You are here

Features

Features section

Da Vinci sold for $450m is headed to Louvre Abu Dhabi

By - Dec 10,2017 - Last updated at Dec 10,2017

ABU DHABI — “Salvator Mundi”, a painting of Christ by Leonardo Da Vinci that recently sold for a record $450 million, is heading to the Louvre Abu Dhabi in a coup for the bold new museum, it announced on Wednesday.

The move became possible after a little-known Saudi prince reportedly bought the painting last month.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first museum to bear the Louvre name outside France, has been billed as “the first universal museum in the Arab world,” in a sign of the oil-rich emirate’s global ambitions.

“Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi is coming to #LouvreAbuDhabi,” the museum said on Twitter in Arabic, English and French.

The post displayed an image of the 500-year-old work but did not identify its owner.

Auction house Christie’s has also steadfastly declined to identify the buyer, whose purchase in New York for $450.3 million stunned the art world.

“Congratulations,” Christie’s said in a tweeted reply to the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The New York Times on Wednesday, citing documents it reviewed, identified the buyer as Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bader Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Farhan Al Saud, whose country forbids the official worship of Christ or any other religion except Islam.

Prince Bader has no history as a major art collector but is a friend and associate of Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the Times said.

Prince Mohammed, in turn, has been called an admirer of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The French weekly le Journal du Dimanche earlier reported that two investment firms were behind the painting’s purchase as part of a financial arrangement involving several museums.

The newspaper said that the work will be lent or resold to museums, largely in the Middle East and Asia.

Prince Bader is listed as a director of Houston-based Energy Holdings International, Inc.

The firm’s website describes him as “one of Saudi Arabia’s youngest” entrepreneurs, present in sectors including real estate, telecommunications and recycling.

The sale more than doubled the previous record of $179.4 million paid for Pablo Picasso’s “The Women of Algiers (Version O)” in 2015, also in New York.

 

High ambitions in Abu Dhabi

 

The Louvre Abu Dhabi opened on November 8 in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron, who described the new museum as a “bridge between civilisations”.

It is the first of three museums slated to open on the emirate’s Saadiyat Island, with plans also in place for an edition of New York’s Guggenheim.

The island will also feature the Zayed National Museum, which had signed a loan deal with the British Museum — although the arrangement has come increasingly into question due to construction delays.

Featuring a vast silver-toned dome, the Louvre Abu Dhabi was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, drawing inspiration from Arab design and evoking both an open desert and the sea.

The museum opened with about 600 pieces including items from early Mesopotamia. Under a 30-year agreement, France provides expertise, lends works of art and organises exhibitions in return for one billion euros ($1.16 billion).

The first works on loan from the Louvre in Paris include another painting by Da Vinci — “La Belle Ferronniere”, one of his portraits of women.

 

Recently authenticated

 

“Salvator Mundi”, which means “Saviour of the World”, went on public display in 2011 in a dramatic unveiling at The National Gallery in London, where the work was declared to be the first newly discovered Da Vinci painting in a century.

It is one of fewer than 20 paintings generally accepted as being from the Renaissance master’s own hand, according to Christie’s.

It had sold for a mere £45 in 1958, when the painting was thought to have been a copy, and was lost until it resurfaced at a regional auction in 2005.

Its latest sale was initiated by Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev, the boss of football club AS Monaco.

 

He had bought the painting in 2013 for $127.5 million although he later accused a Swiss art dealer of overcharging him.

Are Earthlings alone? Half of humans believe in alien life

By - Dec 10,2017 - Last updated at Dec 10,2017

Photo courtesy of community.tulpa.info

AMSTERDAM — Nearly half of humans believe in alien life and want to make contact, a survey in 24 countries has found, in what researchers said helps to explain the lasting popularity of the “Star Wars” franchise 40 years after the first movie was screened.

On the eve of the release of “The Last Jedi”, researchers published findings that 47 per cent of more than 26,000 respondents believe “in the existence of intelligent alien civilisations in the universe”.

