The Underhill Journal

Saw this on the BBC.


Orangutans use 'charades' to talk

Orangutans intentionally modified their gestures to get what they wanted
Orangutan communication resembles a game of charades, a study suggests.

Researchers from St Andrews University have shown that the animals intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across

As you may realise if you have read my blog before, I'm fascinated with the intelligence of our fellow creatures on this planet. Here once again we prove our own ignorance by not noticing how other creatures communicate, and then being surprised when we finally do. I would have thought that good communication would be an essential in any grouping creature, and particularly in those with a complex social structure like apes and dolphins.
On a side note, I remember visiting Amsterdam Zoo and being rather amused by the big male Orangutan (although I found it quite distressing to see the Orangutans and Chimpanzee's all cooped up for humans to gawk at) as he looked out of his cage and gave every passerby a very deliberate view of his upturned middle finger. You can say he was copying something someone had shown him (or several someone's given the amount of people who go through that Zoo), but I can tell you he meant every bit of it! I've got it on video footage, one day I'll dig it out and post the clip right here.
You can read the rest of the Orangutan story here.

I just did a bit of digging as I wanted the full text of the Declaration of Arbroath. This was a letter sent by a large list of nobles and dignitaries from Scotland in 1320 to the Pope in Rome. Their intention was to get the Pope to recognise Scotland's sovereignty and to try and persuade the Pope to punish the English king for his actions against Scotland. What makes it interesting is their definition of Freedom and their definition of the duties of their King, which I have highlighted in the text.


TO THE most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.

The Declaration of Arbroath. Picture: National Archives of Scotland
Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown.
They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous.
Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today.
The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since.
In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.
The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith.
Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles - by calling, though second or third in rank - the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother.
It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself
Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy.
The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.
But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert.
He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully.
Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King.
To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule.
It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God.
May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own.
We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive.
Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours.
The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance.
But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.
But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.
To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.
May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.
Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

Personally, I think this says, in a much more succinct way, what the Magna Carta was supposed to say about the Kings relationship with the people. It places the onus on the King to serve his people, and the onus on the people to dispose of him if he should fail in his duty to them. Isn't that the basic gist of Democracy, to hold government to account?

Want to get a free Nintendo Wii? Real Incentives are giving them away using a system similar to the one explained in the video below.

newsnight free ipod


This may sound like a scam, but actually your Wii is being paid for by desperate advertisers, who are increasingly finding it difficult to get people to pay attention to their advertising. They win because they can cover their cost by the sheer volume of people signing up. They only need a percentage of people to stay with it. The site handing out the Wii's wins because the advertisers cover their costs and pay for every referral they get (remember not everyone sticks with the advertisers product) and they will often get mroe than ten referrals per signatory. We win, because we get a free Wii!
If you sign up using this link, choose one of the offers at the site and complete the offer, then get 10 friends to sign up too, you WILL get a Nintendo Wii.
I will update when ours arrives!

With a scottish twist......

I am not a big fan of the bag pipes personally, they were originally used to scare the enemy in battle and I can fullly understand how they did that! This, though is amusing.

This is a nice video of a water display in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The editing could be better, but the water effects are pretty cool. Enjoy.

This is a solid-state Tesla coil. The primary runs at its resonant frequency in the 41 KHz range, and is modulated from the control unit in order to generate the tones you hear. What's not immediately obvious in this video is how loud this is. Many people were covering their ears, dogs were barking. In the sections where the crowd is cheering and the coils is starting and stopping, you can hear the the crowd is drowned out by the coil when it's firing.
The coolest part is the Tetris music at the end.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation has just started a Social Networking site which should actually be pretty interesting. It ought to attract a lot of reasoned people who want to debate the issues of science and religion, although I reckon there will probably be a few "hatemongers" there too who want to rant at atheists, but that should provide an interesting opportunity to chalenge that attitude.
I've made my own page there, but I still have to work through all of the options to pull together something interesting. Stroll on over, take a look, join up and join in!

The film Braveheart has it's faults, not least Mel Gibson, but it's sentiment is actually spot on. The following is a clip from the film, where William Wallace rallies the troops.

I haven't seen the film in ages, so I can't remember what battle this is supposed to be, although it hardly matters. I remember seeing William Wallaces sword in Stirling and it's absolutely massive - it could only possibly be wielded by someone way over six foot tall (it is more than five feet long). Read the wiki entry here.

I just liked the way this video was done. I'm not a great enthusiast of skateboarding, but this was rather cool.



fingerboarding

Well, it hardly comes as a surprise to me, but it seems like the corporate scientists already riding the coat tails of the Human Genome project and trying to make a fast buck out of genetics may well be about to look rather stupid. It has been discovered that the majority of what people previously thought of as "Junk DNA" serves an important purpose in genetic transfer of information. Look out Monsanto, it really does look like you have no idea what you are messing with!
Here's a snippet of the article from the BBC.


Human genome further unravelled

The researchers hope to scale the work up to the whole of the genome
A close-up view of the human genome has revealed its innermost workings to be far more complex than first thought.

The study, which was carried out on just 1% of our DNA code, challenges the view that genes are the main players in driving our biochemistry.

Instead, it suggests genes, so called junk DNA and other elements, together weave an intricate control network.

The work, published in the journals Nature and Genome Research, is to be scaled up to the rest of the genome.


The rest of the article can be viewed here.

It seems to me like this is a point where we have to stop and take a deep breath with Genetic science, in case we do something very stupid without realising it. What does anyone else think of this? Feel free to comment!