Elephant Parade

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As an animal lover I can barely contain my glee at the 250 elephants that have sprouted up all around London. Far from just pretty artwork – no, not real elephants! – they are to raise awareness of the Asian Elephant that is threatened with extinction. In the past 100 years, the elephant population in Asia has shrunk by 90%. In another 30 years, it could easily vanish altogether.

It is a social enterprise founded by father and son Mike and Marc Spits. The benefits of the Elephant Parade are donated to the Elephant Family, the largest elephant charity in the world.

Mark Shands is the founding trustee of Elephant Family. The preferred charity of The Elephant Parade. It is the only charity just for the Asian Elephants.  The Elephant Family Patrons are Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Goldie Hawn, Sir George Martin CBE, Duchess of York, Tanaz Dizadj, Priya, and Cyrus Vandrevala.

The Elephant Parade took pace in other capitals of Europe in previous years. Happily, it is not London’s turn.  All elephants will be auctioned to raise money for this charity.

These “objets d’art” will be enhancing the London scene between 22 April – 14 June. If you pop down Carnaby Street there is even a gallery.

To donate, volunteer or to find out more – go here: http://www.elephantfamily.org/

Stefan Reviews: Four Lions

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Chris Morris has always skipped merrily down his own road of good intentions hand in hand with his friend controversy and this has led to him being both admired and detested. With shows like The Day Today and Brass Eye to his name, he has been known to tackle and take the mick out of pretty serious issues (the outstanding BrassEye Special that warned us all of a Paedogeddon springs to mind) and after his comparatively tame appearances in The IT Crowd or his Shoreditch wanker ribbing sitcom Nathan Barley his new Islamic suicide bombing comedy Four Lions certainly lives up to his ‘Media Terrorist’ label.

The film centres around five would be martyrs as they plan to show the Western World what is it is to be (in their ill conceived notion filled minds) a true follower of Islam. It’s easy to feel hatred for someone who would take the lives of innocent people in the name of a belief, but somehow, while the Lions are plotting a horrific event and along with all the laughs, sympathy washes over you from the screen. The audience seem to forget what the characters true intentions are as they watch Omar (played by Riz Ahmed as the obvious brains in the group) display a happy and playful home life with his wife and son or hearing Fessal (Adeel Akhtar) speak lovingly about his dad. Although sympathetic and very funny, there is still a vein of unease running throughout Four Lions, watching parents tell their young child about the glory of martyrdom or seeing Omar knowingly brainwash his dim-witted but pleasant brother, Wej (Kayvan Novak), into ignoring his feelings and look forward to an eternity that can only be compared to the greatness of the Rubber Dinghy Rapids at Alton Towers, makes you wonder if you should really be laughing.

The same can be said for Barry (Nigel Lindsay) who comes across as being a British convert purely as release for his racism towards Jews, anything that goes wrong for him and it’s the Jews fault (even when his car breaks down he blames the Jewish parts). While still a truly horrible person, Barry brings so much humour through his ineptness, stupidity and anger when the others of the group happily insult him to his face while speaking in Urdu. As an outsider, Barry adds an element of hostility in an otherwise close knit team who are able to share jokes while planning destruction and dance along to Toploaders awful song ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ together. Using this closeness as an ongoing theme, Four Lions fails to ask the question why? Why do these young men who don’t seem to be suffering that much and are not oppressed at all want to blow themselves up. The only answer we seem to get is because of all the ‘Jews and slags an that’ but seeing as this film isn’t a political thriller it doesn’t really need to answer those questions and is happy to stay in the Secret Flat arseing about with explosives!

Judging by Morris’ past efforts Four Lions doesn’t court controversy quite as much as some expected, and would perhaps have worked better a few years ago, but it is still very very funny and should be seen before it ends its cinema run.

Four Lions is rated (15) and is still playing at most cinemas.

Theatre review: Marianne.

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Marianne. Wimbledon Studio. 15 May 2010.

This play about a couple who lose their only child may not sound like a good way to spend an evening. However, the play is both funny, meaningful and painfull in it’s truthfullness.

When Marianne dies in a freak accident, Cath and David lose a daughter. Allie loses a best friend and Ash gains a heart. They all deal with their grief in different ways. Cath ( Played by Lynn Howes. Who gives a stunning performance ) looks for some kind of meaning in the pointlessness of her daughters death. She longs to understand death and have some kind of closure. Taking her to London and the boy ( Ash. Played by Simon-Anthony Rhoden. ) who received her daughters heart. The clash in culture and in greif – in both life and death – is well written and really makes you think.

David is stoic. Trying to move on, tending to his flowers. All the while dealing with his wife’s, more obvious grief. She uses him as an emotional punching bag. He loves her so he doesn’t mind. David is played by Leighton Pugh. All the cast are amazing. The top of their field.

Allie, ( Natasha Campbell. ) who was Marianne’s best friend is a rebellious teenager who things she is grown up. She visits the couple to try and re-connect with her best friend. She feels they are the only people she can talk to. She is falling in love for the first time and everything is a big deal. Across generations, bonds are made and the healing begins.