An even greater 61 per cent said “yes” when asked if they believe in “some form of life on other planets”. Roughly a quarter said they do not believe intelligent life exists beyond Earth, researchers at Glocalities said.

Among those who believe we are not alone in the universe, 60 per cent said we should try to seek contact with alien civilisations, it found.

It was not the first survey to collect views on extraterrestrial beings — questionnaires in Germany, Britain and the United States have found similar rates — but researchers said this was the largest poll of its kind with such global reach.

“The high score on the belief in the existence of intelligent alien civilisations and the distinct profile of these people partly explains the immense popularity of space movies such as Star Wars,” said research director Martijn Lampert.

“People who believe in the existence of intelligent alien civilisations are not a marginal minority,” he said.

The most believers in intelligent alien life were in Russia, at 68 per cent, trailed closely by Mexico and China, with the down-to-earth Dutch bottoming out the list at 28 per cent, the poll found.

The interviews were conducted in 15 languages between December 2015 and February 2016 in countries representing 62 per cent of the world’s population and 80 per cent of the global economy.

 

“The Last Jedi,” the eighth instalment of the blockbuster “Star Wars” series, debuts in theatres next week.

Kids who get moving may also get better grades

By - Dec 09,2017 - Last updated at Dec 10,2017

Photo courtesy of pinterest.com

Students who get extra physical activity may pay more attention in school and do better in subjects like reading and math, a research review suggests.

The study team analysed data from 26 previously published studies with a total of more than 10,000 children between 4 and 13 years old. All of the prior studies measured the impact of a variety of physical activity programmes on academic performance.

The authors also looked at whether the effect of exercise differed across academic subjects. Although the benefit of physical activity was strongest for mathematics, it was only slightly smaller for other subjects like language and reading, meaning that physical activity benefits learning in all academic subjects.

“Exercise influences the brain by increasing cerebral blood flow, which increases the supply of oxygen and nutrients and promotes blood capillaries formation, increases the neuronal connectivity through the promotion of the synaptogenesis and the availability of neurotransmitters,” said study coauthor Ivan Cavero Redondo of Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Cuenca, Spain.

“Beyond the neurobiological explanations, exercise includes an important social component that fosters its benefits on mental health,” Redondo said by e-mail.

At a time when many schools struggle to set aside time for gym classes amid a push to raise test scores by devoting more time to academics, the findings offer fresh evidence that physical activity is one way to help boost kids’ grades.

When kids take time out of the school day for physical activity, whether in dedicated gym classes or by incorporating movement into classroom lessons, students may have an easier time focusing on their classwork and do better in school, Redondo said.

Overall, physical activity appeared to have the biggest impact on keeping kids on task and focused on their work, the study found. Students who participated in various experimental exercise programmes also did better at math, reading and language lessons than their peers who did not participate in these programmes.

Exercise had a bigger impact on school performance when it was incorporated into the school day than when it was added as an extracurricular activity, researchers report in Pediatrics.

The experimental exercise programmes tested in the smaller studies increased physical activity time from 10 minutes to 60 minutes per day.

Sometimes these programmes expanded recess, while in other instances the added activity was achieved with after-school sports or creating active breaks between lessons during the school day.

One limitation of the study was that researchers lacked enough data from a large enough group of participants to determine which types of physical activity interventions might have the biggest impact on academics and school achievement, the authors note.

Even so, the analysis offers convincing evidence that physical activity can enhance children’s reading and math skills, said Sara Benjamin Neelon, a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore who was not involved in the study.

“Schools need to get on board and prioritise active time for children both during and after the school day,” Benjamin Neelon said by e-mail. “Kids spend a large portion of their waking hours at school and should spend at least part of that time being physically active.”

Physical activity may help kids do better in school by improving behaviour, memory and cognitive function, said Jordan Carlson, a researcher at Children’s Mercy Kansas City who was not involved in the study.

