Happiness Life

Elephants move like a 4x4 vehicle with all four legs used to accelerate and brake rather than the "rear-wheel" drive and "front-wheel" braking of other animals.

Scientists have discovered that elephants have eliminated the separation of functions of the front and back legs despite having an anatomy very similar to other four-legged animals.

"It's a surprise finding because no one thought that animals would operate in this way. Most four-legged animals are 'rear-wheel' drive, but elephants are clearly four-wheel drive," said John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College in London, who led the study into elephantine motion.

"We have developed some new techniques for looking at animal movement that may change the way that we view the locomotion of other animals. We have shown that elephant legs function in a very strange and probably unique ways," Dr Hutchinson said.

The study, which monitored the pressure forces on the ground produced by an elephant's limbs, was based on the locomotion of six captive Indian elephants captured on video camera. It found that an elephant's legs produce slightly "bouncy" movements to aid fast walking and running where at least one, and usually two legs are always planted firmly on the ground.

It was thought that elephants had "pillar-like" legs that are very rigid and strong in order to support their weight. However, the scientists found that in fact elephants have quite flexible legs that, compared to other animals, produce a relatively small leverage (a measure of how much force is exerted by the muscles) – which is between two and three times smaller than researchers had predicted.

"Their anatomy is like that of other animals, with the same basic arrangement of limb muscles, so there was no hint that they were using their limbs and muscles differently to other animals," Dr Hutchinson said.

All four-legged animals, from cats to horses, tend to use their back legs for acceleration and their front legs for slowing down and stopping, which appears to make elephants unique. The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Orang-utans communicate intelligently using gestures, researchers have found.

British scientists who spent nine months observing the great apes in three European zoos identified 40 frequently used body language signals. These were employed repeatedly to send messages such as "I want to play", "give it to me", "go away", "follow me", or "stop doing that".

"Play" gestures involved a range of clowning antics, including back rolls, placing objects on the head, and blowing raspberries.

"Nudge and shoo" movements meant an ape wanted to be left alone, while a hand to mouth "begging" gesture requested food.

Other gestures included hitting the ground, hair pulling, biting the air and grabbing.

This was the first study of great ape body language to focus on the intentional meanings of specific gestures. Two scientists from the University of St Andrews observed 28 orang-utans at Twycross Zoo in the UK, Apenheul Primate Park in the Netherlands, and the Durrell trust in Jersey. Their study is reported in the journal Animal Cognition.

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When you hear see word "organic", do you struggle to stifle a yawn? Do you automatically think of sandal-wearing Morris dancers from Dorset? "Maybe we've got food labelling wrong," says Kate Humble, the Springwatch presenter. "Perhaps if we had a 'wildlife-unfriendly' label for milk from intensively-farmed cows, people would think harder about food choices."

On behalf of the Organic Milk Cooperative, Humble is urging milk drinkers to break the habits of a lifetime and go organic. "As a nation we are often guilty of shopping on autopilot," she says. "We don't often relate the process of milk production with the pints we put in the supermarket trolley." Maybe we should develop a kind of check-out conscience and think about the larks and buttercups before the bar coder starts to ping. If just 5 per cent of us switched to buying organic milk, says Humble, it would turn 52,000 acres – an area the size of Greater Birmingham – into organic land. For an extra pound a week we would get healthier milk, happier cows, more wildlife and a prettier countryside. Not a bad deal.

Organic farming means producing food without the benefit of artificial chemicals – the factory-processed fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics on which most conventional farms rely. The movement took off in the 1990s on the back of a greater public awareness of environmental concerns, and was helped on the way by food health scares such as BSE. Today about 743,000 hectares, representing 4.3 per cent of agricultural land in Britain, is farmed organically. The industry is still expanding, albeit slowly. Organic farmland has increased by 9 per cent on last year.
Of course the business of any working farm, organic or not, is growing food, not accommodating wildlife. You can farm with nature without necessarily having much nature to show for it. Nonetheless Pensthorpe in Norfolk, where some of this year's Springwatch programmes will be filmed, is a pretty convincing argument for wildlife-friendly farming. "It's a perfect place," says Humble, "a kind of nature reserve that earns its keep." Between the fields that supply grain for Jordans Cereals, there are well-managed hedges, plenty of trees and broad field margins. "It's a microcosm of Britain's wildlife all in one spot," she adds.

