Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
In the Pipeline: Don't miss Derek Lowe's excellent commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry in general at In the Pipeline
From time to time, scientists discover that a species that was once thought to have become extinct is actually surviving in some remote place. If the species is a salamander or a lemur, it gets a quick headline and then promptly goes back to its obscure, tenuous existence. But here's one rediscovered creature that I suspect will get some major press: the Ivory-billed woodpecker is back. Scienceis publishing a paper in which scientists report several sightings and a video of the magnificent bird, which hadn't been seen since in the United States since 1944. Here is a report from the AP.
The challenge of studying extinctions is that it can be hard to know when a species is finally gone for good. If a species of flower lives only on a single bare island the size of a hot-dog stand, you can be pretty sure that if you don't see any of the flowers for a few years, it's gone. But if, as is the case for the Ivory billed woodpecker, a species exists in remote forests and at low density, the failure to see it may just mean scientists haven't looked everywhere. Eventually, most scientists will just give up and presume the animal extinct. As a result, ornithologists and amateur birders have been wondering for decades whether the woodpecker is actually still alive. Incredibly, it is--in some remote woods in Arkansas.
So what does it mean that today the Ivory billed woodpecker seems to be alive? Is it proof that environmentalists have been crying wolf about the dangers of extinction? Do we not need to worry? Is wildlife taking care of itself?
A couple maps can help put the discovery into perspective. This first map shows the original range of the ivory-billed woodpecker. It thrived in mature forests in the southeastern United States, particulary along the coasts and up the Mississippi. The second map shows its range in between 1900 and 1930. The striped regions are habitat that the woodpecker lost between 1900 and 1930. The orange spots were all that was left of its range in 1930.
The reports today do not mean that the woodpeckers are actually living in their former range. They don't even show that the bird exists in its 1930 range. The sightings were all made in the Arkansas patch--a tiny portion of the area in which the woodpecker once lived. The researchers say in their paper that the sightings were made in some 200,000 hectares of Arkansas forest that all might be well-suited to the woodpeckers. Is that cause for optimism? It depends on the biology and ecology of the birds. Will they be able to sustain a healthy population in a relatively small remnant of their original range? That's an open question. It is possible that the woodpecker may also be lurking in other parts of its former range, but that doesn't necessarily boost the species's odds of survival. Such a hypothetical population might well be isolated from the Arkansas population, like two islands separated by hundreds of miles of ocean. If one population disappears due to inbreeding, disease outreaks, or some other disaster, its numbers won't be boosted by immigrants from the other population.
This gets to the heart of the extinction process. Conservation biologists have argued for a long time that as habitats get fragmented, the chances of the species they are home to becoming extinct go up. Given the rate at which forests have been cleared, wetlands drained, and so on, they've warned that we face a massive pulse of extinctions. (Of course, pollution, hunting, invasive species, and other assaults don't help, either.)
Some skeptics such as Bjorn Lomborg have claimed that this is just fear-mongering. They pointed out that of the 200-some species of birds in eastern North America when Europeans arrived with their axes, only 4 were considered extinct--including, at the time, the Ivory-billed woodpecker. Given that the European settlers cleared vast swaths of forests, some simple calculations would suggest that 26 species should have become extinct.
Ten years ago Stuart Pimm, now at Duke, demonstrated that this argument was meritless. In a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he pointed out that predictions of extinction based on habitat loss have to take into consideration the range of the species and the extent of the habitat loss. Most of the birds of eastern North America lived across vast expanses. When farmers were cutting down trees in New England, those birds might be living happily in Pennsylvania and Ohio. When the settlers moved to Pennsylvania and Ohio, the birds could still live in Kentucky or Arkansas--and might even start recolonizing the forests that returned to the farmed-out regions of New England. In fact, many species of birds that live in the eastern United States can be found far north in Canada. If you consider only the birds that live in the forests of the eastern United States (between 11 and 28, depending on how strict you make the rules for membership in this club), the rate of extinction has actually been a bit higher than conservation biologists would predict.