“A substantial amount of evidence shows that physical activity improves kids’ attention and behaviour in the classroom and reduces classroom disruptions,” Carlson said by e-mail. “Kids have an internal drive to be physically active, and inhibiting their need to be physically active during school can lead to behavioural problems.”

Because kids often get too little exercise time during the school day, parents need to provide these opportunities outside of school, Carlson added.

 

“However, the beneficial effect of physical activity on academic achievement appears to be specific to school-based physical activity,” Carlson said. “Parents should talk with their children, teachers, and administrators about opportunities for physical activity at school.”

Brits care more about dancing and dragons than Brexit in 2017

By - Dec 08,2017 - Last updated at Dec 08,2017

Photo courtesy of makeuseof.com

Annual search results show how Brits kept calm and carried on; 17 per cent more Strictly Come Dancing-related searches than Brexit; 24 per cent more Game of Thrones-related searches than Brexit; 78 per cent more searches for “BBC weather” than all those related to Trump

Separation from the European Union and perceived nuclear threats may have dominated headlines in 2017, however, Brits appear to have been more interested in the outcome of their favourite television programmes, according to new data from Bing.com.

Microsoft’s search engine analysed some of the most popular terms and related queries in 2017 in an effort to understand where people’s interests and concerns lay. The results show that there were 17 per cent more Strictly Come Dancing-related searches than those linked to Brexit. Game of Thrones-related searches were even higher — there were 24 per cent more queries related to the fantasy show than Brexit.

There were also twice as many searches for “fidget spinner” than “Brexit”. “We have well and truly observed the repercussions of last year’s elections and events. In some ways the resulting headlines made this year feel hyper-real, but the data does show that in 2017 we have kept calm and carried on,” said Kevin Stagg, head of Marketing at Bing.

Celebrities 2017: Kim still the queen of the Internet While Britain — and the world — recently celebrated a royal engagement, Kim Kardashian proved once again that she is the queen of the Internet, with more searches than most other celebrities. However it will remain to be seen whether Kim Kardashian’s 43 per cent lead on Meghan Markle in 2017 can be maintained next year as the Suits star prepares to wed Prince Harry. The Kardashian was also searched for almost four times the amount as her North Korean namesake — Kim Jong-un.

Royal watch 2017: Anniversary rekindles interest

 

Interest in the Royal family remained as strong as ever with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement, Kate Middleton announcing her third pregnancy and The Queen and Prince Philip celebrating 70 years of marriage. However, one of the year’s biggest royal events was “Princess Diana 20th anniversary”, which far exceeded most other searches in the category.

 

Politics 2017: More interest in the elements than the president

 

For every search related to Trump there were six related to the weather in the UK, suggesting Brits were more concerned about rain and sunshine than the US president’s comments or actions. Backing this is the fact that there were 78 per cent more searches for “BBC weather” than all searches related to Trump in 2017.

For those seeking to literally escape the year’s political storms with a holiday, Tenerife and Benidorm received the most weather-related searches.

Turning to local politics, “Jeremy Corbyn” was searched for more than “Theresa May”, but when it comes to related searches such as “Theresa May Priti Patel”, May had more than two and a half times the volume of Corbyn, reflecting people’s interest in topics around the prime minister.

Finally, fads out-ranked foreign affairs, with seven times the queries made for fidget spinners than Putin.

 

Tech 2017: Cab concern outweighs cyber fears

 

The attention of the British people when it comes to technology is clear, with 17 per cent more searches related to Uber’s London licence ban than that for the NHS cyber attack — this is despite the former being specific to London commuters, and the latter a national issue that sparked a global fear.

 

Entertainment 2017: Fans look back and forward

 

Game of Thrones and Strictly Come Dancing were by far the UK’s most searched-for TV programmes. There were almost twice as many searches for GoT topics than there were for Love Island.

