Research reveals consequences of a lifetime of sexual competition

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Research published today in the journal Evolution reveals how fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) that are subjected to continual competition from mating rivals, mate for longer and produce more offspring in early life.

But they pay a high price ? a shorter lifespan and reduced mating ability later in life.

It is the first study to quantify the consequences of lifetime exposure to rivals. Researchers say that 'trade-offs' between reproduction and lifespan are common across the whole animal kingdom, so in principle the findings could be applicable more generally.

The study was led by Prof Tracey Chapman from UEA's School of Biological Sciences and Dr Amanda Bretman, now at the University of Leeds.

Prof Chapman said: "We exposed males to rivals throughout their lifetimes and found that while this caused them to mate for longer and have a higher reproductive output ? these benefits disappeared early, after the third mating.

"The males took significantly fewer mating opportunities in later life and had significantly shorter lifespans than flies which had not been exposed to rivals. Meanwhile those which had been kept on their own continued to mate into old age, accumulating more matings overall.

"In general, trade-offs between different aspects of reproduction and lifespan are very common and can be found in almost every organism in which we can measure them - including humans," she added. "We don't know whether this specific set of circumstances occurs in humans, but trade-offs in general certainly do. It could be something that researchers studying human life histories could look for."

Researchers compared flies that had been exposed to rivals with those which had not. They gave both sets of flies the opportunity to mate regularly throughout their lives.

They recorded the length and frequency of mating for both groups, as well as the number of offspring sired by both groups.

At the end of the 78-day project, all of the male flies which had been exposed to rivals had been dead for at least four days. But more than a quarter of those which had not been exposed to rivals were still alive.

"If males die sooner in the wild, the early mating benefits seen in males exposed to competition may be more important than the benefits of living and mating for longer," added Dr Bretman. "There is a great scope for further investigations into how relevant our experiment might be in representing the natural lifespan and potential trade-offs between early and late survival and reproduction."

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University of East Anglia: http://comm.uea.ac.uk/press

Thanks to University of East Anglia for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128098/Research_reveals_consequences_of_a_lifetime_of_sexual_competition

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Set Your Phone's Photos Free With the Wikimedia Commons App

Wikipedia just wouldn't be the same without its pictures, but someone has to go out and take 'em. Now you can help, armed with nothing but a smartphone and some stuff to shoot.

The new Wikimedia Commons apps for iOS and Android make uploading pictures to Wikimedia's Creative Commons archive a piece of cake. By downloading and logging into the app, you can immediately start taking pictures and sending them off to that big Creative Common in the sky with just a quick title and description, and a few categories too if you feel like it. Granted, uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons from your computer was never hard, exactly. Now it's just dumb easy.

Wikimedia's pair of apps have been in beta for a while?open beta on Android, invite-only on iOS?but now they've struck it out into the word as real, full-fledged applications. So if you want to start giving your one-off phone pictures a chance at a second life on Wikipedia (or elsewhere) go grab the app right now and start setting those photos free. [Wikimedia Blog via The Next Web]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/set-your-phones-photos-free-with-the-wikimedia-commons-484586665

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Photo artist draws on tragic current events and kids for inspiration

OTTAWA - For Picasso's masterpiece Guernica, it was the German bombing of a Spanish town. For Ottawa art photographer Jonathan Hobin's Twins, it was 9/11.

Current events have always inspired art and Hobin's latest instalment in his controversial series "In the Playroom" is an arresting modern example.

Each of his photos depicts children at play re-enacting tragic public events.

Hobin, 33, has portrayed familiar stories, such as a Halloween-inspired Abu Ghraib prison scene, a portrait of the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong il, and JonBen?t Ramsay dressed in a pageant gown, among others.

He says the child models in his photographs are unpaid volunteers, and are either the children of friends and family, or models from agencies.

"I definitely would never have photographed a child unless I fully communicated what I was going to do," he said in an interview.

Parents "had to believe in what I was doing if I was going to photograph their child."

The idea for the series came after Hobin witnessed the repeated and unforgettable images of the planes striking the World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

"I started to think: 'I'm an adult and I can kind of handle what that means,'" he said.

