your headphones are plugged in to your device.
You can enable and disable mic play by tapping on the lower right hand side of the screen during game play.
If you are having difficulties using the mic due to external noise, please disable mic play.

* Request
If you have any requests for new characters (or anything else), please let us know by writing a App Store review or tweet on twitter using a hashtag ( #hpvolley )!



(c) 2009 CONIT Co., Ltd.
(c) 2009 J's Avenue, Inc.

Huff Puff Volley Pro



More...

Dumbo [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)


Click for more info

First tagged "blu-ray" by Don Vito Corleone "The Joker"
Customer tags: childrens movie, animal stories, dvd, disney, disney classics, animation, blu-ray, family

Backers hope to create largest ever record of UK wildlife by uniting experts with public as alien species spurs sightings call

For centuries, natural history societies staffed by knowledgeable amateurs have kept track of Britain's birds, bees, ants and butterflies. Now ordinary people are being invited to head outdoors and sweep hedges, comb hills and measure burrows for a more detailed recording of Britain's wildlife.

The aim of the "bioblitz" campaign, whose supporters include conservation scientists, the Open University and the Natural History Museum, is to create the largest record of Britain's unusually rich variety of natural life.

Its launch today coincides with a government appeal for the public to track some of the alien species that are threatening wildlife in the UK.

The wildlife minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, will ask the public to record sightings of six alien species. The list includes the Zebra mussel, a native of Russia that grows so densely it can block pipelines, and the Chinese mitten crab, which burrows into riverbanks, making them prone to collapse.

Any sightings of the species can be submitted online; they will then be checked by experts and once verified be added to a national database tracking 3,800 non-native species. It follows a trial in which people were asked to report sightings of another invasive animal, the harlequin ladybird, which so far has 35,000 entries.

Linda Davies, an ecologist at Imperial College London, said of the campaign: "Our first objective is to get people outside and enjoying nature, observing and recording the world around them.

"Behind the objective is an acceptance that the government alone cannot address all the problems we have and we all have a role to play. It was on that very simple idea we thought 'what can we do now that will allow as many people as possible to engage and do their bit'."

The bioblitz field studies are part of a wider movement that naturalists have dubbed "citizen science". This has a proud history in Britain, including perhaps the most famous amateur enthusiast of all – Charles Darwin the narrator of evolution.

Bioblitzing groups select a specified site, usually a public place; a period of time, ideally a day but anything from a few hours to a few months; and unite members of the public with amateur or professional experts to help with identifications. Conservationist Savita Custead has taken an idea which emerged in the US in the 1990s and organised Britain's first national programme under the banner Bioblitz 2010.

The campaign is being launched at a time when British wildlife is under severe threat. Natural England, the national countryside agency, recently reported that more than two species a year were being driven to extinction in England, mostly by human activities such as farming and development

"At the end of this programme we'll have a greater understanding of the state of the environment which the community has contributed to," said Custead.

Other organisations behind the campaign include the National Biodiversity Network, which is developing a public recording section to launch this year, and the Open University, which helped the open-air laboratory programme Opal set up the ispot social networking website where people can upload photos and ask experts to identify species. The Natural History Museum in London will open the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity in April to bring together professionals and amateurs.

"It's a myth that nobody's interested in British natural history any more," said Stuart Hine, the centre's manager. "The old way was to be in a natural history society but now there are different ways of being interested: you might be interested in conservation, or wildlife trusts, bird groups or recording schemes. When you put them all together there have never been as many people signed up or subscribed to UK natural history groups."

PANEL

How to bioblitz

1 Choose an appropriate venue

Iideally you need somewhere you can set up a base camp, say a marquee or a building. You'll also need to think about facilities such as toilets, car parking and food. The site should safe and accessible and ideally have a good range of wildlife and habitats

2 Decide on a time limit

Many bioblitzes take place over a 24-hour period so that the nocturnal species can be recorded as well as those seen during the daytime. However, a bioblitz can be any length. Logistics (such as park's opening hours) may determine the time limit for you

3 Create a partnership

The most successful bioblitzes involve lots of organisations from the local community. Get in touch with people from your local council, Wildlife Trust and biological records centre to see if they would like to be involved

4 Find local naturalists, amateur experts and nature enthusiasts

They will be pivotal in making your day a success. They can help with identifying the species you find and help draw up the overall list

5 Invite the public

Make sure people know about your event by advertising widely letting local newspapers know in advance and creating banners, posters and leaflets to promote the day

6 Choose some activities

Participants will need a list of structured activities that will help them record the nature they find. You might want to consider guided walks, nature trails and national surveys such as those run by Opal (see below)

7 Submit your results

Once the bioblitz has finished make sure you tell interested parties what you have found. These could include your local records centre, local nature groups and the National Biodiversity Network.

For a list of upcoming events visit environmentguardian.co.uk and for more information visit bioblitz.org.uk; www.opalexplorenature.org; www.biodiversityislife.net; www.nbn.org.uk

Source: OPAL

• Wildlife
• Conservation

Juliette Jowitguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Audrey

Audrey Lambert teaches English to advanced students of the Lycée Ozenne, a public high school in the capital town of south-west France,  Toulouse. A faithful volunteer translator at Global Voices in French since 2008, she is also a pioneer of using Global Voices in the classroom, where it has now been part of her students' advanced English curriculum for two years.

Traditional question: how did you discover Global Voices?

I stumbled upon Global Voices in French by chance and was happy to see everyone could contribute. I find translating a very stimulating exercise. Very tricky sometimes, but it brings enormous satisfactions when you finally crack it. Plus, I've been made to feel welcome by a very warm community (Note: how could we edit this? Audrey likes us!). In 2008, I've taken it a step further and asked my students to translate blog posts into French, as part of their translation exercises.

Why do they have to study translation?

My students have completed high-school, they are training for very competitive and difficult exams to get into “Les grandes écoles“, the French “elite” schools.  A high level of English and news literacy is required of them, they will be evaluated on both. For instance, we listen to radio news in English during my classes. At their level, they have no real problems with the source vocabulary. What is difficult to achieve with Global Voices, compared to other translations of mainstream media articles they have to do, is to recreate in French the looser style of writing on blogs, the bloggers' tone, personality, jokes, slang.

Which routine did you set up? Do they enjoy it?

