La nature est poétique: les papillons boivent les larmes* des tortues

La forêt amazonienne de l'Ouest est une région dont la concentration de sodium est parmi les plus faible de la planète. En effet, cette région est loin de l'océan Atlantique, à plus de 1600 km, et les particules minérales normalement emportées par le vent sont coupées par la barrière des Andes.

Le manque de sel dans la région a conduit les animaux à adopter des comportements inhabituels. Par exemple, les papillons sont attirés par les larmes des tortues, car leurs larmes contiennent du sel et du sodium. C'est un minéral important pour les animaux, mais peu présent à l'ouest de l'Amazonie. Les herbivores en particulier ont du mal à trouver suffisamment de sodium ou d'autres minéraux... Comme les tortues sont des carnivores, elles trouvent beaucoup de sodium : la viande contient beaucoup de sel! Il y a d’autres sources de sel que les larmes : les insectes en trouvent également dans l'urine des animaux, dans les rives boueuses* des rivières, dans les flaques d'eau, les vêtements moites* ou la transpiration des personnes, explique Geoff Gallice, un étudiant diplômé en entomologie au Florida Museum of Natural History.

Selon Richard C. Vogt, un chercheur de l'Institut national de recherche sur l'Amazonie à Manaus, ce phénomène ne semble pas se produire en dehors de la région. Il explique : «J'ai étudié les tortues en milieu naturel - du nord Etats-Unis, au Mexique et en Amazonie – pendant plus de 50 ans et je n’ai jamais vu les papillons boire les larmes des tortues ».

D’après Ségolène Brunisholz,
 http://www.annefontainefoundation.org
septembre 2008

Halloween in Hollywood - PAU Andalucía 2001

Poltergeist  by Steven Spielberg, Universal Studios 1982

All Hallows Eve is the night when witches and fairies traditionally dance in the moonlight, and when old superstitions come to the surface. But Halloween is also the night when television and cinema screens serve thrillers and horrors, a new tradition of demons, vampires and ghosts.
A sinister legend circulates Hollywood that these subjects, even on film, can be dangerous. The Poltergeist trilogy tells a terrifying tale of how the Freeling family is tormented by a group of demons which try to possess their five-year-old daughter, and in the process destroy their house. In Poltergeist II the demons return to the Freelings’ new home, and they turn for help to Taylor, a native Indian medicine man, or “shaman.”
During the filming., there were strange happenings. For instance, one of the actors would regularly return home and find the pictures on the walls had been moved. Another one died very young, after a long battle with stomach cancer. Finally, the actor who played Taylor, a shaman in real life too, exorcised the studio. When the shooting was over, the director said with relief: “I am convinced that the presence of a shaman on this film saved us all from tragedy.” However, the shaman himself died before the film was even released.

Do violent video games damage your brain?

Recent medical studies indicate that violent video games damage the brain permanently. Video games may be more dangerous to your health than cigarettes or alcohol. The studies show that repeated playing of violent video games minimizes the activities of the brain involved in reasoning and planning. At the same time, these games activate those functions that respond to violence. The studies include scientific data indicating that these games may actually cause destructive behaviour.

Violent amusement, such as video games, has been a crucial factor in shootings and killings at schools around the world, such as those at Columbine High School in Colorado, where 27 students and teachers were massacred by two youths addicted to violent video games and movies.

The results of studies showed that people had less brain activity when regularly playing a violent video game. “Brain changes were most apparent in those teens who were ‘heavy users’: those who played several hours a day”, said Dr. Mathews. “I think this information confirms the relationship between brain damage and violent video games.”

A story in the October 2002 issue of Computer Game magazine reported that in Japan, children are at risk of developing ‘Video-Game Brain’, a permanent suppression of certain brain functions. Scientists examined 240 people between the ages of 6 and 29 over a six-month period. These subjects, who spent 2-7 hours a day playing violent video games, showed a decline in brain activity associated with reasoning, planning and selfcontrol.

Those players hardly use the frontal regions of their brains. If the level of what is called beta-brainwaves is too low, they get angry easily and have difficulty in concentrating.

Senator wants to jump-start college for all

Senator John Edwards today will propose a government program to pay the first year's college tuition for a student who also works 10 hours a week at a job or community service. Edwards says offering a jump-start* would encourage more people to go to college. Once there, they would be better able to pursue financial aid and recognize the value of a college education.

In addition, he'll put forward plans to offer four-year, full-tuition scholarships to students who agree to teach in hard-pressed schools or work in homeland security for five years after graduation. Edwards' speech at the University of Maryland embraces an expanded federal role -and billions of dollars in new spending- in raising pay and standards for teachers, reducing the size of high schools and making college more affordable.

