Female birds paired for life in apparently monogamous relationships seek out sex with other males in order to boost the genetic fitness of their offspring, scientists have discovered in a pioneering experiment involving warblers living on an island in the Seychelles.

Since the advent of DNA fingerprinting it has been possible to test the paternity of the offspring of seemingly monogamous species and, to the astonishment of scientists, many the offspring in such monogamous species appear to have been fathered by males other than the ones involved in rearing the brood.

The infidelity was inexplicable because only one male helps the female to raise the brood and the infidelity could result in him abandoning the nest.

This led scientists to suggest that perhaps the female was seeking better genes behind the back of her male partner in order to boost the genetic fitness of her offspring without the risk of losing the help of her male partner. Now scientists have found strong evidence in support of this hypothesis by studying in detail the lives and mating habits of 97 per cent of the warblers that live on the island of Cousin in the Seychelles, where the birds have been ringed and studied since 1997 by scientists led by David Richardson of the University of East Anglia.

The study, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, followed the fate of 160 birds hatched on the island between 1997 and 1999 over a period of 10 years. Although the birds appear to be monogamous in lifetime pairings, the females were found to have engaged in "extra-pair copulation".

The scientists found that the offspring of such female infidelity have a higher genetic diversity in crucial disease-detecting genes, known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), than would have been the case had they mated with their regular partner.

"We did not find any evidence for genetic benefits of extra-pair fertilisations per se, as on average extra-and within-pair offspring survived equally well. However, by not being faithful to a pair male with low MHC diversity, females are ensuring that their offspring do not end up with below-average levels of MHC diversity and therefore lower survival," Dr Richardson said.

Female warblers may be able to detect when their regular partner has a comparatively low genetic diversity, which leads them to stray to more highly diverse strangers.

driver from www.independent.co.uk

Don't count New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie among the fans of MTV's Jersey Shore.

Jersey Shore cast signs on for Season 3

When asked whether the reality show was positive or negative on ABC's This Week (a serious Sunday news show, mind you) he told Jake Tapper the show is negative and "takes a bunch of New Yorkers, drops them at the Jersey Shore and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey."

Christie isn't the only one not setting his DVR to tape the reality show. Last December, the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus says the show is "wildly offensive" and promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes.

driver from www.tvguide.com

The Obamas are worried about their daughters getting fat. In November 2008, Barack got a promotion and mentioned  to the media that, a couple years earlier, he was concerned that Malia had become “a little chubby.” A later visit to a pediatrician convinced Michelle that both Malia and her  sister Sasha needed to slim down.

She banned the girls from watching television on weekdays, put them on low-fat milk, replaced sugary drinks with water, largely eliminated hamburgers from their diet, and monitored portion sizes at meals carefully. The next time she took them to the doctor, she reports, he was amazed. “What on Earth are you doing?” he asked.

It’s a good question.

What Michelle Obama is doing this week is launching the next big government “war” on a supposed social crisis. On Tuesday, President Obama signed an executive order directing government agencies to work with private industry to combat “childhood obesity.” The First Lady took to the airwaves, issuing dire warnings that one third of America’s children are dangerously fat, while launching a website which makes the alarming claim that, “for the first time in our history, American children may face a shorter expected lifespan than their parents.” The goal of the campaign, Mrs. Obama emphasized, is to “eliminate this problem of childhood obesity in a generation.”

All this is dangerous nonsense. Let’s start with the Obamas’ goal of trying to produce an America with no fat kids. Consider what we even determine to be “fat.” In recent years, government panels decided to define “overweight” and “obesity” as the 85th and 95th percentiles of body mass on the height-weight growth charts for children. According to someone heavily involved in the process, they did this quite arbitrarily, without any evidentiary justification, other than a vague sense that increasing weight among children was a problem that required some definitional markers.

Now, the statistically curious might wonder how, given this definition, it’s possible for one-third of America’s children to be too fat. The answer is that federal public health agencies have decided to use data from the 1960s and 1970s to define the 85th and 95th percentiles. In other words, when Michelle Obama claims a third of our children are too fat, what she’s really saying is that what was the 85th percentile on the height-weight charts 40 years ago  is about the 67th percentile today.

Is this a problem? Some might note that, by every objective measure, including life expectancy, and rates of chronic disease and disability, American children, like American adults, are both bigger and healthier now than they were a generation ago. (Despite claims to the contrary, Type II diabetes among children remains quite rare.) Obesity panic-mongers reply that, although the health of our children is admittedly better than ever, this trend is going to be reversed by a growing epidemic of fatness (hence claims about a generation of children that will not live as long as their parents).