It certainly makes a change from their regular English curriculum, which is very scholastic and focused on exams. I have tested a number of methods: one post per student, or one post translated by many students. This year, they work in pairs. They chose themselves what they want to translate, deadlines are after school holidays or long weekends. Translations have to be handed in by email. We've set up a special user account on Global Voices in French to publish their translations (see last year's and this year's). In a way, they have produced something unique, so they are credited. To see their work and their name on the Web is a real incentive, some are very impatient to see it live on the Web.

Would you recommend this experiment to other teachers?

To be honest, be prepared for a lot of work! I'm sometimes overwhelmed when, on top of everything else, I get fifteen translations by email to read, comment and edit. But it truly is a very rewarding experiment, I do recommend it to other teachers. It builds a more personal relationship with students, I get to know them a little better from the posts they pick. I do not grade their translations, which makes for a more relaxed teacher-student relationship.

Students are credited at the top of the posts for their translations

How are citizen news media perceived in a French scholastic environment?

Teachers of advanced classes are pretty free to chose the material we work on. I informed the inspectorate at the beginning of this experiment and it was well received. As for myself, translating for Global Voices taught me a great deal on a linguistic as well as a cultural level. I've had access to news never (or seldom) covered by traditional media. I see citizen media as a considerable advancement in democracy. Blogs bring a new perspective, a personal view on a wide variety of subjects.

Was your true calling languages or teaching?

I always wanted to teach. As a kid, I taught my dolls and teddy bears. I fell in love with English when my mum - who lived for 8 years in South Africa - taught me English songs for children. Later, I had to chose between English and Spanish, which I also love. I majored in English literature, with a graduation paper on the myth of the Amazon in Elizabethan literature! I love reading contemporary literature in English and would love, one day, to translate into French one of my favorite novels. But time is tight, and for the moment, I dedicate myself to my other passion: advocacy for animals. My dream is to have the opportunity to live close to primates…

"Les Jacobins" cloister in Toulouse, the French town where Audrey lives and works (Photo by nz_willowherb on flickr used under a Creative Commons licence)

Charlie Parker lived hard, played hard, died young. Now an uncanny sculpture of him in his last months has resurfaced. Richard Williams on a story of jazz, art and devotion

The last time Julie Macdonald saw Charlie Parker, he was catching a flight home from Los Angeles to New York for the funeral of his three-year-old daughter, Pree, who had died in hospital in the early hours of 6 March, 1954 after a long illness. Two nights earlier, Parker had been fired, for the second time in a week, by the owner of the Tiffany Club in Hollywood after behaving erratically and arguing with the management. He was staying at the Pasadena home of Macdonald, a sculptor, when he received the news of Pree's death.

His immediate reaction, in Macdonald's recollection, was to drink heavily and send a series of increasingly desperate telegrams to his wife, Chan. The fourth and last read: MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD. I KNOW IT. I WILL BE THERE AS QUICK AS I CAN. IT IS VERY NICE TO BE OUT HERE. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN VERY NICE TO ME OUT HERE. I AM COMING IN RIGHT AWAY TAKE IT EASY. LET ME BE THE FIRST ONE TO APPROACH YOU. I AM YOUR HUSBAND. SINCERELY, CHARLIE PARKER. Then he poured a bottle of scotch down the toilet, gave away his remaining supply of heroin, and Macdonald drove him to the airport.

Some time later, Macdonald began work on a sculpture of Parker's head, for which she had been making preparatory sketches during his visits. Then 28 (five years younger than Parker), she was the daughter of an impressionist painter and had studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in LA. She had met Parker during one of his earlier visits to California, probably in 1952. It seems likely that they were a part of a gathering of artists, intellectuals and scenemakers who met at the Altadena ranch of the Turkish-born painter and sculptor Jirayr Zorthian in July that year, a short drive from Macdonald's home. Zorthian's guests had indulged in a collective striptease while Parker played; a surviving home recording of the event reveals the sound of the saxophonist – apparently fully clothed, despite voluble entreaties – playing Embraceable You, the Gershwin ballad emerging above the noises of ribaldry. At any rate, Parker and Macdonald became close friends and enjoyed long conversations as she took him to art shows around Los Angeles.

After leaving to bury his child that Sunday morning in 1954, Parker would never return to California. He had only 12 months left to live, a year in which he and Chan attempted without success to create a quieter life for their family outside the city; in which his drinking worsened; in which he almost succeeded in killing himself by swallowing iodine; in which he committed himself to the psychiatric ward at New York's Bellevue hospital; and in which he made his last recordings and played his final gigs, before dying of an accumulation of symptoms while watching television in the Fifth Avenue apartment of the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter. Within days his followers were scrawling "Bird Lives!" on Manhattan walls.

Stravinsky and a heroin habit

When William Dickson, a retired architect living in Edinburgh, got in touch last month to tell me that he was the owner of a stone head of Charlie Parker, I knew exactly what he was talking about. It had to be Macdonald's carving, which appeared on the cover of Down Beat magazine in 1965, an issue that commemorated the 10th anniversary of the saxophonist's death. That black-and-white photograph had showed the head to be a work of great distinction, capturing the contradictory elements of Parker's character. Macdonald carved a face which could be that of a child or an old man, simultaneously illuminated by innocence and exuding wisdom. Once seen, even in a reproduction, it was not easily forgotten. And here it was, 5,000 miles and 55 years from its point of origin, with a back-story that demanded to be told.

A few years after Parker's death, in a brief memoir of their relationship, Macdonald wrote warmly of his "ability to perceive" and of an intellect which, although untrained, was "prodigious". "He listened to Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Bartók; looked at art from Egyptian sculpture to Picasso with the same intensity; and he remembered! Bird's memory was uncanny. With that combination of perception and memory he translated experience through his horn. He caught the pulse of our times, the pressure, confusion and complexity, and more: sadness, sweetness and love."

That complexity is distilled in her rendering of Parker's head. Carved out of pale, lightly striated sandstone from a nearby Pasadena quarry, it is a little less than twice life-size, weighs 275lb, and is pinned to a cube of polished black granite. Its individual features – the sightless eyes, the shapely nose, the slightly pursed mouth, the neat ears – are finely executed. The back of the head, covered with carefully worked hair, is distended like that of a newborn baby. It bears a striking resemblance both to an Egyptian head of the 15th dynasty, which Macdonald had showed Parker, and to the carvings made by the Yoruba people of West Africa between the 14th and 16th century, currently on show at the British Museum.