Edwards also urges colleges to end admissions practices that give a preference to alumni's children and that offers early decisions to students who apply early and agree to attend if accepted. Both policies tend to be used most by upper-income students. "Today, it's too hard for too many Americans to dim up the ladder of success," he says. "It is time for some reforms to get back to our democratic roots."

 *glossary: jump-start = ayuda inicial

An engineering game for girls

Debbie Sterling, a US engineer who became increasingly frustrated by the very high percentage of men in his profession, thought that something should be done about it. "Only 11% of engineers are women and girls start losing interest in science when they are very young" she writes on her blog. "This is quite worrying and we should try to change that statistic."

She wanted young girls to become more interested in science and engineering so she decided to put her ideas into practice and created GoldieBlox, a game aimed at girls between five and nine years old, that is half way between a story book and a construction kit. The heroine in the story book is a girl named Goldie that has to face a number of engineering challenges– assisted by her trusty friends Nacho the dog, and Katinka, the dolphin ballerina.

Sterling spent a year researching different ways to get girls interested in construction toys, fearing that Lego and Meccano had not managed to do so. "The question was quite simple: boys have spatial attitudes and they like building things; girls, on the other hand, have better verbal capacities and they prefer reading stories," she says. "So I thought we could put those two things together, spatial plus verbal, book series plus building tools."

The research also suggested that girls are not satisfied with the building alone – they want to know the reason behind it. “Girls aren't just interested in 'what' they're building, they want to know 'why' they are building it”, says Sterling.

“Goldie's stories relate to girls'interests because her machines solve real problems and help her friends. The result: girls love it”.

Drugs don't work

As a doctor I have noticed that many drugs I prescribe do nothing for my patients. Of course, these drugs have been approved for use by the corresponding Agency and millions of doses are swallowed every year around the world. When I read the trial data before I write the prescription I find only well-designed tests, with amazingly positive results. But I have been misled.

Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on unrepresentative small numbers of patients, and analysed in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments and that, unsurprisingly, favour the manufacturer. Among the many trials that are being continuously conducted comparing, for example, a drug against a placebo, only the one with a neat, positive result, is published in an academic journal. The other trials, probably tested on many more patients, may show the drug to be no better than a dummy sugar pill, but these are not published because the companies are perfectly entitled to hide them, so there is no way a doctor may have an idea they existed.

Nobody breaks any law in doing this and the drug may still make its way on the market. These problems do not go through public inspection because they're too complex to explain in a few words. Politicians, the people we trust to fix these problems, have failed us. If the trials with negative results are withdrawn, then we simply cannot know the true effects of the treatments we use. Forget about vitally important side-effects. Evidence in medicine is not an abstract academic preoccupation. When we make the wrong decisions we cause unnecessary pain and suffering, and death, on people just like us.

Il consumismo

Basta osservare il numero di giocattoli che possiede un bambino di oggi. È elevatissimo rispetto al numero di giochi posseduto da un suo coetaneo di cinquant'anni fa.
La sua attenzione, poi, si fissa soltanto per una piccola frazione di tempo su un giocattolo particolare, mentre il suo desiderio si rivolge già a qualche novità propagandata dall'industria.
Gli adulti contemporanei non sono molto diversi: il telefono cellulare viene sostituito non quando si rompe, ma quando un modello nuovo promette prestazioni strabilianti e così il computer e l'infinito numero di gadget elettronici, taluni spesso inutili, che però ci affascinano irresistibilmente. L'auto dopo un po' che la si possiede non soddisfa più la nostra smania di novità e il desiderio, plasmato da martellanti spot televisivi, corre già a qualche modello più recente. Il nostro mondo quotidiano è saturo di oggetti, spesso superflui. Gli oggetti sono diventati talmente pervasivi nella nostra vita da sostituirsi progressivamente agli affetti e alle relazioni umane.Il fenomeno in questione si chiama consumismo ed è una delle malattie della società e dell'uomo contemporanei.

