WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The nations that make decisions about Antarctic fishing failed Friday for a third time to agree on a plan that would create the world's largest marine sanctuary.
The U.S. and New Zealand had proposed creating a reserve in the pristine Ross Sea. At 1.34 million square kilometers (517,000 square miles), the sanctuary would have been twice the size of Texas.
The proposal, a decade in the making, had been scaled back from earlier plans. Many countries hoped that would be enough to entice previous objectors Russia and Ukraine to agree. Those countries are among several that have fishing interests in the region.
But the 24 nations and the European Union failed to reach a required consensus as time ran out Friday on a 10-day gathering of national delegations in Hobart, Australia.
The countries also failed to agree on a second proposal to create smaller reserves in East Antarctica.
The Pew Charitable Trusts said Russia and Ukraine essentially ran down the clock filibuster-style after earlier expressing positive sentiments about the proposal.
"This is a bad day for Antarctica and for the world's oceans that desperately need protection," said Andrea Kavanagh, director of Pew's Southern Ocean sanctuaries project.
The Ross Sea is home to the Antarctic toothfish, a lucrative species that is often marketed in North America as Chilean sea bass.
The nations that make up the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources are scheduled to meet again next October.
Kavanagh said she doesn't believe the sanctuary plan is dead, although she's not sure what it will take now to get it passed.
Enter the phrase "Chinese fire drill" into YouTube and you'll find page upon page of videos of a classic car prank that's been popular since the 1960s.
For the uninitiated, a "Chinese fire drill" can be described as a form of vehicular musical chairs. Here's how it works: A car full of people, usually teenagers, stops at a red light. Everyone then gets out and runs around the car until just before the light changes back to green, with all participants jumping inside the closest door. Anyone who fails to get back into the car is left behind as the rest zoom off. One of the most famous pop culture references to the game appears in the opening of the early seasons of the classic 1970s sitcom Happy Days, in which Richie Cunningham and friends can be seen racing around his car, holding up traffic in the process.
As car culture reached its height in the 1950s and 1960s, the expression "Chinese fire drill" developed two meanings. The first was the aforementioned prank. The second was a reference to a traffic accident that a December 1962 issue of American Speech described as "an accident scene of great confusion, such as a school-bus or cattle-truck upset."
But the question remains: What exactly is "Chinese" about either of these definitions? While a 1996 post on the Random House Word of the Day blog states that "Chinese here is not necessarily a racial sentiment," its hard to see how that's true. Starting around World War I, the descriptor "Chinese" began to be frequently added to phrases to describe situations that were confusing, incomprehensible and messy.
These included a "Chinese ace," which referred to an incompetent pilot; "Chinese national anthem," to describe an explosion; and "Chinese landing," which was used by pilots to refer to bumpy, dangerous touchdowns because the aircraft had "one wing low" (a cringeworthy joke about what Asian languages sound like that should sound a bit familiar). Interestingly, Chinese landing and the one wing low pun were both so entrenched in military lingo that they were included in the 1944 edition of The Official Guide To The Army Air Forces.
Note how all of the above phrases refer to things that are negative and inferior in some way. It's also important to remember that anti-Asian sentiments had existed in the United States for decades before World War I and that the United States government did everything it could to keep Chinese and other Asian immigrants off American shores. In fact, the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional Usage traces the first pejorative use of "Chinese" to around 1880.
The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese laborers like the ones who built the Transcontinental Railroad from immigrating to the United States for 10 years, and several other laws that followed were aimed at preventing Chinese people from entering the country. By 1924, these laws had extended to all Asians (a rule that was upheld until the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act).
After the two world wars, "Chinese" continued to be used as a descriptor to indicate things that were hasty, cheap or amateur. The late New York Times columnist William Safire noted in his book I Stand Corrected that in the 1940s and '50s "Chinese home runs" referred to home runs that were either high pop-ups or ones that exited the park just along the foul line. And schoolchildren used to play "Chinese whispers" instead of the game Telephone because the messages would quickly become garbled and lost along the way.
The phrase "Chinese fire drill" became popular once again with the military during the Vietnam War. In fact, several books written by former soldiers after the war used the phrase in their titles or descriptions of combat. In his 1967 book The New Legions, which was sharply critical of the war, Donald Duncan quotes a fellow soldier as saying, "It must have looked like a Chinese Fire Drill back on the river as the shooting started." A veteran quoted in Craig Howes' Voices of the VietnamPOWs also used the phrase while describing a particularly chaotic battle in August 1964. And the mystery writer Michael Wolfe titled his 1986 thriller about Vietnam-era POWs The Chinese Fire Drill.
Aside from the occasional reference to the car prank, the phrase "Chinese fire drill" has mostly faded from everyday use today. Perhaps it is time to rename the 1960s-era prank? Suggestions are welcome in the comments.