Parker was capable of extremes of behaviour and appearance. Emerging from a midwestern background of no particular distinction, he became the second of jazz's great instrumental soloists (after Louis Armstrong) to change the way music was played, engendering a cult which endures more than half a century after his death, continually refuelled by what the American critic Gary Giddins called "the relentless energy, the uncorrupted humanity of his music".

A man of vast and undiscriminating physical appetites, Parker could quote from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and planned to study composition with Edgard Varèse. Unreliable in every aspect of his life except the quality of his playing, he attempted to dissuade younger musicians from copying his heroin habit, but succeeded only in fostering a generation of imitators who thought that living the way he did would help them play like him, too – before discovering that no one could do that. The physician who signed his death certificate estimated his age to be between 50 and 60 (he was 34).

From LA to Edinburgh

Macdonald made at least one other sculpture of Parker, a full-length figure carved from lignum vitae, a dark hardwood. On 1 March, 1955, two weeks before his death, she wrote to jazz critic and historian Marshall Stearns mentioning a possible sale of the wood figure and offering to have it transported for viewing to the New York studio of the blind pianist and teacher Lennie Tristano. "I trust the price mentioned did not discourage you," she wrote, adding a poignant postscript: "I would naturally be happy beyond words for Bird to see the carving if at all possible." According to Peter Ind, the British bass player who lived in New York in the 1950s, studying and playing with Tristano, the piece remained in the East 32nd Street studio for some time, given "pride of place".

The stone head remained in Macdonald's keeping until 1961, by which time the wood figure had passed into the possession of Robert Reisner, a New Yorker who had promoted Parker during the last phase of the saxophonist's life. Reisner was compiling stories for a book titled Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, and Macdonald was among his contributors. When she indicated an interest in selling the stone head, Reisner put her in touch with another jazz fan, a wealthy Californian named George E Geisler. "It turned out," Geisler later remembered, "that she had a chance to get a good deal on a Ferrari, and could use the money." The piece remained in Geisler's ownership for four decades.

Macdonald went on to create around 400 other works, including many pieces based on animal figures. Her stone rendering of The Three Graces was installed outside the Downtown YMCA in LA, and she exhibited at the Pasadena Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum, and the LA County Museum of Art. She married twice and had two children; but by the end of the 1970s she was heavily addicted to cocaine and died of cancer in 1982, aged 55.

When Geisler began to disperse his possessions in 2000, Macdonald's stone head was sold to one of the world's leading experts on Parker memorabilia. From there it passed into the hands of Dickson, who had returned to his native Edinburgh after retiring from his London practice several years earlier. Now 67, Dickson works as a photographer, surrounded by his own sizeable collection of material – records, concert posters, books, night-club handbills – from jazz's post-war era, with Macdonald's majestically resonant work as its centrepiece.

Never shown to the public, the head has been seen only three times in photographic reproductions since it took shape: first in 1962 as an illustration in Reisner's book, then on the cover of Down Beat, and finally in Esquire's World of Jazz book in 1975. Dickson believes it deserves to be seen by a wider public but is uncertain of its appeal and value to institutions – or, indeed, what sort of institution would guarantee it an appropriate setting.

Meanwhile, it sits in the unlikely surroundings of an Edinburgh studio, radiating its subject's unique charisma, a direct physical link with one of modern music's most remarkable figures.

• Jazz
• Sculpture

Richard Williamsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

There's no reason why I should like this book, and I don't ... I LOVE it!!!!!

The kind folk at Archaia recently sent me the very handsome second volume of Gunnerkrigg Court, subtitled "Research," which is written and drawn by Tom Siddell. It's a chunk of change at $26.95, but it's also a good, sturdy hardcover a shade over 250 pages, so it's good value. Plus, it's frickin' excellent. If you want to read it on your computer, click the link above and head on over to read the webcomic.

As I wrote, there's no reason why I should like this comic. It's all about icky girls, young teen ones at that, and who wants to read about them? Plus, it's all fantasy crap, and who wants to read that? And, as has been pointed out recently, I'm a heartless, soulless bastard who thinks anything of wonder in the world needs to be ground under the boot of conformity. So why do I love this?

Beats me. Because it's awesome, maybe? Sidell follows two main characters, Antimony Carver and Katerina Donlan, as they attend boarding school in Gunnerkrigg Court, which is an odd place, but I'll get back to that. Siddell's world is full of magic and science, with keen robots existing alongside ghosts and fairies and talking animals. Annie is much more magically inclined, while Kat is the scientific one. The world is also divided between the Court and the Gillitie Wood, which forms the political backdrop of the comic - the two sides have an uneasy truce, and Annie, somehow, is able to bridge the gap in understanding between them. As the comic progresses, I imagine this will become more important, as in this volume, Annie takes the first steps toward being an ambassador from the Court to the Wood. There's a lot going on in this book, though, so that's just one part of Annie's life.

Siddell reveals things slowly and occasionally obliquely, which is kind of neat. You don't need to have read the first volume to glean what's going on, because Siddell refers to earlier events quite often and fits them neatly into the narrative. Annie and Kat have many adventures that slowly peel back the secrets surrounding the Court and their history, including those of their parents (Annie's are, apparently, dead, but they were friends with Kat's mother, and we see some of their relationship in flashback [after reading some of the earlier chapters, it appears Annie's mother is dead and her father is missing]). Annie has special powers that allow her to escort the dead to their final rest (and see ghosts, which doesn't seem too special in this world), while Kat tinkers with machines and, for instance, disables the security system so she and Annie can sneak out one night. They make a good team, and Siddell does a nice job showing how they play off each other.