Florence - PAU inglés Madrid

I was born and brought up in Florence.  To live there in itself an artistic education.  I wasn't born in a palace with Raphael's paintings on the walls as some of my friends were, but in those days the message of the past and the taste for beauty could be felt everywhere in the city.  The first pieces of furniture I touched, crawling round the house, had been handed down through the family for centuries.  There were paintings collected by my grandfather, and Della Robbia reliefs, reproductions if not originals, hanging over the doors.  In Florence you do not have to go to school to learn about art and civilisation; it is all around you.  I would wake up at 6.30 am. to go to school and open my window.  We lived on the fifth floor with a view right across the red-tiled roofs of the town and there, right before me, was the dome of the cathedral.  From that moment on wherever I went throughout the day I was surrounded by the heritage of our Renaissance.  Florence is a quiet city, there is nothing flashy; there, everything is conceived according to the severe mathematics of beauty.  It is not like Venice.  Venice is spectacular, full of picturesque things but very little of real quality.  It's not serious; it's Luna Park.  But Florence is stern and pure.  There are no compromises or digressions in Florence.  There are no bright colours, no crimson or gold, just the grey and yellow of the stone, the white marble, the olive groves and the dark cypress trees.

Smokeless cigarettes

For more than a decade hundreds of scientists at the US tobacco companies have been working to develop a cigarette which is acceptable to non-smokers as well as smokers. Now they have discovered Eclipse, which works by healing tobacco instead of burning it, and so it reduces smoke by 90 per cent.

According to the companies, this product is an intelligent alternative to cigarettes. But the cigarette has not been a success in those European cities where people have been invited to try them. One of them said: “I have a packet at home, but I don’t like them. They always go out. The only people who are smoking them are young people who get them free in discos and bars.” Another said that they tasted of plastic.

Anti-smoking groups believe that this is just a new way of distributing nicotine, but the companies defend themselves by arguing that their purpose is not to develop a healthy cigarette. They simply want to create one which will not disturb non-smokers.

Parents pay children less pocket money because of recession

One in four parents has cut the amount of pocket money they give their children as a direct result of the recession. The average child between 4 and 15 gets £5.80 pocket money a week, but 24% of parents admit they have reduced the amount they give their children. Seven out of 10 parents expect their children to help around the house in exchange for cash, from tidying their own rooms to mowing the lawn.

Around 38% of children regularly save the money they receive, with 35% having a savings account and 58% keeping their money in a piggy bank. Children in London get the most pocket money, at an average of £7.81 a week. Boys typically get more money than girls. They are more than twice as likely as girls to receive between £16 and £20 a week, but they are also more likely to spend it in days.

The majority of parents surveyed said they have had the financial equivalent of the "birds and bees" conversation with their offspring, discussing where money comes from. You can never start financial education early enough, and this approach is by far the best way to teach children good habits.

Driving - PAU CyL 2006

Emboldened* by drink, many drivers become convinced they can do things they’d never dream of attempting sober. Some even boast they can handle a car better after a couple of drinks. But Ford has devised a test to prove them wrong – and I agreed to play guinea pig.
While gradually increasing my alcohol intake, I was asked to perform a series of manoeuvres with a Ford Focus to test my dexterity, reaction times and judgement behind the wheel. After just two pints of beer, the effect on my driving was obvious. It was five times less precise. I needed more corrections and hit more cones than before. After two more pints, I was close to the drink-driving limit. My performance continued to deteriorate. What was second nature while sober, required greater and greater concentration.
They stopped the test on safety grounds when I was approximately twice the limit. By this time I was driving the car wildly and erratically, sending half the cones flying. The one area where my performance improved was in braking: it showed that I was hitting the pedal faster and harder as the alcohol increased my self-confidence. Given the rest of the results, however, this offered little reassurance.

*Emboldened = envalentonados

The euro hits the streets

More than 300 million Europeans adopted the euro as their legal tender at midnight. In the midst of New Year's Eve revelries, people for the first time were able to hold the pastel-coloured banknotes that architects of the common currency believe will become compelling symbols of unity. Many on the Continent were tickled to be able to get their hands on it.

"This is great," said a grinning Christian Foulladosa as he rubbed a crisp note between his fingers and held it up to the light above the cash machine. "This is a big event. We will become a greater Europe with the euro," said this man as he made his first purchase with euros, buying flowers for his wife.

The European Central Bank and European Union hoped it would be, and the fact that the introduction of the notes and coins coincided with the start of a new year certainly helped. Cities throughout the euro zone ushered in both 2002 and the euro with special celebrations. There were fireworks in Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank, and a laser-like show in Brussels, headquarters of the European Union.

Glossary:

• tender = moneda de curso legal
• be tickled = estar contento
• revelry = festejo, jolgorio

It's getting worse again

When you look at racial segregation in America's schools, another new study presents a bleaker picture. The Harvard report produces some discouraging figures from the country's  public -state-run- schools. After the schools began desegregating in the mid-1950s, they became steadily more integrated until the late 1980s; but then the trend slowed down, and went into reverse. On average, white children go to schools that are 80% white. 