Google's Reto Meier — a great dude to do walkthroughs if we've ever seen one — dives through some of the more techy changes in Android 4.4 KitKat. Still a great watch for the rest of us. Set aside a dozen minutes and check it out.
Butterflies show origin of species as an evolutionary process, not a single event
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mary Beth O'Leary moleary@cell.com 617-397-2802 Cell Press
The evolution of new species might not be as hard as it seems, even when diverging populations remain in contact and continue to produce offspring. That's the conclusion of studies, reported in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on October 31st, that examine the full genome sequences of 32 Heliconius butterflies from the Central American rain forest, representing five different species.
"The butterflies have performed a beautiful natural experiment for us that lets us address important questions about evolution," said Marcus Kronforst of the University of Chicago. "Even as biologists, we often think of the origin of new species as a moment in time when a new species splits from an old one, and this type of thinking is reflected in the evolutionary 'trees,' or phylogenies, that we draw. In reality, evolution is a long-term process that plays out in stages, and speciation is no different."
Kronforst and his colleagues found that the initial divergence between butterfly populations is restricted to a small fraction of the genome. In the case of the butterflies, the key genes are those involved in wing patterning. The butterfly species under study all have very different wing patterns, which are important in the butterflies' mating behavior and predator avoidance.
Comparison of those closely related, interbreeding species to a slightly more distant third species showed that hundreds of genomic changes had arisen rather quickly in evolutionary time sometime after those early differences took hold.
"We find that only a small fraction of the genome is markedly different between closely related species, but then much more of the genomemore than you'd expectshows similar differences between more distantly related species," Kronforst explained. "That indicates that the genetic changes that are important for causing speciation are tightly clustered early in speciation, but not so later on in the process; the overall pattern of genome divergence starts slow and then skyrockets."
The researchers view the process as a kind of tug-of-war between natural selection and gene flow. The result in the case of the butterflies has been a rapid divergence of species, driven by a combination of new mutations and borrowed genes. The butterfly genomes also show that the same spots in the genome have been important in multiple speciation events.
"Beyond butterflies, it is possible that this type of speciation, in which natural selection for ecology causes the origin of new species, has been important in the evolution of other organisms," Kronforst said.
###
Cell Reports, Kronforst et al.: "Hybridization reveals the evolving genomic architecture of speciation."
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Butterflies show origin of species as an evolutionary process, not a single event
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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]
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Contact: Mary Beth O'Leary moleary@cell.com 617-397-2802 Cell Press
The evolution of new species might not be as hard as it seems, even when diverging populations remain in contact and continue to produce offspring. That's the conclusion of studies, reported in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on October 31st, that examine the full genome sequences of 32 Heliconius butterflies from the Central American rain forest, representing five different species.
"The butterflies have performed a beautiful natural experiment for us that lets us address important questions about evolution," said Marcus Kronforst of the University of Chicago. "Even as biologists, we often think of the origin of new species as a moment in time when a new species splits from an old one, and this type of thinking is reflected in the evolutionary 'trees,' or phylogenies, that we draw. In reality, evolution is a long-term process that plays out in stages, and speciation is no different."
Kronforst and his colleagues found that the initial divergence between butterfly populations is restricted to a small fraction of the genome. In the case of the butterflies, the key genes are those involved in wing patterning. The butterfly species under study all have very different wing patterns, which are important in the butterflies' mating behavior and predator avoidance.
Comparison of those closely related, interbreeding species to a slightly more distant third species showed that hundreds of genomic changes had arisen rather quickly in evolutionary time sometime after those early differences took hold.
"We find that only a small fraction of the genome is markedly different between closely related species, but then much more of the genomemore than you'd expectshows similar differences between more distantly related species," Kronforst explained. "That indicates that the genetic changes that are important for causing speciation are tightly clustered early in speciation, but not so later on in the process; the overall pattern of genome divergence starts slow and then skyrockets."
The researchers view the process as a kind of tug-of-war between natural selection and gene flow. The result in the case of the butterflies has been a rapid divergence of species, driven by a combination of new mutations and borrowed genes. The butterfly genomes also show that the same spots in the genome have been important in multiple speciation events.
"Beyond butterflies, it is possible that this type of speciation, in which natural selection for ecology causes the origin of new species, has been important in the evolution of other organisms," Kronforst said.
###
Cell Reports, Kronforst et al.: "Hybridization reveals the evolving genomic architecture of speciation."
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Actor Naveen Andrews, left, actress Naomi Watts, director Oliver Hirschbiegel and producer Robert Bernstein, right, attend the premiere of "Diana" hosted by The Cinema Society, Linda Wells and Allure Magazine at the SVA Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Actor Naveen Andrews, left, actress Naomi Watts, director Oliver Hirschbiegel and producer Robert Bernstein, right, attend the premiere of "Diana" hosted by The Cinema Society, Linda Wells and Allure Magazine at the SVA Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Actress Naomi Watts attends the premiere of "Diana" hosted by The Cinema Society, Linda Wells and Allure Magazine at the SVA Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — When Naomi Watts was a struggling actress, she never would have imagined that one day she would play Princess Diana, one of the most famous women in the world, even after her death.