While the vignettes themselves are well done (each "chapter" tells a fairly complete story, while still building the world nicely), where the book shines is in Siddell's characterization. Annie and Kat have a wonderful friendship, but they're just two of the many characters in the comic. Annie is more reserved and more thoughtful, while Kat is more vivacious and rebellious. That's not to say that Annie isn't rebellious or Kat isn't clever, because they are, but Annie's rebelliousness comes through in more subtle ways while Kat is less a fine student than a girl who finds a different outlet for her intelligence. Siddell, however, populates the book with neat characters and shows how the two girls interact with them. Kat's mother has secrets, some of which we learn in this volume, and she tries to guide the girls without exposing them too much to the danger in the world. Annie is calm when confronted with strange things, as Siddell shows she is much more comfortable dealing with them than most people. The girls act like young teens, too - Annie gets angry at her ghost friend Mort, but needs no one to realize that she should apologize; a strange girl with black eyes and sharp teeth, Zimmy, feels like an outsider but Annie tries to make her more welcome; Kat flirts with a boy over their love of technology. Siddell does a nice job of making the girls terribly precocious, almost to the point of unbelievability, but then gives us a scene that shows that they are, after all, thirteen years old. There's also quite a lot of humor in the book, both from the situations the girls find themselves in and from the banter among the characters. Siddell strikes a nice balance. He also strikes a nice balance between the innocence of school and the sense of vague menace running throughout the book. This isn't like the Harry Potter books, in which there is a tangible and very dangerous threat, but there is something strange going on, and the adults don't talk about it and the kids don't know about it. Only Annie feels that something bigger is going on, which might be why she's chosen as the emissary. Siddell does a nice job keeping this "all-ages" while still hinting at more "adult" themes in the book.

Siddell's charming art is somewhat manga-influenced, which may or may not be your thing. I think it's wonderful, but I may be wrong. He draws the students well, keeping them kids but also showing how they're starting to be interested in at least hanging out with members of the opposite sex. The creepiest chapter in the book, "Power Station," has Annie and Kat going to a gathering on top of a building, where some boys have congregated to check out the station of the title. Before strange things start happening, we get some nice interaction between the girls and boys, both in the dialogue and the art, which shows the awkwardness between them. When Annie visits Coyote in the forest, Siddell does a great job keeping Annie grounded in the wood while Coyote's world twists and bends around them, pulsing with color and magic. There's a wonderful sword fight in Chapter 17, "The Medium Beginning," between the fencing teacher, James Eglamore (who has some connection to Annie's and Kat's parents) and Jones, a mysterious woman at the school. Siddell uses skewed perspectives and changes the laws of physics to show the speed of the fight and the abilities of Jones, who wins easily (as Eglamore predicted she would). It's part of what makes the book look so great - Siddell cares more about being impressionistic than being realistic, so we get the sense of the fight more than what it "really" would look like. In a book where magic is real (although they don't call it "magic" because they're too scientific), it's not surprising that Siddell would go this route, and it works very well.

There's a lot more to the book (I haven't mentioned Reynardine, a demon who inhabits a stuffed animal), but that's because the comic is packed. Siddell piles on interesting tidbits on each page (possibly because he publishes only one page at a time on the web site), which makes it a very fulfilling read. He brings up stuff from volume 1 that makes me want to read that, and he sows the seeds for future stories in this volume. Gunnerkrigg Court is a marvelous comic, and although I understand if you don't want to spend money on it, it's very much worth it. If you don't, I recommend heading over to the web site and planning to spend some time, because once you start reading, it's very hard to stop.

Tomorrow: Yeah, nothing. I just got that bunch last week, but I've only read one of them, so I need some time chew them over. I'll be back, though! You can't keep a reviewer down!

· Internet trade 'one of the biggest challenges facing Cites'
· Coral regulation defeated but Kaiser's spotted newt ban voted

The internet has emerged as one of the greatest threats to rare species, fuelling the illegal wildlife trade and making it easier to buy everything from live lion cubs to wine made from tiger bones, conservationists said today.

The internet's impact was made clear at the meeting of the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

Delegates voted overwhelmingly today to ban the trade of the Kaiser's spotted newt, which the World Wildlife Fund says has been devastated by internet trade.

A proposal from the US and Sweden to regulate the trade in red coral – which is crafted into expensive jewellery and sold extensively on the web – was defeated. Delegates voted the idea down mostly over concerns that increased regulations might damage poor fishing communities.

Trade on the internet poses one of the biggest challenges facing Cites, said Paul Todd, a campaign manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

"The internet is becoming the dominant factor overall in the global trade in protected species," he said. "There will come a time when country to country trade of large shipments between big buyers and big sellers in different countries is a thing of the past."

The Ifaw has carried out several surveys of illegal trade on the internet and found that thousands of species are sold on auction sites, classified ads and chatrooms, mostly in the US but also Europe, China, Russia and Australia.

Most of the illegal trade is in African ivory but the group has also found exotic birds along with rare products such as tiger-bone wine and pelts from protected species like polar bears and leopards.

A separate 2009 survey by the group Campaign Against Cruelty to Animals targeted the internet trade in Ecuador, finding offers to sell live capuchin monkeys, lion cubs and ocelots.

"As the internet knows no borders, it causes several new problems regarding the enforcement of the protection of endangered species," the group said in its report.

The newt is a textbook example of what can happen to one species through trade on the web. According to a study by the WWF, the black and brown salamander with white spots is coveted in the pet trade. Now numbering only around 1,000, about 200 annually have been traded over several years, mostly through a website that was operated in the Ukraine.

"The internet itself isn't the threat, but it's another way to market the product," said Ernie Cooper, who spearhead the investigation into the newt for TRAFFIC Canada. "The Kaiser's spotted newt, for example, is expensive and most people are not willing to pay $300 for a salamander. But through the power of the internet, tapping into the global market, you can find buyers." The red and pink coral, of which there are 32 species, is harvested in Mediterranean waters and turned into expensive jewellery in Italy, Taiwan and China, according to the marine conservation group SeaWeb. It is the most widely traded and valuable of all precious corals but has no international protection, resulting in a brisk international trade in the species, the group claims.

Opposition to the proposal was led by Japan, which also rallied its supporters last week to defeat an attempt to ban the international export of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a key ingredient in sushi.

They were joined by several coastal states including Indonesia, Malaysia and Iceland, all of whom argued the corals are crucial to the survival of local communities and are not over-harvested.

Meanwhile, delegates approved a voluntary conservation plan for endangered tigers that calls for tougher legislation in countries home to the big cats to tackle widespread smuggling and boost money spent on law enforcement.

The British plan also calls for countries to better control tiger farms – China has the most – and to phase out traditional medicine markets which fuel demand for tiger parts.

The proposal includes no funding for the 13 tiger-range countries, only a request for donor assistance.

Tiger numbers have plummeted because of human encroachment, the loss of nine-tenths of their habitat and poaching to supply the illegal trade. Their numbers have fallen from 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century to around 3,600 today.

• Endangered species
• Coral
• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Internet

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Top sushi restaurant The Hump closes in 'self-imposed punishment' following undercover filming

Caught in a sting by Oscar-winning film-makers, a top California fish restaurant has shut its doors after being exposed selling illegal whale meat at $85 (£57) a plate.