Bake Off unfortunately failed to rise against its competitors. Not only did Strictly receive 16 times its search volume, almost one in every 10 of the cooking programme’s searches was about judge Prue Leigh accidently revealing the winner via Twitter.

Amongst the top 10 Game of Thrones-related searches were “Game of Thrones season 1” and “Game of Thrones final season 2019”, suggesting that there was a mix of people both looking to catch up on the fantasy series, and waiting in anticipation for its conclusion.

 

Sport 2017: The fight for search supremacy

 

Despite the huge interest in the Mayweather vs McGregor fight, Anthony Joshua was decisively the most searched-for UK fighter, with more than double the search traffic going to the Watford-born heavyweight champion than the Irish mixed martial artist. Joshua also fought off those outside the ring, with almost two-and-a-half times the traffic of British racing driver, Lewis Hamilton, and more than four times that relating to Mo Farah who this year ran and won his last ever professional race.

Without the Olympics or other global sporting events all eyes turned to Prince Harry’s Invictus Games. However the public’s gaze was not on the field, but the stands, with “Meghan Markle Invictus games” winning 39 per cent of the event’s searches.

Top searched Celebrities were: 1. Kim Kardashian 2. Meghan Markle 3. Taylor Swift 4. Cheryl Cole 5. Holly Willoughby 6. Kylie Jenner 7. Beyonce 8. Lewis Hamilton 9. Liam Payne 10. George Clooney

Top searched on Brexit: 1. Brexit 2. Brexit news 3. Brexit latest 4. Sadiq Khan on Brexit 5. Brexit Germany economy 6. Martin Selmayr Brexit stupid 7. Brexit latest news 8. Brexit Andrea Leadsom 9. Michael Bloomberg Brexit 10. Theresa May Brexit defeat

Top searched movies: 1. Beauty and the Beast 2. Dunkirk 3. La La Land 4. Despicable Me 3 5. Beauty and the Beast 2017 6. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 7. Dunkirk movie 2017 8. The Boss Baby 9. Spider-Man: Homecoming 10. Lego Batman

 

“The significant role that search plays in our lives reflects our natural curiosity about the world around us. Observing trends therefore reveals a lot about our culture and where we place our attention. Some of the insights may surprise but ultimately, they demonstrate the connections we seek with other people, events, and generally the world around us,” said Kevin Stagg, head of Marketing at Bing.

Home births in rural areas just as safe as in cities

By - Dec 07,2017 - Last updated at Dec 08,2017

Photo courtesy of rollercoaster.ie

Home births may not be more dangerous for healthy rural mothers than for their urban counterparts, a recent US study suggests.

The 18,723 pregnant women in the study all had a low risk of complications, were being cared for by midwives, and planned to deliver their babies at home or in birthing centres. Once researchers adjusted for patient characteristics that can influence birth outcomes for mothers and babies, they did not find the odds of complications any higher for rural than for urban women.

“With rural healthcare provider shortages rural hospital closures and greater travel distances, it could be expected that there would be an increased time to seek emergency backup care that would result in poorer outcomes,” said lead study author Elizabeth Nethery, a researcher at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

“What we found instead is that rural women and their babies do not appear to have any added risks when planning a birth at home or in a birthing centre compared with non-rural women,” Nethery said by e-mail.

About 22 per cent of women in the US live in rural areas with very limited access to obstetric care, researchers note in Birth. Despite declines in hospital-based obstetric services, however, midwifery care at home and in freestanding birthing centres is available in many rural communities.

The current study is the first to look at risks for rural versus urban women who give birth at home or in freestanding birthing centres in the US, Nethery said.

Overall, about 95 per cent of rural mothers and 94 per cent of urban mothers in the study had a normal spontaneous vaginal delivery, the study found.

There was not a meaningful difference in the proportion of women who had vaginal deliveries aided by instruments like forceps or a vacuum.

Almost 5 per cent of urban mothers had surgical cesarean section deliveries, compared with less than 4 per cent of rural mothers, a difference that was small but statistically meaningful.