I won't be at all surprised if various bloggers and pundits try to turn the rediscovery of the Ivory billed woodpecker into a refutation of the idea that fragmentation leads to extinction. (I'll post links to them if I come across them this week.) But I will be surprised if these pseudoskeptics actually address Pimm's paper. The paper also makes an important point that Pimm has followed up on with more recent research: a lot of the world's biodiversity is very different from the robins and crows and other birds that I see out my window here in Connecticut. A lot of biodiversity is made up of species with relatively small ranges, living in the tropics where forests are currently being wiped out at a rapid rate. These species may be able to hang on for a few decades in relatively large fragments, Pimm argues, but they're waiting out a death sentence. While extinction rates among birds in North America may be relatively low, the same process appears to be causing a catastrophe in the tropics.
It is wonderful that so many people--scientists, government officials, environmental groups, private land owners, and obsessed birders--have helped rediscover the Ivory-billed woodpecker and may be able to help it thrive in one corner of its former range. But this good news shouldn't be misused to distort the big picture.
2. not greedo on April 28, 2005 01:11 PM writes...
Thanks for so quickly putting together an article that gets right to the essence of the occasion and its implications. Science news commentary like this, which refuses to gloss over pertinent details and finds a way to make them engaging and integral (yet still comprehensible, fresh, and concrete) is ultimately the only thing that can lend current science a basic meaningfulness to society at large. Keep up the strong work.
David Quammen's book, "Song of the Dodo" has an excellently informative and persuasive explanation of the effects of habitat fragmentation and its effects species survival and extinction.
Honestly, I doubt many people want to hear the eco-religion drumbeat on this wonderful blog. Stick to the science of evolution, you do it much, much better.
6. Carl Zimmer on April 28, 2005 02:42 PM writes...
Francois, can you point to a single place in my post where I invoke a supernatural agency? Extinction is part of evolution, and is scientifically studied, as demonstrated by the papers I link to in my post. How is that "eco-religion"?
Francois, since when was good science eco-religion? Or is it only that when it doesn't back up what you believe? Otherwise, great post. It is the best story I've seen on the subject so far.
As a result, ornithologists and amateur birders have been wondering for decades whether the woodpecker is actually still alive. Incredibly, it is--in some remote woods in Arkansas.
They haven't just been wondering. They've been actively searching for ivory-bills. There was a well-publicized effort as recently as 2002 to try to confirm as tentative sighting in Louisiana.
I've written about that, and have links to other articles about the 2002 effort, here.
11. Pietje Puk on April 28, 2005 05:41 PM writes...
"can you point to a single place in my post where I invoke a supernatural agency?"
It is not Zimmer but Google who appeals to supernatural agency. At the top of the page there is an ad by gooooooogle saying 'bible teaches evolution', if you click on that link you are initiated into the "Spirit of Truth" (whatever that may be). Another ad asks 'evolution still viable in the light of current science?'. This brings you to the anti-evolution site creationdesign.org. A third ad, "The Final Theory", relogates the Standard Theory, General Relativity and Special Relativity to the realms of ancient myth & magic.
13. AnotherMaleGod on April 29, 2005 03:18 AM writes...
A friend of mine that lives in Lousiana says that his family has seen them quite a few times. In some remot part of the bayou that takes about an hour to get to in the boat. He says he knows the difference between the pileated and Ivory, and that He'll try to get pics soon. Another guy, from Arkansas, on a bird forum I frequent, had said that he saw one in his yard a few years ago. He had posted this about a half a year ago.
Terrific post as usual. The fear of "skeptical environmentalist" spin was the only dark spot in an otherwise happy day. Thank you for providing the Pimm paper. I anticipate reading it.
