BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Vibrations 'could save elephants'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7890919.stm#
It's one of the most fabled talents in the animal world – elephants' ability to "talk" via rumbles in the earth.
Now zoologists in Namibia are trying to harness these seismic social calls - to lure rampaging males back to safety.

"Although this is maybe used to help the elephants it seems cruel in a way to me.
 Imagine how noisy we have made their environment by our cars and vehicles if they can pick up rumbles in the ground at distances of 10km. "

Essays: 'Darwin the abolitionist' by Adrian Desmond | Prospect Magazine

Interesting article via MeFi. Somehow it feels like the author is taking away the sceintific aspect of Darwinswork completely as if the theory was conceived as a political statement or a moral statement with no grounding in science and experiment.

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10581#

Shackled legs, thumbscrews used to crush the fingers of errant female slaves, a six-year-old boy horse-whipped for handing out water in a dirty glass: these sound like scenes from a modern horror story, but all were seen by the young Charles Darwin on his travels with the Beagle around the slave-owning continent of South America. You will find no mention of them in the proudly reasoned, scientific pages of On the Origin of Species. Glance at Darwin's journals, private notebooks and family background, however, and you will find a man immersed in the rhetoric and fervent belief of the anti-slavery movement. Was the public man of science influenced by these private passions? In the light of painstaking archival investigations into Darwin's letters, papers and notes, I believe the answer is a firm "yes." Although he never admitted publicly to so political a motivation, anti-slavery sentiment was the handmaiden of Charles Darwin's great intellectual achievement—the theory of evolution.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle 2 Will Debut Feb. 9 - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

This ties in with the previous post I made. Interesting read on the free software and ebooks available such that even the kids using the OLPC can benefit. Imagine going back to India and helping kids learn with the OLPC. It'll be an experience. With so much freedom the kids will probably have more questioning and freer attitudes.

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/with-some-polis.html
There are free books to be had, though. The Internet Archive currently has one million books available for free, and the nonprofit continues to add to its library at a rate of 1,000 books a day. There are also thousands of free books available through sites like Gutenberg.org, Manybooks.net and Feedbooks.com.

Amazon’s Kindle 2 Will Debut Feb. 9 - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/amazons-kindle-2-will-debut-feb-9/
Mark your calendars, e-book fans: Amazon.com will introduce the next generation of its popular Kindle reader in New York City on Feb. 9.
I am not at all impressed with this device. It just seems so inconvenient to have to buy all the material from the amazon store. We get books from the library, from friends,  and thats part of the reading experience for me atleast. If I borrow a book from a friend I will associate the reading experience with him/her. Browsing the public library is a good way to expose ourselves to newer stuff. I dont know, call me old-fashioned but this is not cool at all. Instead of liberating me this gadget is tying me down.

YouTube - The Newshour Debate 'Will Ram Sena pay for it?' Part 1

:(
the images in the background are very sad.
The course of the debate conducted on this channel is also very sad.
The idea of something like the Ram Sena spreading across the nation is very scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXhQkVjdBMQ&feature=related