"But with someone who is not as equipped as I am with problem-solving or just life experiences, how are they going to see that sort of thing? How are they going to comprehend what that means?"

By portraying children acting out headline-grabbing news events, Hobin explores how young minds deal with the unsettling side of the modern media-scape.

"It goes back to this whole notion that children always have incorporated things they see in popular culture into their play," he said.

"In fact, science shows that children need to physically re-enact things in order to process them. There's a tactile nature to their minds."

In one of Hobin's newest photographs, GOT HIM!, a marine with a toy gun shoots Osama Bin Laden in a messy ketchup-blood scene beside a kitchen fridge.

Hobin says his work has been polarizing. In between critical praise and gifts from fans, he's received death threats and accusations of pedophilia.

"It was quite a surprise, but I'd rather have people be excited and energetic about what I'm doing than really blas? about the whole thing."

Asked whether he would depict the recent Boston Marathon bombings, Hobin said such events need time to play out in the culture before he can consider reflecting the stories visually.

"It took probably about six or seven years before I did the 9/11 attacks. You kind of let the dust settle and see how it plays out," he said.

He says that while kids use play as a tool to process, it also reflects their emotional resilience versus the fragility of adulthood.

"They might be better equipped to survive the emotional side of what's happening at this age than we are as adults."

Starting Thursday, 17 of Hobin's images from "In the Playroom" will be released as a feature exhibition in Toronto's Contact photography festival at the Gladstone Hotel, in partnership with the Patrick Mikhail Gallery.

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On the web: www.jhobin.com

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Photo+artist+draws+tragic+current+events+kids/8306764/story.html

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How To Reach Millions of People with Your Product or Services ...

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Source: http://haminarahman258.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-reach-millions-of-people-with.html

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Lonely year for French president at time of crisis

PARIS (AP) ? The sounds of raucous protest echo in the Presidential Palace, unemployment is rising to levels not seen in over a decade, and his country's economy has been called a potential time bomb at the heart of Europe.

Francois Hollande, among the most unpopular French leaders in modern history, remains calm.

Lacking the early-career charisma of President Barack Obama or the hard-nosed reputation of Germany's Angela Merkel, Hollande rose to power in the Socialist Party as a consensus-builder ? someone who went out of his way to avoid confrontation. But the amiability that propelled him to the presidency a year ago is turning against Hollande, as poll after poll finds deep disappointment among many who believe he is incapable of the swift, determined choices needed to yank France out of a malaise he himself says threatens generations to come.

"I remain solid and serene," Holland told a handful of journalists in his office at the Presidential Palace, above the shouts of a crowd demonstrating against his plan to legalize gay marriage. Without camouflaging the difficulties, he admitted it's been a trying year. "I grasp the seriousness ? it's the task of the president to remain steady and to see further than the storms of a moment. It's called perseverance."

Judgment, he said in the interview earlier this month, will come only at the end of his five-year term.

But, seated comfortably in his office armchair, Hollande insisted he was anything but indecisive.

"My will is to pull the country together and restore its confidence. This will take time, but I have no other goal," he said. "You can criticize my decisions, think that I'm on the wrong path, say I'm foundering, but if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I've made major choices for France in the past year."

He cited the accord reached in January between unions and business leaders to relax some of France's famously strict labor protections. Hollande had championed the agreement, saying the costs and difficulties of hiring in France were hurting its ability to compete globally. But unemployment has only risen since then, and the brief optimism generated by the agreement ? which is expected to become law by next month ? has since faded. This week, it reached 10.6 percent, the highest level since 1999.

Hollande talks a lot about the French intervention in Mali, by far his most popular act in office. But, despite Hollande's best efforts, France was alone among European countries in sending soldiers, and French forces outnumbered any Africans sent to win Mali back from the militants who threatened to seize the entire country.

"I became president at an exceptional time," said Hollande, who tends to speak deliberately and formally even in relaxed settings. "Exceptional on the economic front: a long crisis, a recession in Europe, unemployment at historic levels. Exceptional because I was forced to engage France in Mali. Exceptional because populism is taking hold, not just in France, but throughout Europe."