This event may also indicate that ecological officials have too much discretion in America. There should be a precautionary principle for not granting power to officials without proof that a clear harm is likely to result otherwise. America is almost all low diversity terrain; species diversity conservation should be a much lower priority here. The ivory billed woodpecker will need a good volume of dead trees left to rot, if it is viable. Presumably, were about to buy some considerable forest acreage, kill a bunch of old trees, and infest them with the relevant insect species. Maybe this is why landowners didn't want to talk about the woodpecker being there; the government's about to run them off their land, if they do. If there are less than 200 or so birds, artificial means of increase would seem necessary to avoid losing the species diversity of the bird.
17. Henry Astley on April 29, 2005 06:42 PM writes...
And you think that Mr. Zimmer hand-picks these ads himself, do you?
In fact, a bit of research as simple as looking at the site this weblog is hosted on shows that there are many sites on this host, and the host makes money via advertising (though it probably also charges a fee). The host likely picks the ads, nor Mr. Zimmer, as I'm sure he has better things to do. And I know, from other sites that google advertises on, the the banners seem to have some way of "knowing" what's on the page (at least as far as key words that often appear).
So, again, I ask how you can remotely consider Mr. Zimmer responsible for ads which a) he doesn't pick and b) adapt themselves to the page, but in a randomized and non-intelligent way?
Very nice post - I myself was euphoric when I heard the news, but it's important to keep in mind the caveats of species viablility and continued degradation of their environment.
The "religious" issue brought up is odd. Hopefully those who brought it up will expound.
Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
From time to time, scientists discover that a species that was once thought to have become extinct is actually surviving in some remote place. If the species is a salamander or a lemur, it gets a quick headline and then promptly goes back to its obscure, tenuous existence. But here's one rediscovered creature that I suspect will get some major press: the Ivory-billed woodpecker is back. 
1. tjeerdo on April 28, 2005 12:52 PM writes...
Dear Mr. Zimmer,
A short message from the Netherlands. Please no adverts for a religious society. It disturbs the meaning of your lectures.
Yours sincerely,
Tjeerdo.
Permalink to Comment2. not greedo on April 28, 2005 01:11 PM writes...
Thanks for so quickly putting together an article that gets right to the essence of the occasion and its implications. Science news commentary like this, which refuses to gloss over pertinent details and finds a way to make them engaging and integral (yet still comprehensible, fresh, and concrete) is ultimately the only thing that can lend current science a basic meaningfulness to society at large. Keep up the strong work.
Permalink to Comment3. not greedo on April 28, 2005 01:12 PM writes...
Oh, and "outbreak" is misspelled as "outreak"...
Permalink to Comment4. Pat on April 28, 2005 01:19 PM writes...
David Quammen's book, "Song of the Dodo" has an excellently informative and persuasive explanation of the effects of habitat fragmentation and its effects species survival and extinction.
Pat
Permalink to Comment5. Francois Tremblay on April 28, 2005 02:34 PM writes...
Honestly, I doubt many people want to hear the eco-religion drumbeat on this wonderful blog. Stick to the science of evolution, you do it much, much better.
Permalink to Comment6. Carl Zimmer on April 28, 2005 02:42 PM writes...
Francois, can you point to a single place in my post where I invoke a supernatural agency? Extinction is part of evolution, and is scientifically studied, as demonstrated by the papers I link to in my post. How is that "eco-religion"?
Permalink to Comment7. praktike on April 28, 2005 02:46 PM writes...
I don't get the religion complaint. Fantastic post, as usual. Thanks, Carl.
Permalink to Comment8. Walt on April 28, 2005 03:02 PM writes...
Francois, since when was good science eco-religion? Or is it only that when it doesn't back up what you believe? Otherwise, great post. It is the best story I've seen on the subject so far.
Permalink to Comment9. P.M.Bryant on April 28, 2005 03:34 PM writes...
They haven't just been wondering. They've been actively searching for ivory-bills. There was a well-publicized effort as recently as 2002 to try to confirm as tentative sighting in Louisiana.