Children on "hedgerow safaris" can see frogs and toads, rabbits, find nut shells variously chewed by voles and wood mice, and hear the music of songbirds that has been lost from all too many farms. It is the kind of place where, if you are lucky, you can catch the cows making a humming noise that sounds like contentment.

Fast forward to the other big news from the dairying world, the "super scary dairy" at Nocton in Lincolnshire. Three farmers have submitted a joint application to build Britain's biggest dairy farm, described as "a flagship for the next generation of the UK dairy industry". Situated on the super-fertile arable plains of Lincolnshire it will house 8,100 dairy cows producing a staggering quarter million litres of milk every day. The animals will live inside colossal modern sheds with state-of-the-art technology to speed the milk on its way to market.

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"Sticks and stones may break my bones – but names will never hurt me." I was reminded of the highly sensible old saying when I read about the typically level-headed and well-modulated attack on First Française Carla Bruni and the actress Isabelle Adjani for daring to add their voices to the international protest against the proposed stoning to death of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, the 43-year-old mother-of-two accused of adultery, by the Iranian newspaper Kayhan.

This paragon of the free press is directly under the supervision of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and has its editor appointed by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khameini – and don't you just wish you could be a fly on the wall at one of their editorial meetings.

"That Carla Bruni – she says we shouldn't stone adulteresses to death."
"She must be a prostitute!"

"Yeah, and her Mum!"

"And that actress – Isabelle Adjani? She says it too."

"Right, that's it. She was in that film Ishtar, with that Zionist thug Dustin Hoffman – I hated that film! That's 103 minutes of my life I'll never get back again!"

"She's probably a prostitute too!"

"OK, there's our headline – FRENCH PROSTITUTES ENTER HUMAN RIGHTS PROTEST. Now, next up – who's the stunna getting stoned to death on Page 3 today?"

It's hard to believe that a regime can be both as evil and at the same time as babyish as that of the halfwits who run Iran, but let us not forget that these clowns also boast another newspaper, Hamshahri, which four years ago launched a Holocaust cartoon competition. "You're against stoning, you must be a prozzie!" seems an unbelievably low level of political discourse.

But when you consider that only three years ago an Islamic school in London was revealed by Newsnight to have school textbooks which, at one time, described Jews as apes and Christians as apes, dogs and pigs, it's actually rather sophisticated.

I must say that I was perplexed, though, by the reference to Mrs Sarkozy as a "hypocrite", while drawing ungentlemanly attention to her sexual generosity over the years. (Sexual charity, even, if you count Mick Jagger, who looks as if a very bored giant practised origami on his face for a very long time.)

Surely wishing women not to be put to death for committing adultery, if you are yourself a woman who has slept with married men, is the opposite of hypocrisy – ie, damn good sense? Surely a hypocrite would be a woman who had committed adultery yet wanted other women to be stoned to death for it?

Surely a good example of a hypocritical woman would be someone like the journalist Lauren Booth, who now she can no longer make a shilling from being related by marriage to Tony Blair works for the Iranian-funded television channel Press TV – headscarf and all! – and blithely ignores the savage state persecution of free-thinking women while having enjoyed fully all the freedoms the West has to offer. Her paymasters' primness is beginning to rub off on her – here she is serving it to Jennifer Aniston in a weekend tabloid: "Her character indulges in a threesome with two other women, sleeps around with numerous men and takes drugs. The former Friends star gets paid millions ... clearly, wearing nothing and behaving like a slut on screen is where the power lies in 2010 Hollywood.'

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Hundreds of thousands of children across central Africa are at risk of death from starvation and disease after flash flooding worsened an already chronic humanitarian crisis caused by drought.

Aid agencies warned yesterday that 10 million people are already facing severe food shortages, particularly in the landlocked countries of Chad and Niger, after a drought led to the failure of last year's crops. As many as 400,000 children are at risk of dying from starvation in Niger alone, according to Save the Children.