In cities, women were also slightly more likely to have serious tearing during delivery or require a transfer to a hospital for more involved medical care. Babies were also more likely stay in the neonatal intensive care unit after urban births.

Limitations of the study include the reliance on women’s residential zip codes to decide whether they lived in an urban or rural area, and to estimate how far they might need to travel to a hospital in an emergency, the authors note. In some cases this estimate might not be accurate.

The study was also too small to detect slight but clinically meaningful differences in the chances of rare neonatal complications, the authors note.

Even so, the findings should reassure women that a home birth or birthing centre delivery does not need to come with any extra risk of complications, as long as women are appropriately screened for any medical issues that would make a hospital delivery the safer choice, said Erin Wright, a midwife and researcher at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore who was not involved in the study.

 

“There is a generalised myth about rural communities that tells us that often care is not at the standard in some areas as opposed to urban areas which tend to have a large number of teaching hospitals,” Wright said by e-mail. “This study, specific to these conditions, dispels that myth.”

Did smartphones wipe out boredom?

By - Dec 07,2017 - Last updated at Dec 07,2017

Smartphones have become the ultimate attached toy and have made it impossible to get bored.

Who does not pull out their smartphone to pass the time while waiting at the doctor, at the bank, for their kids at school, in an airport lounge to board a plane, at the car wash, and in countless situations where there would not be much to do without the magical device, the magical wand should I say?

Of course you could always read a book or a printed newspaper, or chat with the human being sitting or standing next to you, but this would not be half as much fun, would it? In the best case it would be so passé.

The habit has become so strong that even a few seconds waiting at the traffic light when driving are sometimes spent playing with the handset. Playing ranges from checking the weather (when it is plain to see it is not raining outside), taking a glance at your Facebook page, browsing the web for breaking news, checking Whatsapp threads or even — definitely not recommended — typing a text message.

By constantly teasing our mind, by permanently keeping us on high alert smartphones do not leave room for one of the most critical, most essential activities — or rather non-activity — of the human race: relaxing, doing nothing, daydreaming, or as the beautiful Italian idiom goes, the farniente.

The question is: “Is wiping out boredom completely a good thing?”

Even outdoor sport clubs and swimming pools make it a point to provide their members with a good WiFi coverage these days, so as never to leave anyone without a good 3G or 4G signal one single minute. No one should be surprised if Internet operators manage to give us WiFi signal coverage underwater one day, to allow us to enjoy our dear smartphones while doing swimming laps.

Besides, several high-end smartphones models already are certified as being completely waterproof and can sustain several minutes underwater. Why not then make the best of their capability?

The web and the social media are crowded with hilarious cartoons illustrating the concept: people looking at their phones everywhere, every second, with no respite at all. With smartphones it’s a “never a dull moment” guaranteed.

A while ago a cartoon was circulating on the web showing teenagers standing by the Mona Lisa painting at the Louvre museum in Paris, with all of them staring at their smartphone screen and no one looking at what is probably the world’s most famous painting. Someone who wanted to have a positive attitude commented “Don’t blame them, they are well read-kids, they actually must be Googling information about the painter’s life...!”

The addiction to smartphones is so widely spread now, so intense, so present among us that there must be thousands of academic social studies about the subject. However, being addicted to using them, to do work or to communicate when there is a real need to is one thing, and not being able to let go of them for a few minutes even if there is no specific need, just because we are waiting for something, is another.

 

On a recent visit to my physician I noticed that the usual pile of magazines on the waiting room table was gone. Just looking at what the patients waiting here with me were doing made me suddenly understand why.

How parents behave is linked to suicide risk

By - Dec 06,2017 - Last updated at Dec 06,2017

photo courtesy of carers.net.nz

MIAMI — Adolescents who feel their parents rarely express interest in their emotional well-being are far more likely to consider suicide than youths who see their parents as involved, US researchers said on Tuesday.