I've written about that, and have links to other articles about the 2002 effort, here.
Permalink to Comment10. Mark Christal on April 28, 2005 05:18 PM writes...
Long live the ivory billed woodpecker and the blackfooted ferret! Both were missed but not forgotten.
Permalink to Comment11. Pietje Puk on April 28, 2005 05:41 PM writes...
"can you point to a single place in my post where I invoke a supernatural agency?"
It is not Zimmer but Google who appeals to supernatural agency. At the top of the page there is an ad by gooooooogle saying 'bible teaches evolution', if you click on that link you are initiated into the "Spirit of Truth" (whatever that may be). Another ad asks 'evolution still viable in the light of current science?'. This brings you to the anti-evolution site creationdesign.org. A third ad, "The Final Theory", relogates the Standard Theory, General Relativity and Special Relativity to the realms of ancient myth & magic.
Permalink to Comment12. Henry Astley on April 28, 2005 09:44 PM writes...
Um, so, wait, how is Mr. Zimmer responsible for pop-up/banner ads that aren't even on his site?
That's like claiming my credibility is undermined by the banner adds for new-age trinkets on the site of a webcomic that I read.
Permalink to Comment13. AnotherMaleGod on April 29, 2005 03:18 AM writes...
A friend of mine that lives in Lousiana says that his family has seen them quite a few times. In some remot part of the bayou that takes about an hour to get to in the boat. He says he knows the difference between the pileated and Ivory, and that He'll try to get pics soon. Another guy, from Arkansas, on a bird forum I frequent, had said that he saw one in his yard a few years ago. He had posted this about a half a year ago.
Permalink to Comment14. Hungry Hyaena on April 29, 2005 11:09 AM writes...
Terrific post as usual. The fear of "skeptical environmentalist" spin was the only dark spot in an otherwise happy day. Thank you for providing the Pimm paper. I anticipate reading it.
Permalink to Comment15. John S Bolton on April 29, 2005 05:27 PM writes...
This event may also indicate that ecological officials have too much discretion in America. There should be a precautionary principle for not granting power to officials without proof that a clear harm is likely to result otherwise. America is almost all low diversity terrain; species diversity conservation should be a much lower priority here. The ivory billed woodpecker will need a good volume of dead trees left to rot, if it is viable. Presumably, were about to buy some considerable forest acreage, kill a bunch of old trees, and infest them with the relevant insect species. Maybe this is why landowners didn't want to talk about the woodpecker being there; the government's about to run them off their land, if they do. If there are less than 200 or so birds, artificial means of increase would seem necessary to avoid losing the species diversity of the bird.
Permalink to Comment16. Pietje Puk on April 29, 2005 05:42 PM writes...
"how is Mr. Zimmer responsible for pop-up/banner ads that aren't even on his site?"
The ads occur because Mr. Zimmer has put code to show them on his page.
Permalink to Comment17. Henry Astley on April 29, 2005 06:42 PM writes...
And you think that Mr. Zimmer hand-picks these ads himself, do you?
In fact, a bit of research as simple as looking at the site this weblog is hosted on shows that there are many sites on this host, and the host makes money via advertising (though it probably also charges a fee). The host likely picks the ads, nor Mr. Zimmer, as I'm sure he has better things to do. And I know, from other sites that google advertises on, the the banners seem to have some way of "knowing" what's on the page (at least as far as key words that often appear).
So, again, I ask how you can remotely consider Mr. Zimmer responsible for ads which a) he doesn't pick and b) adapt themselves to the page, but in a randomized and non-intelligent way?
Permalink to Comment18. Wayne on April 29, 2005 07:13 PM writes...
Very nice post - I myself was euphoric when I heard the news, but it's important to keep in mind the caveats of species viablility and continued degradation of their environment.
The "religious" issue brought up is odd. Hopefully those who brought it up will expound.
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