Now unusually heavy rains have washed away this year's crops and killed cattle in a region dependent on subsistence agriculture. Organisations including Oxfam and Save the Children say that the slow international response to the emergency means that only 40 per cent of those affected are receiving food aid. As many as four out of five children require treatment for malnutrition in clinics.
Such is the shortage of international aid that the United Nations World Food Programme has had to scale back its £57m operation to feed eight million people in Niger and instead concentrate its efforts on the most vulnerable – children under two – according to Oxfam.

Save the Children says the increased malnutrition rate could swiftly be followed by an increase in the number of children dying from disease because of floods in Niger caused by heavy rain over the past few weeks. "Stagnant pools of water have been contaminated by animal carcasses and are a breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. This has increased the threat of malaria, respiratory disease and diarrhoea – the biggest killers of young children," the organisation said.

"After six months without proper nutrition, these children have little resistance to disease," said Severine Courtiol, Save the Children's Niger manager. "There is little children can do to avoid coming into contact with this contaminated, disease-ridden floodwater. That's why it's critical we make sure they get enough food so they are strong enough to fight off and recover from sickness."

Robert Bailey, Oxfam's west Africa campaigns manager, said that some food was available in marketplaces in Niger, but was too expensive for ordinary households to afford. As a result, many were reduced to eating leaves and berries.

Chad and parts of Mali were also affected, he added. "The international donor response has been too little too late. We estimate that 7.9 million people are affected by food shortages in Niger, with only 40 per cent receiving international aid. The other 60 per cent are dependent on the government and NGOs [non-governmental organisations]. But the government has no food."

The crisis follows a similar emergency in Niger just five years ago. "The donors shouldn't now just pack up and go home," Mr Bailey said. "The food aid does nothing to address the ongoing vulnerability. The region continues to be exposed to this kind of emergency in the future. We are asking donors to stay and help with a transitional programme. These kinds of emergencies are insidious because they are slow burning, which means they don't have the same impact in the media as the floods in Pakistan or earthquake in Haiti, for example."

Save the Children added that last week 2,400 severely malnourished children under the age of five visited its clinics. This was up from 609 in the last week of January.

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Hong Kong locals take to the streets to show their anger after the Manila bus hostage crisis. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

An estimated 80,000 Hong Kongers marched today in honour of eight people killed in a bus hijacking in Manila, attacking the Philippine government for botching the rescue operation and demanding justice for the dead.

Former police officer Rolando Mendoza commandeered a Philippine tourist bus last week, hoping to reverse his recent dismissal from the force, on what he said were bogus robbery and extortion charges. In the ensuing 12-hour standoff, which was broadcast live on television, several children and elderly hostages were released, but eight tourists were killed, and a police sniper shot and killed Mendoza.

The bloody ending stunned Hong Kongers, who blasted Manila police for what they called an amateurish rescue attempt.

"Everyone saw how the Philippine government mishandled the situation before TV cameras and the chaos in the country. As a Chinese person, I need to demand justice," 49-year-old worker Andy Wong said at Sunday's protest.

Manila's police chief has taken leave and four leaders of the assault team were relieved pending an investigation. Officials have said the firearms used by 200 police commandos will be tested to see if any of the hostages were hit by police gunfire.

Philippine presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma said that his country respects the right of Hong Kongers to express their sentiments. He promised to announce the results of a "comprehensive, fair and accurate" investigation in three weeks.

Local Philippine activists organised an interfaith service in memory of the victims earlier on Sunday, where they lit eight candles – one for each victim.

"We ask the Hong Kong people who are watching not to blame us for what happened because we also did not want this kind of thing to happen," migrant worker Elma Oliva said.

Survivor Lee Ying-chuen, who along with her mother escaped with light injuries, said in an article in Ming Pao Daily News the tourists thought about subduing Mendoza, but never acted because he seemed friendly and promised to release his hostages.

"If we didn't wait for the police rescue operation and acted decisively, there might have been a different outcome. But the horrible thing is there are no 'ifs' in history," Lee wrote.