The Hump, a sushi restaurant near Santa Monica airport, was the subject of a secret camera operation by producers of The Cove, a movie chronicling environmentalists' battles with Japanese dolphin hunters, which won best documentary at this year's Academy awards.

The restaurant was selling a meal billed as omakase, a Japanese term for chef's choice. Posing as diners last month, while in town for the Oscars, the film-makers discreetly recorded a waitress describing slices of exotic pink flesh on their plates as kujira, meaning whale.

Facing a fine of up to $20,000 and a possible year's imprisonment, the owners of the restaurant shut up shop yesterday, describing closure as "a self-imposed punishment on top of the fine that will be meted out in court".

The Hump pledged a "substantial contribution" to charities aimed at preserving the endangered whale population, adding: "The Hump apologises to our loyal customers, the community of Santa Monica and the public at large for our actions."

Charles Hambleton, associate director of The Cove, was tipped off about the restaurant's allegedly illegal activity and sent two animal activists, wearing secret cameras, for a lengthy dining session.

The activists, one of whom is a vegan, sampled blowfish and other seafood to gain the confidence of staff before whale was served. The pair secreted a sample into a Ziploc bag and sent it to a laboratory, where it was identified as sei whale meat, which is commonly consumed in Japan and Norway but prohibited from export owing to the animal's endangered status.

• Whaling
• Food
• Food & drink
• United States

Andrew Clarkguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

sundarban forest trip on 30th March to 2nd april 2010 HomeThis is a featured page Rocket Steamer trip in Bangladesh Day-01 : leave Dhaka in the night at around 10: 20 pm by volvo bus about to khulna for a overnight stay. Day-2: early in the Morning board to the boat for sundarban trip. On way stop at Daingmari forest station to permits finally. The boat its resume start cruises upstream to Sundarban forest about to Kotka forest station. On arrival, at kotka in the afternoon. After that sitting on the watch tower to have a look the wildlife, going into the beach for swimming or sports different activities will be offered.Anchored at Katka forest station for over night stay. Day-3: On this day, we will offer different activities at around Katka & Kochikhali, like walking into the forest, sitting on the watch tower to have a look the wildlife, going into the beach for swimming or sports. Birds watching & finding wild animals in the narrow creeks/canal in the evening by a country boat. Over night on Kachikhali . Day-04: More activities on Sundarban forest with the help of Country boat to have the Wild Animals and rare scenic beauty of tidal creeks. Cruise back to Mongla. Drive to jessore air-port to take the evening flight back to Dhaka by reserved car. Price per person: BDT. 16,500 Price Includes: 1. Dhaka-Mongla-Dhaka by a/c bus 4. all meal on sundarban trip ( 3 days ); snacks, water & tea/ coffee; 5. Permission; 6. Boat rent for 3 days; a/c reserved micro bus (Mongla-Jessore); 7. tour guide for 3 days & coast guard ; 8. Air fare ( jessore-Dhaka). fo Bangladesh Expeditions Dhaka sonargaon hotel, level-112 Hotline: +88 -01715093412 info@expeditions-bd.com

Neurocomputing, Vol. 69, No. 16-18. (October 2006), pp. 1954-1961.

An important character of on-line learning is its potential to adapt to changing environments by properly adjusting meta-parameters that control the balance between plasticity and stability of the learning model. In our previous study, we proposed a learning scheme to address changing environments in the framework of an on-line variational Bayes (VB), which is an effective on-line learning scheme based on Bayesian inference. The motivation of that work was, however, its implications for animal learning, and the formulation of the learning model was heuristic and not theoretically justified. In this article, we propose a new approach that balances the plasticity and stability of on-line VB learning in a more theoretically justifiable manner by employing the principle of hierarchical Bayesian inference. We present a new interpretation of on-line VB as a special case of incremental Bayes that allows the hierarchical Bayesian setting to balance the plasticity and stability as well as yielding a simple learning rule compared to standard on-line VB. This dynamic on-line VB scheme is applied to probabilistic PCA as an example of probabilistic models involving latent variables. In computer simulations using artificial data sets, the new on-line VB learning shows robust performance to regulate the balance between plasticity and stability, thus adapting to changing environments.
J Hirayama, J Yoshimoto, S Ish

Ah, the Full Moon/Troma days. I miss 'em, which is why I feel a little love for Michael Muscal's stoner comedy/horror feature Little *ucker, which features a funny little man-in-a-rubber-suit monster. Scripted by debuting writer, Jonathon Miller, based on Justin Paul Ritter's original concept, Little *ucker stars Mark Ellis and Maxx Maulion as Lloyd and Chuck, best of friends and hopeless stoners. They share an apartment and work together at an exterminating company. While conducting their daily duties, these best buds discover a small ominous creature in a warehouse. After overcoming their initial fear, they embrace the lovable misfit and decide to bring him home. Chuck and Lloyd quickly learn that their little buddy is a true party animal who shares their deep love for weed. What they dont know is that the creatures need for weed keeps his savage instincts at bay! Visit the official website and check out the trailer below.

Screen 21 is widening its new-technologies' area with the aim of becoming a vanguard production company. The Catalonian company, which oversees all BRB Internacional productions, has decided to take an important step forward in R D by incorporating the latest 3D innovations: It will apply the most advanced stereoscopic technology (rendering images that produce a real feeling of volume) and Hi-Def, and it will incorporate a 16:9 panoramic format for different applications (television, Blu Ray, VOD, IPTV -Internet Protocol Television- and mobile devices connected to the internet). In fact, three of these latest series will be the first European productions to premier at the end of this year in steroscopic 3D: Zookaboo, Canimals and Kambu.

Thus, Screen 21 is extending the use of stereoscopic 3D technology, first applied in Zookaboo (104 x 2'), the series that narrates in an agile, entertaining way 104 guessing vignettes about different animals -- all hidden in a box! Now, both Kambu (52 x 7'), starring a curious little postman dog who has to face the daily adventures arising on a lost island, and Canimals (52 x 7'), which refers to some truly lovable and fun but naughty little leprechaun-like critters who live in cans and who rediscover the world from a very different perspective than ours, will be done in 3D stereoscopic, too. All three series will be able to be viewed in both 2D and 3D, either with stereoscopic glasses or without them according to the broadcast needs.