The findings by the University of Cincinnati come as the suicide rate among teenagers rises in the United States, adding to concern among parents, educators and health experts.

In the past month alone, a 10-year-old girl in Colorado and a 13-year-old in California hanged themselves. Their parents say bullying at school contributed to the girls’ deaths.

“Parents ask us all the time, ‘What can we do?’” said Keith King, who coordinates the University of Cincinnati’s health promotion and education doctoral programme.

“Kids need to know that someone’s got their back, and unfortunately, many of them do not. That’s a major problem.”

King and his colleague, Rebecca Vidourek, based their findings on a 2012 national survey of people 12 and older that revealed a significant link between parental behaviours and thoughts of suicide among adolescents.

They found that those most affected by parenting behaviors were 12- and 13-year-olds.

Children in this age group who said their parents rarely or never told them they were proud of them were nearly five times more likely to have suicidal thoughts, said the researchers.

They were also nearly seven times more likely to formulate a suicide plan and about seven times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers.

An unusually high risk of suicide was also seen in 12- and 13-year-olds whose parents rarely or never told them they did a good job or helped them with their homework.

Among older teens, aged 16 and 17, those who said their parents rarely or never said they were proud of them were three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts — almost four times more likely to make a suicide plan and attempt suicide — than peers whose parents sometimes or often expressed pride in their children.

 

‘Positively connected’

 

Researchers acknowledged that the survey was based on youths’ perceptions of their parents behaviour, and that some parents may disagree with how their children responded.

“Youth perceptions are extremely important to suicidal ideation and attempts,” King told AFP in an e-mail.

“Sometimes parents think they are involved, but from the perspective of the adolescent, they are not.”

Some ways for parents to protect against suicide include “direct communication and direct interactions that are authoritative in nature between the parent[s] and the adolescent”, he added.

Teens may also be more likely to try drugs or risky sexual behaviour if parents are not adequately engaged, King said.

“A key is to ensure that children feel positively connected to their parents and family,” said Vidourek, who serves as co-director of the Centre for Prevention Science, along with King.

The study did not delve into completion of suicide by teenagers, but whether they harboured suicidal thoughts, made plans or had attempted to take their own lives.

A report by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year found that the suicide rate among teen girls doubled from 2007 to 2015, and rose 30 per cent among boys.

About 5,900 youths between the ages of 10 and 24 committed suicide in the United States in 2015, according to government figures.

Experts say a range of factors contribute to suicide risk, including depression and mental health, negative influences on social media, bullying, financial struggles and exposure to violence.

King said certain basic parental behaviours may help.

“You can tell them you’re proud of them, that they did a good job, get involved with them and help them with their homework,” said King.

 

The research was presented at this year’s American Public Health Association conference in Atlanta.

Google maps

By - Dec 06,2017 - Last updated at Dec 06,2017

For those of us who managed to get the hang of it, Google maps are a technological boon that have been gifted to all drivers. They give you direction, to go from one place to another, however alien the terrain, in a clear and concise manner. 

Its website claims that it offers satellite imagery, street maps, 360 degree panoramic views of the lanes, real time traffic conditions and route planning for travelling by foot, car, bicycle or public transportation. The reasoning for all this excess of information is that if you apply it, there is no chance of you getting lost. Ever! 

Well, in real life that is not true because people who are constrained by a lack of navigational skill, continue to wander around in circles. Even the robotic programmed voice gives up on them after a certain point. In such a scenario, the only thing that works is stopping the car and asking somebody for directions. 

Now, this was easily done when I drove on my own because there were endless people who offered to help. Some of them went out of their way by volunteering to have me follow their car till my destination was reached. If they could not accompany me, they took my phone number and called me later to find out if I had arrived safely. The kindness of strangers was simply awe inspiring. 