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The European Union will take a huge stride tomorrow towards freeing up the production of GM crops when the European commission proposes allowing national governments to make up their own minds on whether to permit their cultivation.

In a move which aims to resolve a 12-year deadlock that has resulted in a virtual freeze on the approval of GM farming, the commission will propose allowing pro-GM states such as Spain and the Netherlands to increase production, while also allowing others such as Germany and Austria to maintain restrictions.

The rare instance of Brussels handing back power to individual nations will likely present Britain's government with a delicate decision; caught between a robust GM industry lobby and a vocal protest movement.

While making it easier for states to ban GM crops, giving them the option of citing non-scientific grounds such as socio-economic or cultural reasons, Brussels is expecting a quid pro quo from opponents, that they will end what is seen as a strategy of stalling health and environmental approval by the EU.

"While it's up to member states to decide, we expect them to be more flexible from where they are now in terms of authorisation at the EU level," said one commission official.

GM cultivation in Europe has been in limbo since 1998, when a GM corn product developed by US giant Monsanto was approved, because of a deadlock between states that are for and against the biotechnology. The EU proposals are designed to appeal to both camps. On the one hand, they give anti-states broader rights to restrict GM crop cultivation on their own soil, in exchange for them softening their opposition to approval elsewhere. Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, and Luxembourg have banned cultivation; Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Britain are in favour.

"The momentous thing the commission is doing is a very simple addition to the [GM] legislation – one single article," said Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, of EuropaBio, the biotechnology lobbyists, "to allow an opt-out for political reasons".

"We hope this will break the deadlock over GM, but it's missing a defence of fundamental principles [of choice]. In some countries there might be more cultivation, but in many it will mean the end of the right of farmers to grow them at all."

Green groups are also opposed, but because they feel that the change "isn't worth the paper it's written on," according to Mute Schimps of Friends of the Earth Europe.

"It's going in two directions at the same time: ostensibly allowing more banning, but also easier authorisation at the EU level," she said.

"While the commission is seemingly offering countries the right to implement national bans, in reality the proposal does the opposite, opening Europe's fields to GM crops. Governments that try to ban GM crops in their countries will find the bans overturned in court by biotech lawyers due to the weak legal basis of this short-term proposal," she added.

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It happened 24 years ago and more than 1,300 miles away from the UK. But, for the sheep farmers of Scotland, the effects from the fallout from Chernobyl have only just ended.

An announcement that the industry is finally free of the radioactive material which forced many of its upland farms to be placed under Food Standards Agency (FSA) restrictions has been hailed as "a blessed relief". Some Scottish farmers have been unable to slaughter, sell or even move their livestock without stringent testing and government pre-approval for the past 24 years.

Many of the owners of the original 9,700 UK farms affected are, even now, reluctant to talk about their fight to survive in the aftermath of the 1986 disaster, because of the possible stigma attached. But one, Robert Morris-Eyton, 48, whose family has owned Beckside Farm on the Furness Peninsula for more than 50 years, told The Independent of the strains caused by restrictions he could not be sure would ever be lifted. "There was considerable uncertainty following the incident because we did not know when or even if we would be able to sell livestock again. It was a worrying time; the whole concept was new to us and it took a lot of adjustment on my farm. Imagine facing the possibility of your livelihood effectively being suspended," he said.

The FSA announced a couple of weeks ago that the last Scottish farm had been declared free of radioactive material. But in north Wales, 330 farms remain restricted, along with eight in Cumbria. Before farmers in restricted areas can sell or move any of their livestock, they must have each animal tested.

David Ellwood, 53, who owns Baskell Farm in western Cumbria, is still under FSA restrictions. "I was told they would only last a week, but 24 years later we are still dealing with it," he said. "It has been going on long enough now and really does seem ridiculous. The other farmers are tired of it, too. But I'm hopeful that because Scotland has had the restrictions lifted we will soon follow.

"It has been a real struggle for us because our daily lives are just that much harder; I can't take my sheep to auction as others can. Instead, I have to ring the FSA two or three days in advance. They take three readings of each sheep I want to take to auction, which seems excessive to me," he said.