In fact, a new comprehensive meta-analysis of data from more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., reveals that, for a decade now, obesity rates all over the world among both adults and children have been largely flat or actually declining. The study points out that alarmist claims from public health officials about an “obesity epidemic” are all explicitly based on the mistaken assumption that obesity rates are continuing to rise.

In particular, the claim that life expectancy in America is going to decline is unsupported by any demographic or epidemiological evidence. (This widely repeated claim can be traced to some data-free musings in a New England Journal of Medicine article five years ago, from which the authors subsequently backed away.)

The choice of weaponry in this unnecessary war is also unfortunate. The Obamas want to improve the nutritional value of school meals, help children become more active by making urban areas amenable to physical activity, improve labeling on food products, and decrease the number of “food deserts”–areas where it’s difficult and expensive for people to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

These are all laudable goals in and of themselves, but it’s a terrible mistake to pursue them  in the name of getting rid of fat kids. First, numerous studies indicate that, just as with adults, improving children’s nutrition and activity levels is beneficial to their health, but usually produces little or no weight loss (which is all the more reason to focus on health rather than weight). Nor are thin children in any less need of good food and healthy activities than fat ones. Indeed, over the past 20 years, extensive research has demonstrated that, when studies control for factors such as physical activity levels, weight simply ceases to have any meaningful correlation with health.

Second, a rich literature on stigmatization shows that the health costs of social stigma are high. I don’t believe Michelle Obama wants to stigmatize fat kids, but a campaign dedicated to eliminating them is guaranteed to do so in a profound way.

On that same theme, one wonders if the First Lady has considered that putting her pre-teen daughters on diets is far more likely to make them eating disordered rather than permanently thin. (If the kind of obsessive monitoring of food and activity choices Obama recommends to parents actually “worked,” there would be almost no fat kids in America today, at least in the middle and upper class families where Obama’s anxieties about her daughters’ weight are all too common). And does she really think it’s a good idea for her husband to make negative comments about his daughter’s body to the nation’s media?

Everyone should support reasonable attempts to make it easier for all children to enjoy a healthy balance of foods and the pleasures and benefits of physical activity. Trying to do so by stigmatizing the bodies of one out of every three American kids is a horrible idea.

driver from www.tnr.com

Although the ruling does not apply to very large money-center banks,it is a move in a liberalizing direction that could at last push Congress into framing a sensible legal and regulatory system that allows banks to plan their future beyond the next court case.

The restrictive laws that the courts are interpreting are mainly a legacy of the bank failures of the 1930s.The current high rate of bank failure high¬er than at any time since the Great Depression has made legislators afraid of remove the restrictions.While their legislative timidity is understandable, it is also mistaken.One reason so many American banks are getting into trou¬ble is precisely that the old restrictions make it hard for them to build a do¬mestic base large and strong enough to support their activities in today' s telecommunicating round-the-clock,around-the-world financial markers.In trying to escape from this restriction,banks are taking enormous,and what should be unnecessary,risks.For example,would a large bank be buying small,failed savings banks at inflated prices if federal law and states regu¬lations permitted that bank to explain instead through the acquisition finan¬cially healthy banks in the region? Of course not.

The solution is clear.American banks will be sounder when they are not geographically limited.The House of Representatives' banking committee has shown part of the way forward by recommending common-sensical, though limited,legislation for a five-year transition to nationwide banking. This would give regional banks time to group together to form counter¬weights to the big money-center banks.Wlthout this breathing space the big money-center banks might soon extend across the country to develop.But any such legislation should be regarded as only a way station on the road towards a complete examination of American's suitable banking legislation.

Anticipation is rising across an expectant Japan as the date draws closer for Crown Princess Masako to give birth to a possible,and long-awaited, heir for the world's oldest monarchy. Masako's first child in more than eight years of marriage is due any day now. The baby,if a boy,will be second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne after his father,Crown Prince Naruhito. The royal cradle used when Naruhito was a baby has been refurnished,plans are afoot for celebratory parades,and magazines are abuzz with speculation over royal birth dates. Medical staff have been on 24-hour duty at the palace where the royal couple lives since November 20. Even the country's sober stock market is hoping it will spark a rise as investors get an emotional lift from some rare good news—with baby-related shares ex¬pected to be sought after.

Did you ever wonder how it is possible for us tc recognize people? Even a skilled writer probably could not describe all the features that make one face different from another. Yet a very young child — or even an animal, such as a pigeon — can learn to recognize faces. We all take this ability for granted.

We also tell people apart by how they behave. When we talk about someone's personality, we mean the ways in which he or she acts, speaks, thinks and feels that make that individual different from others.

Like the human face, human personality is very complex. But describing someone's personality in words is somewhat easier than describing his face. If you were asked to describe what a "nice face" looked like, you probably would have a difficult time doing so. But if you were asked to describe a "nice person", you might begin to think about someone who was kind, considerate, friendly, warm, and so forth.