As a complement to the TV series, videogames will be developed that will be available exclusively through internet on the Webpage corresponding to each series. Interactive videos will also be developed too for mobile devices – principally Iphone, Ipad and Android – by using augmented reality techniques that will allow users to interact. As Carlos Biern, Executive Director of Screen 21 said: "Viewers will be able to see their favorite characters and to interact with them IN the series, by way of the television, the computer and their mobile phones, all in three dimensions."

The Screen 21 productions, which BRB distributes on a global level, will be afforded an even greater forum through cartoon blogs and social networks.

This year's Emerald City Con was... an extraordinary experience.

Truthfully, I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around some of it. Doing our Artist's Alley table as a fundraiser for the Cartooning Class was very much a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment decision, we weren't organized about it at all... and I was very moved, and a little awed, at how well the kids came through. Not just the current students but many of our grads, as well.

The experience could be summed up in this exchange between our friend Lorinda and myself. At one point, I shook my head and muttered, "This is so amazing... I mean, teaching, it's like putting a note in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean, you never really know how it's going to work out."

Rin replied, "Well, you sure had a lot of bottles come back this weekend."

We took a lot of pictures and I think I'll just run those for you and talk a little bit about each one.

*

This is what it looked like before we opened.

And another.

This is the last time we would experience quiet until Sunday evening. LATE Sunday evening. My ears are still ringing a little.

Outside, the crowd was milling around panting to get in.

Clearly, convention security was going to be overtaxed so the stormtroopers thought they'd assist with crowd control.

And then we were off....

This may give you a little bit of an idea of the swarms that descended once the doors were open. Saturday, in particular, was Hell Day.

Fortunately, we had a great crew. I honestly don't know how Julie and I ever used to do this by ourselves. It takes a teenage metabolism to keep up with the Saturday hordes at a convention.

In the rear we have Rachel, Aja, and that's Katrina under the mop, with our friend Rin in the front. Rachel decided to be Rogue again this year, as you can see. Katrina wanted to dress up too but couldn't decide on an outfit (she'd brought a couple.) This is the one she started with, a character of her own named Connor, but Connor only lasted till noon or so.

Once again this year, we won the lottery by having awesome neighbors. One one side we had Jeffrey Ellis and the crew from Cloudscape Comics, a small-press artists-collective outfit based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I bought their anthology book EXPLODED VIEW partly to say thanks for putting up with us but it turns out that I really like it.

It looks a lot like a grown-up version of what we do in class, actually -- every member of the group contributes a few pages' worth of work and then there's bios in the back. Same basic format, just with real production values. A lot of good stuff in here.

On the other side we had Two Percent Solution.

They do a raunchy humor self-published book and a podcast as well.

I'm so embarrassed I can't remember their names -- I know I introduced myself at some point, but I couldn't really hear them very well. The echo chamber in the hall, once the crowds were in, made it nearly impossible to converse on Saturday. But they were great, swore up and down they loved being next to us and claimed we brought them a lot of extra traffic. They were especially hilarious about pretending to almost-swear in front of the kids but they never actually did.

Since we were doing a for-real fundraiser, and thus actually accepting money, our setup changed a little this year.

The idea was that we had students on the left, alumni on the right. As people would approach, the kids would offer them a giveaway book, and if they stopped, then they'd volunteer to sign it.

Ben, Marie, and Eileen, working hard.

Then Katie or myself would explain about the budget shortfall and collecting for donations, and add that anything over $10 got you a custom sketch from an alum. More often than not, they'd at least stop and admire the sample sketches we had up, and put a couple of bucks in the box.

Here's a customer getting The Spiel. Marie, especially, was really good at explaining to people what we were doing.

Many did in fact commission sketches.

Once we were set up it went fairly smoothly despite being a bit cramped, up against the wall as we were.

That's me and my boss, Katie. For the last seven years I've exhorted my various supervisors at school to come to the convention and really see how hard the kids work, but this was the first time anyone took me up on it. It really was a lot of fun having Katie there as she knew nothing about comics, conventions, or geek culture in general. But she adapted quickly. Watching her take in the experience was a lot of fun, and by the end of her day there she was a complete convert. At one point Katie was even speculating on the possibility of doing this kind of thing more often and wondering what other shows there were that we could attend as a class. The Stumptown Festival in Portland, especially, was a possibility we talked about quite a bit. (Katie was also interested in hearing about WonderCon and APE, but I told her, "Baby steps. I'm only just now getting to a place where I think I know how to get us to THIS show.")

The alumni were kept very busy sketching all day both days.

Fortunately they love to draw but my GOD they worked hard. I wish I'd gotten more shots of their work, it was of an extraordinarily high level, especially the high school kids. I was so proud of all of them and the way they've all kept learning and growing as artists, years after leaving my charge.

I did get a few. Here's one of Aja's.

And this is one of Katrina's custom commissions. She asked the lady what she wanted and the woman said, "Well, I like octopuses." (Yes, I know it's octopi but that's what she said.)

For a second I thought Katrina was going to be stuck but then she blew out this caricature of the woman herself with an octopus on her head. Yeah, the kids are THAT good.

Some people were kind of crass about it. This mother, especially, was really annoying. First she wanted to know what she'd be getting for her ten dollars.

It takes a special kind of chutzpah to haggle with a sixteen-year-old volunteer over your CHARITABLE ACT.

Katrina rather helplessly pointed to the samples, but it developed that this woman wanted to see the actual sketch before she would pay for it.

And this woman wanted something special, too-- a caricature of her two boys... an action pose of the two of them in their martial arts class. Geez lady, demanding much?

Here's Katrina working on the commission -- I cropped her out, but cheapskate Mom is hovering just out of frame, watching like a hawk to make sure she gets her money's worth.

Katrina was amazingly diplomatic about it. I thought Rin was going to go ballistic on the woman and I had to squelch a few sharp remarks myself. She deserved some kind of smack.

The two boys with the final product. I think they were a little embarrassed over how their mother treated Katrina.

Fortunately, the finished product satisfied everyone and we got the ten bucks.

But most of our visitors were much nicer. You remember Rachel's shot of the X-Men at the beach?

Guess who got that one.

Yeah, that's Matt Fraction, proud new owner of Rachel's X-Men Beach Party. This may be my favorite photo from the show. Only in comics do moments like this happen: my former student Rachel, the world's most ardent fan of the X-Men, posing with Matt Fraction, current writer of the X-Men comic, who's just told her that her cartoon is brilliant, that he would love to do a scene of the team at the beach and that she's caught all their personalities perfectly.