My brothers, who taught me how to drive, insisted that this was the best strategy to use if I ever got lost. More than three decades ago there were no GPS or Google maps anyway, and most of the time one had to follow one’s instincts. The streets were also not so clearly marked and the landmarks were not static but in a continuous state of motion. For instance, if on a given day there was a cow sitting at the crossing from where you were asked to turn, the next day the same spot would be acquired by a herd of sheep.

But in all this, the curious thing was that both my siblings never asked for assistance from anybody even if they were clueless of their whereabouts. They drove around aimlessly till the right path materialised miraculously. And if someone was unfortunate enough to ask them for directions, they almost always sent them on a wild goose chase. 

It bothered me to witness this but they guffawed at my expense and thought it was hilariously funny to despatch unknown people in a fruitless search. If I corrected them I was asked to hush up or they would label me a spoilsport and a sissy. As we all know, at that age there was nothing worse than being called a coward. 

I cannot remember at which juncture I started to mimic their mannerism. It came upon me gradually since not many folks requested a woman for street guidance. On my part, I discovered that I liked to direct strangers because they listened to me with complete attention. So sometimes if I did not know precisely where they wanted to go, I guided them to another place anyway. 

“Why did you send them straight? Walmart is on the left,” my husband exclaimed recently. 

“They asked me, not you,” I replied. 

“And I said go right and then straight,” I clarified. 

“But that is the wrong direction,” my spouse was horrified. 

“Maybe,” I giggled. 

“You stated it with such authority,” he noted. 

 

“Runs in the family,” I laughed.

Climate change: can hummingbirds take the heat?

By - Dec 06,2017 - Last updated at Dec 06,2017

Photo courtesy of www.thespruce.com

 

PARIS — Extreme heat sometimes forces hummingbirds to seek shade instead of foraging for food, researchers said on Wednesday, warning that global warming could test the tiny birds' capacity to adapt. 

With hearts beating more than 1,000 times a minute, hummingbirds need to feed constantly, which means they can ill afford to spend time dodging sunshine, according to a report in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"They cannot go without eating for even a part of the day," said lead author Donald Powers, a professor at George Fox University in Oregon. 

"When temperatures get hot, hummingbirds remove themselves from extended direct exposure to the sun for protection," he told AFP. 

"Climate change might make body-temperature maintenance increasingly difficult."

Even their sex lives could suffer — observation during breeding season suggested a disruption of their ability to interact socially.

"It is possible that higher temperature could impact reproduction," Powers said.

The cascading effects of global warming even extend to the plants upon which hummingbirds depend for both sustenance and shade.

If the mostly tropical birds move to higher ground or cooler climes in response to climate change — as many species already have — the flowers from which they draw nectar may no longer be as abundant.

"The problem with rapid shifts in distribution is that the birds can move more quickly than the plants," Powers said.

One of nature's crown jewels, more than 300 species of hummingbirds are found throughout the Western hemisphere. 

On average, they consume half their weight in sugar water every day.

 

Nightime threat 

 

The smallest, the bee hummingbird of Cuba, measures barely six centimetres from beak to tail, and could perch comfortably on the tip of a person's little finger. 

In the study, Powers and his colleagues used infrared thermal imaging to explore how the birds — which flap their minuscule wings 50 to 200 times a second — evacuate body heat at different temperatures. 

They also observed how, in the wild and the lab, hummingbird behaviour changed when things got hot.

"I recall one day last year at one of our Chiricahua Mountain study sites [in Arizona] when temperature exceeded 44ºC for an extended period, and the birds were clearly struggling," Powers said.

Climate change may pose a threat to hummingbirds at night as well.

To conserve energy, most hummingbirds slip — for at least a couple of hours each night — into a state called torpor, during which their body temperature plunges by 50 to 75 per cent.

If nights are warmer than usual, it limits how much energy the birds can save.

"Climate predictions are for nighttime temperatures to warm faster than daytime temperatures," notes Powers, who said he would soon publish a study focusing on this. 