Bernard Poignant, a Socialist who is Hollande's friend of 30 years and also one of his advisors, said the president started his term at a hugely difficult moment for his leftist base.

"Traditionally the left, when it comes to power, is generous, redistributive of wealth," he said. "Today, it's the reverse. The right emptied the coffers and now the left must fill them."

Economists say that France's predicament stems neither from the country's right or left, but from generations of benefits that few politicians are willing to take away. Hollande's predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, only half-heartedly tried to raise the work week from 35 hours, then pulled back even before strong opposition emerged.

Hollande cautiously broached the idea of pulling back some of the subsidies that now go to all parents of young children, exempting families who earn high incomes. But the 35-hour work week remains in place, as does the retirement age of 62. Health care remains universal and nearly all treatments are reimbursed at least partially. Hollande has said he will not thin the ranks of government employees. France will remain among the countries with the highest percentage of public workers in the world ? about 20 percent of the workforce gets a government paycheck and a government pension.

Hollande was elected as "president normal," an unassuming contrast to Sarkozy's flashy, aggressive style, and his dramatic divorce and marriage to the model and singer Carla Bruni. But a year into his term, his amiability has managed to turn most of the country against him, even within his own camp. Numerous Socialist lawmakers are openly speaking against him, for example, for demanding they publish their assets.

The president appears to relish simple, easy contact with the French. He can spend hours happily shaking hands, telling stories, joking. But those moments are becoming increasingly rare.

"He is consumed by his responsibilities, too consumed, in my opinion," said Poignant. "The political climate is such that the president is becoming the target of protests. We have to protect him for security reasons: It is very difficult for him to be close to the French."

Only about one in four French approve of the job Hollande is doing, lower than either of his conservative predecessors.

He says he is willing to wait for that to change, describing his five-year term in two phases: things will be very difficult in the first phase, then a return to growth and the Socialist preference toward more government spending. His advisors ? and most economists ? say privately they don't expect much good news for France before 2015.

"The French have always turned to the president. He is accountable to them, and that's as it should be. My actions are measured at this particular moment in our country's history," he said. "I remain in control of myself, confident in what I think."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-28-France-Lonely%20President/id-a7f135f72b184747b451efdf84e291ba

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Listen to All the Bleeps and Bloops of Hollywood's Fake Computers

You computer probably makes a bleep now and then, maybe the occasional bloop. But the giant, glowing, blinking machines of Hollywood fame have a much larger library of bings, pings, and whistles. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/YR584cDe9mg/listen-to-all-the-bleeps-and-bloops-of-hollywoods-fake-computers

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Bank of Canada says household debt is biggest risk

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Monetary policy remains very stimulative in Canada, a senior central bank official said on Wednesday, while also pointing out that excessive household borrowing is the biggest domestic risk to the economy.

The comments in a speech by Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Agathe Cote highlight the dilemma facing the bank as it weighs the need to lift interest rates to curb soaring personal debt against the need to keep the easy money flowing at a time of global uncertainty.

"Monetary policy remains very stimulative to counter external headwinds," Cote said, according to a slide presentation published on the central bank's Web site just before she spoke to a business audience in Rimouski, Quebec.

Europe is stagnating and the U.S. recovery is the slowest since the Great Depression she said, repeating the bank's justification for why it has kept its benchmark interest rate at an extraordinarily low 1 percent for over two years.

Despite that outlook, the bank has been signaling since April that it wants to raise interest rates, the only one in the G7 major economies to do so. Last month Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said the need to lift rates had become less imminent while still saying the next move would be up, not down.

Carney has expressed alarm over the sharp rise in the debt-to-income ratio for households to a record 163 percent in the second quarter, higher than in the United States or the United Kingdom, and near levels seen in the United States just before the housing crash.

The debt problem, combined with a hot housing market, prompted the government to tighten mortgage rules in July for the fourth time in as many years. There have been some signs that Canadians are not accumulating debt as quickly and that the housing market is cooling.

Carney said last month he could use monetary policy to deal with the debt problem but only as a last resort. He said there were "mixed signals" on the housing and debt issue and that more time would tell whether enough had been done.

(Reporting by Louise Egan; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-canada-says-household-debt-biggest-risk-021752476--business.html

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