Matt was great with all the kids. He signed autographs, talked with them about comics, and generally was awesome. Here he is signing an autograph for Emma.

It was only a couple of minutes out of his day but I know how hard it can be to get away from your table when you're working a show, and it really meant a lot to the students to have a pro take such an interest. Even my students, whose comics fandom usually begins and ends with manga, know who Iron Man and the X-Men are. They were thrilled that he stopped by.

Michael Alan Nelson also visited our table briefly.

The kids loved him too, though they had only the vaguest idea of who he was -- I explained he worked for Boom! Comics and I think many of them had the idea he worked on the Muppets or something, since that was always where the line was over there. I enjoyed getting to meet him at last -- I interviewed him here a while back, but it was via e-mail and we'd never met in person. I am a big fan of his Fall Of Cthulhu series, and I got Swordsmith Assassin at the show as well, since Chip Mosher sent us the first issue for review and I liked it quite a lot, I'd been meaning to pick it up for a while now... though I forgot to ask Mr. Nelson to sign it. Too busy chitchatting.

I was mostly at our table all weekend, but Julie got out some. There was no way she was missing Leonard Nimoy.

She was actually in panels for most of Saturday, she also went to see Wil Wheaton and Stan Lee. Of them all, I think Julie was the most impressed with Nimoy's, she said he was "inspiring."

As for me, well, I was enjoying my time at the table because it was turning into old home week. We had many visitors from past classes -- Amethyst, Jessica, Shane, Andrew, and Jay, among others. Some I hardly recognized because they're, you know, adults now. (The last time I saw Jay he was a scrawny little soft-spoken kid. Today he's in his twenties, six feet tall and ponytailed, very outgoing with an infectious laugh. And of course his voice is an octave lower.)

Some even volunteered to put in some time sketching for us, which melted me. Lindon popped up out of nowhere and immediately wanted to put in some table time. Of course I agreed.

A lot of the kids dressed up this year, too. Saturday Lindon was in street clothes, but Sunday she was Pikachu.

I took this one just because it made me laugh.

That's right, Pikachu supports Cartooning in schools!

This is Lindon and Devon. I shot this because when Lindon has her head down -- even today, she always draws with her nose to the paper like that, it can't be comfortable but she always has to get way down there -- anyway, it tickles me because it looks like Pikachu is sitting at the table.

Lots of parents volunteered time too.

That's Marie, Ben, and Eileen, under the watchful eye of Gus' mother Marilyn. She looks a little annoyed, not because of the three kids but because her own son has abandoned his post again.

I get three kinds of students -- the ones who want to write, the ones who want to draw, and the ones who just want to geek out and be surrounded by comics. Gus is one of the geeks. He will produce drawings if you lean on him, but for him the point of being at a con is to get cool stuff. All I ask of the kids is to put in a ninety-minute shift at our table on the day they attend, but Gus could hardly bring himself to even do that much, he'd brought money and it was burning a hole in his pocket. First it was Leonard Nimoy's autograph -- even if you brought your own item for him to sign it was still a wince-worthy forty dollars -- and then he negotiated an advance on his allowance to go buy some comics.

Marilyn has always been one of my favorite parents and her reaction to this was completely charming. She ordered Gus to stay at the table and do his job. Then she went off to go get her son's comics herself. Naturally, not being an expert, she consulted me.

"Randy's Readers," I told her. "He's your guy. He sells comics that aren't collectible, just in average shape... his market is people that don't really Collect with a capital C, but only want to read comics. If I ever get a chance to take a break I was thinking of stopping over there myself, to be honest."

Marilyn agreed that was the place to go and the girls were exhorting me to take some kind of a break, and Marie wanted to come too, so off we went.

Marilyn explained that Gus wanted war comics. "So violent," she said, ruefully.

Gus did the tank for the group poster. He's all about the war comics.

I laughed. "Well, I grew up on blood and thunder myself, it's not all that damaging really. The key is that there has to be a story, I try to make sure they aren't just doing a videogame shoot-'em-up. There's a fine old tradition of war comics that did great stories, Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, Unknown Soldier.... we'll find him some of the good stuff."

Marilyn perked up. "Yes, I know Gus liked that Unknown Soldier book you loaned him. I was going to try and find some of those."

I brought this to class to show the boys that even hardcore shoot-em-ups still had to have a STORY. For Gus it was love at first sight.

Mission defined, we now moved with a clear purpose. Once we were at Randy's booth Randy himself stepped in and was very helpful, explaining to Marilyn that there was the Unknown Soldier series from Star-Spangled War Storiesand then there were the ones in his own book.

"What's the difference?" Marilyn wanted to know.

"Later ones are probably cheaper," I told her, smiling. "But I don't think Gus will care that much, he'd enjoy any of them."

As for me, in showing the various war series to Marilyn I stumbled across this one and decided I couldn't pass it up for six bucks.

Sorry, Gus, I got this one.

Our Army At War #269, a reprint of stories featuring work by Joe Kubert, George Evans, John Severin, Russ Heath, and even Mort Drucker (!) I could spend hours just looking at the pictures in this one.

I also fell for a couple of Superboy Giant reprint collections from my childhood that I'd been trying to replace for a while. Mostly these days I'm a trade paperback guy, but nostalgia can still get me.

Marie said curiously, "I know who Superman is, but I never heard of Superboy."

"It's like Smallville, only he actually wears the costume," I heard myself say, and suddenly felt a hundred years old as i realized there's probably two generations of schoolkids now who know Smallville as 'their' Superman the way I think of Bates-Maggin-Swan Bronze-Age Superman as 'mine.'

When we got back I told Gus he had the coolest mother ever. "At your age I'd have killed for a mom who said, 'you finish your work, I'll go make sure you get your comics.' That's unheard of."

Gus blushed, grinned sheepishly, and gave his mother a hug. Marilyn beamed and said, "I have my moments."

There wasn't time for me to do a whole lot of shopping -- there never is -- but Rin found a dealer who had a big box full of graphic novels and trades for $5 and I fell for a couple of those, too.