There are many words to describe how a person thinks, feels and acts. Gordon Allport, an American psychologist, found nearly 18,000 English words characterizing differences in people's behavior. And many of us use this information as a basis for describing, or typing his personality. Bookworms, conservatives, military types — people are described with such terms.

People have always tried to "type" each other. Actors in early Greek drama wore masks to show the audience whether they played the villain's (*P>*Oor the hero's role. In fact, the words "person"and "personality"come from the Latin persona, meaning "mask". Today, most television and movie actors do not wear masks. But we can easily tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys" because the two types differ in appearance as well as in actions.

She says, I am the great great grand cousin of the queen of France. She lives upstairs, over there, next door to Joe the baby-grabber. Keep away from him, she says. He is full of danger. Benny and Blanca own the corner store. They're okay except don't lean on the candy counter. Two girls raggedy as rats live across the street. You don't want to know them. Edna is the lady who owns the building next to you. She used to own a building big as a whale, but her brother sold it. Their mother said no, no, don't ever sell it. I won't. And then she closed her eyes and he sold it. Alicia is stuck-up ever since she went to college. She used to like me but now she doesn't.

Cathy who is queen of cats has cats and cats and cats. Baby cats, big cats, skinny cats, sick cats. Cats asleep like little donuts. Cats on top of the refrigerator. Cats taking a walk on the dinner table. Her house is like cat heaven.

You want a friend, she says. Okay, I'll be your friend. But only till next Tuesday. That's when we move away. Got to. Then as if she forgot I just moved in, she says the neighbor-hood is getting bad.

Cathy's father will have to fly to France one day and find her great great distant grand cousin on her father's side and inherit the family house. How do I know this is so? She told me so. In the meantime they'll just have to move a little far-ther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in.

The view over a valley of a tiny village with thatched roof cottages around a church; a drive through a narrow village street lined with thatched cottages painted pink or white; the sight over the rolling hills of a pretty collection of thatched farm buildings ? these are still common sights in parts of England. Most people will agree that the thatched roof is an essential part of the attraction of the English countryside.

Thatching is in fact the oldest of all the building crafts practiced in the British Isles (d^ffcilli S). Although thatch has always been used for cottage and farm buildings, it was once used for castles and churches, too.

Thatching is a solitary ($£ § (ft) craft, which often runs in families. The craft of thatching as it is practiced today has changed very little since the Middle Ages. Over 800 full-time matchers are employed in England and Wales today, maintaining and renewing the old roofs as well as thatching newer houses. Many property owners choose thatch not only for its beauty but because they know it will keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.

In fact, if we look at developing countries, over half the world lives under thatch, but they all do it in different ways. People in developing countries are often reluctant to go back to traditional materials and would prefer modem buildings. However, they may lack the money to allow them to import the necessary materials. Their temporary mud huts with thatched roofs of wild grasses often only last six months. Thatch which has been done the British way lasts from twenty to sixty years, and is an effective defiance against the heat.

I think the following would be generally accepted.

First, the teacher's personality should be lively and attractive. This does not rule out people who are plain looking, or even ugly, because many such people have great personal charm. But it does rule out such types as the over-excitable, sad, cold, and frustrated.

Secondly, it is not merely desirable but essential for a teacher to have a genuine capacity for sympathy, a capacity to understand the minds and feelings of other people, especially, since most teachers are school teachers, the minds and feelings of children. Closely related with this is the capacity to be tolerant — not, indeed, of what is wrong, but of the weaknesses and immaturity of human nature which inducepeople, and again especially children, to make mistakes.

Thirdly, I hold it essential for a teacher to be both intellectually and morally honest. This means that he will be aware of his intellectual strengths and limitations, and will have thought about and decided upon the moral principles by which his life shall be guided. There is no contradiction in my going on to say that a teacher should be a bit of an actor. That is part of the technique of teaching, which demands that every now and then a teacher should be able to put on an act to enliven (lE^z^j) a lesson, correct a fault, or award praise. Children, especially young children, live in a world that is rather larger than life.

A teacher must be capable of infinite patience. This, I may say, is largely a matter of self-discipline

and self-training, for we are none of us born like that.

Finally, I think a teacher should have the kind of mind which always wants to go on learning. Teaching is a job at which one will never be perfect; there is always something more to learn about it. There are three principal objects of study: the subjects which the teacher is teaching; the methods by which the subjects can best be taught to the particular pupils in the classes he is teaching; and — by far the most important — the children, young people, or adults to whom the subjects are to be taught. The two fundamental principles of British education today are that education is education of the whole person, and that it is best acquired through full and active co-operation between two persons, the teacher and the learner.