Segregation is worst in the largest city school systems, where enrolment is now overwhelmingly non-white. Yet it is also a problem in the suburbs, where schools once largely white are now mostly black or brown. As the minorities move out from the city centres, whites move even farther out. As the report shows, schools now closely follow housing patterns; if these are heavily segregated, the schools will be too. 

The report's most striking finding, however, is the emergence of Latinos both as the fastest growing minority and the most segregated one. They are divided from whites and blacks not only by race but also by poverty and language. They also do worst at school, with the highest drop-out rates. Their presence now is worrying proof that racial segregation in the schools will get worse before it gets better.

Schools really are better, says Ofsted

Tony Blair has ordered Cabinet ministers to take lessons from education on improving public services as evidence is published today showing that schools are improving. The annual report of Ofsted will say that nine in ten schools have improved since its inspections started in 1992, and that classroom standards have never been higher.

A senior Whitehall figure said last night that Mr Blair considers Estelle Morris, the Education Secretary, and her immediate predecessor, David Blunkett, to be "model public service ministers." In spite of the successes that the Ofsted report will highlight, it will express concern that the gap between the best and worst performing schools is growing wider, while some groups of children, especially those from ethnic minorities continue to fall behind. Mike Tomlinson, the outgoing head of Ofsted, will say that progress has been made on literacy and numeracy in primary schools, but that this has caused a "narrowing" of the curriculum.

More attention needs to be paid to arts, creative and practical subjects, he will say. His report also praises head teachers for their leadership and management of schools, while adding that further measures need to be taken to encourage the vital support that parents can bring.

Climate shift in Europe

Europe must adapt to extremes of climate that will cause new deserts in the south and floods and wind storms in the north, according to a new report before fir European Commission. The report, compiled by climate scientists, warns that traditional holiday destinations on the Mediterranean will lose their beaches as sea levels rise, temperatures will become too hot for comfort, and many older people will die due to excessive heat. The Alps will lose most of their glaciers and uncertain snow patterns will lead to serious problems for the ski industry.

Agriculture in the south will suffer as underground water is exhausted and already sparse summer rain disappears. There will not be enough water to grow the fruit and vegetables that fill northern supermarkets. Hot summers will double in frequency by 2020 and forest fires will increase across the whole region. Dangers include more floods, storms and insects bringing new diseases.

The 350-page report is edited by Martin Parry of the Jackson Environment Institute at the University of East Anglia in Britain. It was released last weekend -two weeks before European Union governments meet in The Hague to discuss reducing carbon dioxide emissions to try to slow global warming.

Spain's water wars

“I will not send a single drop of water from the Ebro”, said Pasquall Maragall, before November´s Catalan elections. Now, Mr Maragall hopes to “paralyse” the Spanish government´s plan to move water from north to south.

The government has condemned Mr Maragall´s stance* as “unpatriotic”. Last month the Spanish government formally requested European Union finance to meet a third of the E15,000m cost of the whole project. It claimed a victory when the European Commission conditionally approved E80m to pay for a part of it. Mr Aznar has called the plan “an act of solidarity” between Spain´s regions.

The water balance between the wet north, where a third of Spain´s rain falls, and the dry south, where 60% of the land is semi-arid, continues to inflame passions. Critics say the entire plan is outmoded and designed to benefit the government´s business friends. They claim it will cost twice as much to transport the water as it would to produce more water through desalination. Greens say it will destroy the Ebro delta wetlands. The government of Aragon supports the Catalans, calling the project a “method to rob the poor to feed the rich”.

*Glossary: stance = postura

Unnatural disaster

The Philippines is accustomed to clearing up after the destruction caused by the dozen or more monsoons that hit the archipelago each summer and autumn. But the island of Luzon is unlikely to recover swiftly from the havoc of last week, when two storms slammed into the coastal areas of Quezon province. The disaster was only partly natural and largely the work of man. Normally, the roots of trees that cover the interior Sierra Madre mountains would absorb the rain. But four decades of logging – much of it illegal – has steadily denuded the island’s mountains of trees, so they no longer function as shield or sponge. Instead, they have become powerful delivery systems of floodwater and mud.

When Typhoon Winnie hit the coast last Monday, one resident said: “Houses have been completely swept away and cars and vans have been washed away too.” By the time Typhoon Nanmadol had moved away from the coast, at least 640 people were confirmed dead and nearly 400 were missing. Rescue efforts were made almost impossible by blocked roads, washed-out bridges and the storms that succeeded Winnie.