Empire is one of those late 1970s Byron Preiss productions where he was deliberately trying to move comics into a bookstore market -- about twenty-five years too soon, it turned out, but he produced some handsome books when he was trying. This one was an original piece by Samuel Delany and Howard Chaykin, hoping to scoop up some of that newly-minted SF audience that Star Wars created back then. I'd never actually read it and I've always been curious about it. Holliday I've never heard of, but I'm always up for a Western comic, and for a $5 trade paperback it's hard to go wrong.

Most of our shopping, though, we tried to do in Artist's Alley itself as much as possible. We like to support the creators. Julie picked up the new Muppet book from Boom! where Amy Mebberson was -- you should pardon the expression -- doing a BOOMing business.

Possibly the most popular artist at the show this year.

She was kept busy all weekend. A lovely lady, she was great with all the kids that came up to her and sketched Kermits and Animals and Miss Piggys till her hands were raw, most likely. I don't think a single kid went away empty-handed.

And I made it a point to pick up a bunch of stuff from Camilla d'Errico on Sunday morning. I was able to catch her a few minutes before the show opened, when it was actually possible to have a conversation.

Camilla's a favorite with my kids.

Camilla has been a great friend to my students for many years now... they don't remember her name but they all know the Awesome Manga Lady From Vancouver. I bought about $25 worth of stuff from her because A) I can use it in class and B) she deserves to be rich and I do what I can. She had a line all weekend but I did get to chat with her for a few minutes on Sunday morning. Largely on what became the typical Sunday conversation topic in Artist's Alley, "Great to see you, sorry I didn't come by earlier, we were stuck at the table.... My God! Wasn't yesterday hell? How many people did YOU get?" Everyone loved the increase in business but hated fighting through the crowds on Saturday.

Sunday afternoon I did get around a little bit. I got a couple of books signed from Kurt Busiek and Len Wein, and I had a flattering couple of minutes with Les McClaine, original artist on The Middleman. He saw my badge and said, "Hey, Greg Hatcher! I love your column!"

Seriously. I was shocked speechless. I spluttered and fumfuh'd and blushed like a schoolgirl, finally managing to choke out that I was a huge fan of his, that my students and I all adored The Middleman. This pleased him, and we agreed that it was a shame it didn't last but it was great to have something that cool exist at all.

And I got to say hi to Pete and Rebecca Woods, from Periscope Studios. We hadn't seen Rebecca in about six years, she hadn't come to ECCC in a while, so it was great to catch up. Rebecca immediately wanted to know how Brianna was doing, since when Bri was my student years ago she practically camped out at the Periscope Studios table, and Rebecca happily adopted her. I told her that Bri wanted desperately to come this year but she had finals up at Bellingham, she was in college up at Western. Then we had a mutual groan about how old we are getting.

Because Bri couldn't make it to the convention this year, we wanted to at least let her know she was missed.

When I got the idea to recruit additional Cartooning alumni to do charity sketches for our fundraiser, my first two thoughts were Brianna and Nadine. They're both in college now, and they've kept up with their comics work as well. They were pretty amazing in the seventh grade, and they've only gotten better.

Here's what Bri was doing when she was in my class...

...and here's a more current piece.

Sadly, Brianna had finals or she'd have been there with bells on, she assured us.

Nadine had finals too but she did make it down, which delighted me. She was probably the single most gifted student I've ever had. Her serial "Mermaid's Touch" still gets gasps of awe when the kids go through the old books.

In fact, when Katrina joined my class when she was in middle school, she was so inspired by Nadine's work that she took the same pen name, "KittyBell."

People have been twisting balloons into squeaky little animals for decades, but Willy Chyr's work marks an evolution in the craft. Instead of dogs and bunnies, he makes gigantic, science-inspired sculptures of jellyfish, neurons, and zooids. Huh? More »

People have been twisting balloons into squeaky little animals for decades, but Willy Chyr's work marks an evolution in the craft. Instead of dogs and bunnies, he makes gigantic, science-inspired sculptures of jellyfish, neurons, and zooids. Huh? More »

D’après plusieurs recherches scientifiques, la méduse nutricula de Turritopsis serait le seul animal pouvant être immortel. En effet, cette méduse serait capable de remonter le temps, passant d’une phase de vie avancée à une phase de vie plus jeune.

Publication Date: 2010 Mar 17 PMID: 20236508Authors: Strom, J. O. - Theodorsson, E. - Holm, L. - Theodorsson, A.Journal: BMC NeurosciABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: : Numerous stroke studies have controversially shown estrogens to be either neuroprotective or neurodamaging. The discordant results observed in rat brain ischemia models may be a consequence of discrepancies in estrogen administration modes resulting in plasma concentration profiles far from those intended. To test this hypothesis we reproduced in detail and extended an earlier study from our lab using a different mode of 17beta-estradiol administration; home-made silastic capsules instead of commercial slow-release 17beta-estradiol pellets. Four groups of female rats (n=12) were ovariectomized and administered 17beta-estradiol or placebo via silastic capsules. All animals underwent MCAo fourteen days after ovariectomy and were sacrificed three days later. RESULTS: : In contrast to our earlier results using the commercial pellets, the group receiving 17beta-estradiol during the entire experiment had significantly smaller lesions than the group receiving placebo (mean+/-SEM: 3.85+/-0.70% versus 7.15+/-0.27% of total slice area, respectively; p=0.015). No significant neuroprotection was found when the 17beta-estradiol was administered only during the two weeks before or the three days immediately after MCAo. CONCLUSIONS: : The results indicate that different estrogen treatment regimens result in diametrically different effects on cerebral ischemia. Thus the effects of estrogens on ischemic damage seem to be concentration-related, with a biphasic, or even more complex, dose-response relation. These findings have implications for the design of animal experiments and also have a bearing on the estrogen doses used for peri-menopausal hormone replacement therapy.post to: CiteULike

NYC health officials decide to allow beekeeping...

Beekeepers in New York City no longer have to keep the honey of their labors a secret. The city's Board of Health decided Tuesday to allow beekeeping in the city after a long ban. Some New Yorkers have secretly tended beehives on rooftops and in backyard gardens for years in defiance of city regulations. The health code had placed honeybees in the same category as other creatures that are deemed too dangerous or venomous for city life, including hyenas and venomous snakes. And more @ the NY Times... New York City is among the few jurisdictions in the country that deem beekeeping illegal, lumping the honeybee together with hyenas, tarantulas, cobras, dingoes and other animals considered too dangerous or venomous for city life. But the honeybee's bad rap -- and the days of urban beekeepers being outlaws -- may soon be over. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!