Head-banging parrot proves birds can dance
* Story Highlights
* Scientists: Dancing parrots prove ability to recognize music not
unique to humans
* YouTube hit Snowball the cockatoo dances to Back Street Boys, Queen
* Ability to keep time apparently linked to vocal mimicry,
scientists believe
* Other animals capable of mimicry include dolphins, elephants,
seals, walruses
updated 46 minutes ago
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/01/dancing.parrots/index.html
In a study lead by Adena Schachner of Harvard University, researchers
examined more than 1,000 YouTube videos of dancing animals and found
14 types of parrot species and one elephant genuinely capable of
keeping time.
The results thus far - online political discussions among people with
diverse views is are a vast waste of time.
Why? Political blog comments are mostly echo chambers that separate people
into reaffirming silos and online news comments are full of anonymous
diatribe.
E-Democracy.Org would like to engage interested academics and students in an
experiment to see if a few key rules/technologies can improve the quality of
discussions. We use real names, require civility (supported by facilitation,
rules, and possible member suspensions), and unique limited the frequency
one can post to once every 12 hours (on our local Issues Forums it is 2
every 24 hours). We created the world's first election information website
in 1994 and since then have focused our civic mission around hosting online
dialogue as a trusted neutral host.
For more information visit:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/us
Also, as we build our participatory audience, we are interested in having
public policy schools and individual academics share their work. Think of
our members as a roving book club looking to discuss the substance of
national policy issues not just punditry.
Feel free to pass this invitation on to others.
Steven Clift
E-Democracy.Org
*FlowTV Special Issue
CFP: Social Media (05/18/09)
*
Social media have created new ways for individuals to communicate and share
information. Technologies such as blogs, Twitter, social networking sites
(e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, etc.), wikis, Second Life, digg,
Last.fm, FlickR, etc. have become increasingly pervasive. Social media are
being used by celebrities, athletes, journalists, politicians, TV
personalities, musicians, scholars, news organizations, businesses,
marketers, and more. How does the use of social media change the ways we
think about identity, community, and interpersonal communication? In what
ways are social media being used for political purposes, for collective
action, and news aggregates? How does receiving a Twitter message on your
cell phone from Shaquille O'Neal or NPR's Scott Simon erode boundaries
between public and private or change conceptualizations of intimacy? Are
blogs and other social media challenging journalism's traditional
gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions? Should we be concerned about
issues of privacy and free speech? How are certain social media technologies
being gendered, classed, racialized, and policed? And as is the case with
all forms of media, we must be careful to ask who is denied access and to
what effect?
We are interested to hear what the Flow community thinks about social media
technologies: uses and users, popular discourses and rhetoric, and the ways
in which social media challenge concepts of identity, community, friendship,
public/private, creativity, surveillance, and more.
Please send submissions of between 1000-1500 words to Jacqueline Vickery (
jvickery183(a)gmail.com) and Anne Petersen (annehelenpetersen(a)gmail.com) no
later than *May 18th, 2009*. Flow has a longstanding policy of encouraging
non-jargony, highly readable pieces and ample incorporation of images and
video. For examples, please visit FlowTV.org.
--
Jacqueline Vickery
Co-Coordinating Editor, FlowTV.org
Department of Radio-Television-Film
University of Texas - Austin
"Questioning the ostensibly unquestionable premises of our way of life is
arguably the most urgent of services we owe our fellow humans and
ourselves." Zygmunt Bauman