In fact, the thought makes her laugh.
"Yeah, that would sound a bit silly wouldn't it," said the actress at the New York premiere of the biopic "Diana" on Wednesday night.
Watts plays the Princess of Wales during roughly the last two years of her life. The story is based on the 2001 book "Diana: Her Last Love," chronicling her relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Dodi Fayed.
Cas Anvar, who plays Fayed, would often marvel on set about the way Watts embodied the essence of Princess Diana. In fact, he says she even stayed in character between takes.
"It was quite surreal sometimes, but it was thrilling to be around, working with someone like that," Anvar said. "She kept in character all the time, so I never actually got to experience the Naomi side of things," he recalled. "I was more or less always interacting with Lady Di."
Watts says she tried to stay in character not because she's "as disciplined as Daniel Day-Lewis," but because the accent was so difficult to master.
Despite all her effort, few have been impressed with the film, which opens Friday. Reviews have been mostly negative thus far.
Naveen Andrews, who plays Dr. Khan, believes a big part of that is because Diana really was, as her nickname implies, the people's princess.
"Obviously in England, I think people feel a sense of ownership over her," he said. "They did when she was alive. Now they do that she's passed. It's a testament to her power that she can generate so much emotion and feeling."
Watts agrees: "Everyone feels they know her and they thought they had an opinion about who she was and their version of the story must be true and the comparisons that will be made inevitably."
Anvar says he thinks the strong opinions over the film are a good thing.
"Personally I would rather be part of a project that inspires massive debate and controversy than a project that just fades away with a whimper, he said. "Any kind of uproar or upheaval usually is a good thing and indicative of a good story."
Internet companies in the U.S. are demanding that the surveillance practices of the U.S. should be reformed to enhance privacy protections and provide "appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms."
In a letter on Thursday to the chairman and members of the Committee on the Judiciary, a copy of which was provided by an industry source, Facebook, AOL, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo said they welcomed a debate about how to protect both national security and privacy interests and applauded the sponsors of the USA Freedom Act, a legislation aimed to end bulk data collection by the National Security Agency, for their contribution to the discussion.
The companies had until now focused on asking the government for permission to reveal information on users' data requests by the NSA, which are covered under "gag orders" that prohibit recipients of orders from discussing them in public.
Google and Microsoft, for example, filed motions before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to be allowed to provide aggregate statistics on orders and directives that were received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related regulations, which the government has so far refused.
Yahoo asked the court to allow it to make public documents from a 2008 dispute over a data request that would show that the company had resisted the order. The Internet companies are attempting to counter disclosures by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, that the government had real-time access to content on the servers of the Internet companies under a surveillance program called Prism, which these companies deny.
The stakes for the companies were raised this week after The Washington Post reported that NSA has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, giving it the ability to collect metadata and actual content from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans.
In the letter, the Internet companies wrote that transparency will help to counter "erroneous reports that we permit intelligence agencies 'direct access' to our companies' servers or that we are participants in a bulk Internet records collection program." The companies said that they have consistently stated that they only respond to legal demands for customer and user information that are targeted and specific.
"Allowing companies to be transparent about the number and nature of requests will help the public better understand the facts about the government's authority to compel technology companies to disclose user data and how technology companies respond to the targeted legal demands we receive," according to the letter.
But transparency is only a first step for the Internet companies, who are now also asking for reform of government surveillance practices. "We urge the Administration to work with Congress in addressing these critical reforms that would provide much needed transparency and help rebuild the trust of Internet users around the world," according to the letter, which was addressed, among others to Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, who is one of the sponsors of the USA Freedom Act.
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com
John Ribeiro, IDG News Service , IDG News Service
John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. More by John Ribeiro, IDG News Service
WASHINGTON (AP) — Government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate.
The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music — but not make cellphone calls.
The Federal Aviation Administration says airlines can allow passengers to use the devices during takeoffs and landings on planes that meet certain criteria for protecting aircraft systems from electronic interference.
Most new airliners are expected to meet the criteria, but changes won't happen immediately. Timing will depend upon the airline.
Connections to the Internet to surf, exchange emails, text or download data will still be prohibited below 10,000 feet. Heavier devices like laptops will have to be stowed. Passengers will be told to switch their smartphones, tablets and other devices to airplane mode.
Cellphone calls will still be prohibited.
A travel industry group welcomed the changes, calling them common-sense accommodations for a traveling public now bristling with technology. "We're pleased the FAA recognizes that an enjoyable passenger experience is not incompatible with safety and security," said Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
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