President Gloria Macapagal has suspended all logging and promised severe punishment for lawbreakers, in the face of another reminder of how hazardous it is to fool around with Mother Nature.

Changes in British family life

A period of unprecedented change in British family life, in which adults lead more isolated lives, bringing up children on their own or not having them at all, was described in a report last week. The report says it is still too early to talk of the death of the “traditional family”, because four-fifths of dependent children still live in a family with two parents, and nine in 10 of those parents are married. But other statistics included in the report demonstrate significant changes in family demographics with profound, if often unexplored, consequences. More than 6.5m people in Britain –about 28% of households- live on their own, three times as many as 40 years ago, the report says.

The report dispels* some common misconceptions: that people living alone are not part of a family, when in fact the family remains “the key social network and primary source of informal care and support”. The extended family continues to be important, although contact with relatives has lessened, and family members are the main providers of care for elderly relatives. Grandparents are still important in childcare.

Mr Straw, the Home Secretary, last week confirmed his commitment to promoting the family, but said he wanted to “develop policies that support people in families as they really are today, not according to some outdated ideal”.

Glossary:
*dispels= desmiente

A university challenge to racism

Thinking he was a thief, police shot a young black dentist who had just dropped his girlfriend off a Sao Paulo's international airport on February 3rd. That killing haunted a celebration which took place a week later, the opening of Brazil's first college catering mainly to blacks. It "shows the dimension" of the exclusion of black Brazilians from a society that until recently considered itself unusually tolerant, says José Vicente, president of Afrobras, a group that is the moving force behind the school.

Race and racism are both slippery ideas in Brazil. Nearly half the population is non-white if you count people who describe themselves as black or brown. Both groups are poorer than other Brazilians, less well-educated and paid less for the same work. The new school aims to fill the vacuum. Its 200 students are studying management, with a view to finding jobs in the growing markets. Mr Vicente sees them as the nucleus of a new élite that will encourage other blacks to study, earn and lead the struggle for equal rights.

Ignez Bacelar, one of the students, says that most universities are "for young whites with good incomes." She is happy to study with people who understand the obstacles. Just as important, the subsidised tuition will allow her to become the first graduate in her family.

Run like the wind

One pertinent question in the wake of the earthquake near Aceh and the tsunami it generated is how much notice of an approaching wave can be given to vulnerable people without the risk of crying “wolf” too often.
Earthquakes themselves are unpredictable, and likely to remain so. But detecting them when they happen is a routine technology. That was not the problem in this case, which was observed by monitoring stations all over the world. Unfortunately for the forecasters, although any powerful submarine earthquake brings the risk of a dangerous tsunami, not all such earthquakes actually result in a big wave, and false alarms cost money and breed cynicism.
Even if you have an effective detection system, though, it is useless if you cannot evacuate a threatened area. Here, speed is of the essence. Computer modelling can help show which areas are likely to be safest, but common sense is often the best guide –run like the wind, away from the sea. Evacuating warnings too, should be easy to give as long as people are awake. Radios are ubiquitous even in most poor places. It is just a matter of having systems in place to tell the radio stations to tell people to run.
The problem was that no one did.

Una pregunta pertinente como consecuencia del terremoto cercano a Aceh y del tsunami que se generó es cuántos avisos de aproximación de ola pueden darse a personas vulnerables sin correr el riesgo de gritar "(que viene el) lobo" con demasiada frecuencia.
Los terremotos en sí mismos son impredecibles, y probablemente lo seguirán siendo. Pero detectarlos cuando suceden es una tecnología rutinaria. Ese no fue el problema en este caso, que fue observado por estaciones de control por todo el mundo. Por desgracia para los meteorólogos, aunque cualquier terremoto submarino de gran alcance conlleva el riesgo de un peligroso tsunami, en realidad no todos los terremotos resultan en una gran ola, y las falsas alarmas cuestan dinero y producen cinismo.
Incluso si se tiene un sistema eficaz de detección, no sirve de nada si no se puede evacuar un área amenazada. Aquí, la velocidad es lo esencial. El modelado por ordenador puede ayudar a mostrar qué áreas es probable que sean más seguras, pero el sentido común suele ser la mejor guía (corre en la dirección del viento, lejos del mar).
Los avisos de evacuación deben ser también fácil de dar, siempre y cuando la gente esté despierta. Hay radios por todas partes, incluso en los lugares más pobres. Es sólo una cuestión de disponer de sistemas ubicados para informar a las emisoras de radio que digan a la gente que corra.  El problema fue que nadie lo hizo.