To "awaken" from torpor, a hummingbird vibrates its wing muscles — something like shivering — to warm its blood by several degrees a minute.

 

Hummingbirds are ready for action well before dawn, evidence that the process is governed by their internal, or circadian, clock.

‘Coco’ repeats as box office winner with $26.1m

By - Dec 05,2017 - Last updated at Dec 05,2017

Photo courtesy of imdb.com

LOS ANGELES — Disney-Pixar’s animated comedy “Coco” easily repeated as the winner of the North American box office with a solid $26.1 million at 3,987 locations during a moderate weekend.

The third weekend of Warner Bros.-DC Entertainment’s “Justice League” finished second with $16.7 million at 3,820 sites, with the superhero tentpole dropping 60 per cent.

Lionsgate’s “Wonder” continued to perform well with $12.5 million at 3,449 venues to come in third followed by Disney-Marvel’s fifth frame of “Thor: Ragnarok” with $9.7 million at 3,148 sites, the fourth weekend of Paramount’s “Daddy’s Home 2” with $7 million at 3,403 venues and Fox’s fourth weekend of “Murder on the Orient Express” with $6.7 million at 3,201 screens.

Awards contenders “Lady Bird” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” tied for seventh place with $4.5 million each. A24’s “Lady Bird” expanded by 403 sites to 1,194 and Fox Searchlight’s “Three Billboards” doubled its run to 1,430 screens.

The major studios opted to rely on holdovers during the session and held off on any wide openings. A24 generated strong performance from its limited launch of James Franco’s “The Disaster Artist” with $1.2 million at 19 locations for a $64,254 per screen average. Fox Searchlight’s “The Shape of Water” saw an impressive $166,800 at two theaters and Woody Allen’s “Wonder Wheel” debuted with a solid $140,555 at five sites through Amazon.

Sony Classics’ second weekend of “Call Me By Your Name” posted a stellar $281,280 at four screens for a 10-day total of $908,175. It won best feature at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 27.

“Coco” has now taken in $108.7 million in its first 12 days following a 47 per cent decline from its opening. The film, based on the traditions surrounding the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico, centres on a 12-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a musician. The film has been embraced by critics with a 97 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney’s “Moana” performed slightly better during the same period last year with $119.8 million after 12 days.

The studio has not released a price for “Coco”. Disney-Pixar titles are usually budgeted in the $175 million to $200 million range.

“Justice League” has finished its first 17 days with $197.3 million domestically. The movie, which teams up the DC charactersw in the same manner as Disney-Marvel’s superheroes, is the 10th highest-grossing title released in 2017. It has been the lowest performer among the five films in the DC Extended Universe, with “Wonder Woman” grossing $275.1 million in its first 17 days in June and “Suicide Squad” taking in $262.4 million in its first 17 days last year.

Gal Gadot stars as Wonder Woman along with Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as the Flash, and Ray Fisher as Cyborg as the superheroes team up to save the world. Warner Bros. has not disclosed the production cost, which is believed to be as much as $300 million.

“Justice League” also grossed $35.7 million on approximately 20,375 screens in 66 international markets, bringing the overseas total to $370.1 million and the global total $567.4 million.

Overall domestic moviegoing totalled $104 million, up $8 million from the same frame in 2016 and the biggest post-Thanksgiving weekend in five years, according to comScore.

“The biggest post-thanksgiving weekend since 2012 proves that there was no need for a wide release newcomer to drive large numbers of moviegoers to the multiplex that is already chock full of appealing titles from both the blockbuster side of the ledger and awards season favourites,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore.

 

Year-to-date domestic box office is down 3.9 per cent to $9.86 billion as of Sunday, according to comScore. Even with a blockbuster performance by Disney-Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”, which opens December 15, the final 2017 box office number is likely to finish at least 2 per cent down at the end of the year.

Pages

Pages



Newsletter

Get top stories and blog posts emailed to you each day.

PDF