Affected farmers are entitled to £1.30 compensation per sheep tested. "That payment was OK to begin with but, as the years went on, its value inevitably diminished. By now, it is worth a lot less," said Mr Morris-Eyton, adding: "There were those who thought that the threshold of radioactivity was set too low, but what could the FSA do? The paramount consideration is the safety of the public."

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Sponges bring back so many happy childhood memories – a Victoria sponge and butterfly cakes would be a regular weekly feature on my gran's gold trolley in her living room. I'm not quite sure what purpose the gold trolley served, except that it collected a hell of lot of dust and it also housed the sacred Victoria sponge in its plastic dome. Trolleys were common in the Sixties and Seventies, but you don't see many around these days; I guess many of them have ended up on eBay.

My gran was a bit of a dab hand at cakes and she was often asked to make and decorate cakes for the locals. Her delicious Victoria sponge always had butter cream (most probably made from margarine, I think) and jam and I always looked forward to finding a slice in my school lunch box and sharing the cake among my mates at lunchtime.

I was recently flicking through Fiona Cairns' new book Bake and Decorate and there were the recipes for Victoria sponge and the butterfly cakes, as well as many more inspirational recipes guaranteed to get you baking.
'Bake and Decorate' by Fiona Cairns is published by Quadrille, priced £19.99

Victoria sponge

This is Fiona Cairns' all-in-one version of the classic Victoria sponge and I must say it works a treat – but you must ensure the butter is very, very soft. You can vary the filling if you wish; try adding ingredients such as lemon or cocoa for a slightly different flavour.

175g unsalted butter, softened, plus a little more for greasing the tin
175g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
3 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
175g golden caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract

For the filling

150ml Jersey cream
4-5tbsp raspberry or strawberry jam
Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 175C/gas mark 4.

You can choose to cook this cake either in a 1 x 20cm sandwich tin or in 2 x 20cm sandwich tins; then line the bases with discs of baking parchment. If you just use 1 tin, line the sides with a 7cm-high collar of baking parchment as well, to allow for the rise. Grease the tin or tins.

For this batter, you can use an electric mixer and beater attachment; or use a food processor; or a bowl and an electric whisk if you want.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, then add the butter (in knobs), the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Beat together until thoroughly blended, taking care not to over-mix so you will have a light sponge. Scrape the batter into the tin or tins and level the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes if you are using 2 tins, or 30-35 minutes for 1 tin, until the cake springs back to the touch or a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and leave for a couple of minutes, then run a knife around the rim to loosen the cake from the tin and turn out on to a wire rack. Peel off the paper and leave until completely cool.

Lightly whip the cream until just thickened into soft peaks. If you have baked the cake in 1 tin, split in half horizontally with a serrated knife. Fill with jam and cream and sandwich together, with the cream forming the uppermost layer. If you have baked the cake in 2 tins, sandwich the flat bases together. Dust the top with icing sugar.

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For most of its existence, the experimental theatre company Elevator Repair Service (formed in New York in 1991) has used found texts and improvisation as the basis for its productions. "Anything that wasn't literature" says the group's founder and director John Collins.

Then in 2005 they made a radical departure: an adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Inspired by the performance artist Andy Kaufman, they performed every word of the book in a production that lasted over six hours. The show, Gatz, has since toured the world to huge acclaim, though it never reached the UK because of a rights issue.

Next, Elevator Repair Service turned to Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and now they conclude a trilogy of modernist adaptations with The Sun Also Rises, which receives its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival tomorrow. "I realised I really loved the language of those writers," explains Collins.

They have adapted them in different ways. For The Sound and the Fury they staged a single chapter. In The Sun Also Rises, like Gatz, they are taking on the whole book, but this time it is a heavily edited version.

"Hemingway created dialogue that had a perfect rhythm to it," says Collins. They began stripping away everything that surrounded the dialogue, using it only as a guide. "Then the novel itself becomes a great primary source. What's really gratifying is that we have found a very compelling play inside this novel."

For the company, the trilogy has been a fruitful but unusual move into using established texts. "A five-year process of selling our soul," Collins jokes. He doesn't envisage the company doing another literary adaptation next. Collins thinks he might even write a play. How radical.

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