The play is beautiful and poignant. The kind of play that makes you think and, more importantly, feel. Cath cannot come to terms with the death of her daughter. She is stuck in a limbo. Thinking her husband has healed while he dies inside. In the end, with help from Allie and Ash they both learn and move on. Their marriage is saved. Life begins again.

This play was written by Anna Jordan. I would keep an eye on her. She is definitely going places.

Leighton PuLeighton Puggh, Lynn Howes, Natasha Campbell and Simon-Anthony Rhoden

Sloth Sanctuary {Misc-uity}

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Sloths are the only animals (apart from dolphins) that always have a smile on their faces. This cute video was filmed at Aviaros del Caribe; a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica: the world’s only sloth orphanage. “Baby two- and three-toed sloths, whose mother’s have either been run over or zapped by power lines are brought to the sanctuary and looked after by Judy Arroyo.”

Watch the video, my favourite part is about 17 seconds in. So cute!

For more sloth photos and videos, visit amphibian avenger’s blog, or follow her on twitter. For more on the sanctuary go to slothrescue.org.

[vimeo 11712103 400 300]

Researchers create the first synthetic self-replicating living cell

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Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute published results yesterday describing the successful construction of the first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell. They’ve christened it Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 (I like to call it Mike). Working from that idea that “In essence, scientists are digitizing biology by converting the A, C, T, and G’s of the chemical makeup of DNA into 1’s and 0’s in a computer. But can one reverse the process and start with 1’s and 0’s in a computer to define the characteristics of a living cell?”; Venter calls it ‘the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer’.

The scientific team headed by Drs. Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchison spent 15 years working on the first synthetic bacterial cell. Always conscious that the work they were doing was monumental; throughout the course of this work, the team contemplated, discussed, and engaged in outside review of the ethical and societal implications of their work. JCVI say “The ability to routinely write the software of life will usher in a new era in science, and with it, new products and applications such as advanced biofuels, clean water technology, and new vaccines and medicines.”

The genomes were designed on the computer, chemically made in the laboratory and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled only by the synthetic genome.The team have also designed and inserted what they’ve called watermarkes into the cell that don’t create any proteins but contain a hidden code. These are specifically designed segments of DNA that use the “alphabet” of genes and proteins that enable the researcher to spell out words and phrases. The watermarks are an essential means to prove that the genome is synthetic and not native, and to identify the laboratory of origin. Encoded in the watermarks is a new DNA code for writing words, sentences and numbers. In addition to the new code there is a web address to send emails to if you can successfully decode the new code, the names of 46 authors and other key contributors and three quotations: “TO LIVE, TO ERR, TO FALL, TO TRIUMPH, TO RECREATE LIFE OUT OF LIFE.” – JAMES JOYCE; “SEE THINGS NOT AS THEY ARE, BUT AS THEY MIGHT BE.”-A quote from the book, “American Prometheus”; “WHAT I CANNOT BUILD, I CANNOT UNDERSTAND.” – RICHARD FEYNMAN.

Scanning electron micrographs of M. mycoides JCVI-syn1

Incase you’re worrying that the new cell’s going to escape into the outside world JCVI say that “researchers will be able to engineer synthetic bacterial cells so they cannot live outside of the lab or other production environments. This is done by, for example, ensuring that these organisms have built in dependencies for certain nutrients without which they cannot survive. They can also be engineered with so called “suicide genes” that kick in to prevent the organism from living outside of the lab or environment in which they were grown. ”

The potential for this research and the next steps for JVCI’s researchers are exciting. “The team is now ready to build more complex organisms with useful properties.  For example, many, including scientists at SGI, are already using available sequencing information to engineer cells that can produce energy, pharmaceuticals, and industrial compounds, and sequester carbon dioxide.”

Venter maintains that it’s not a second genesis as they’ve not created life “from scratch” but as they’ve used an existing cell; they’ve created a new species. This new cell has around 1 million base pairs into a coherent genome.  By comparison, the human genome contains more than 3 billion pairs, so don’t don’t worry about synthetic mammals any time soon.

[JCVI]

Is it Snake Oil? – Interactive Infographic

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It’s hard to know what’s good and what’s guff, should you be taking vitamin supplements? Will my anti-oxident rosehip cranberry echinacia lavender infusion cure my indecision or should I plump for a green tea? Will that weight loss suppliment advertised on Facebook actually work? Afterall, it is on Facebook, so it must be true?! There’s so much confusing and conflicting information what we really need is someone to take all the evidence and put it into some sort of pretty picture.
If there’s one thing the people behind Information is Beatiful have proved that interactive graphics definately improve my attention span.
The creators have this to say about the image and information they used: “This image is a “balloon race”. The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble. We only considered large, human, randomized placebo-controlled trials in our data scrape – wherever possible. No animal trials. No cell studies..”
This visualisation generates itself from this Google Doc. So when new research comes out, they should be able to quickly update the data and regenerate the image. The spreadsheet also references the source of the research; if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
 

Time-Lapse video of Eyjafjallajökull's plume {Misc-uity}

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An incredible video by Sean Stiegemeier shot on a Canon 5D mkII. Describing his video he says “So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better.”

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.