Philip Bethge

Author: Philip Bethge

  • The Nuclear Temptation: The Perils of Pushing Atomic Energy as the Climate Change Panacea

    Is nuclear power on the verge of a renaissance? Its supporters argue that atomic energy is the only way to satisfy humanity’s hunger for more energy without aggravating the effects of global warming. Critics, however, regard the nuclear hype as over-simplistic optimism fueled by an industry in distress.

    The constant drizzle coming down over the Cotentin Peninsula on Normandy’s coast has cloaked France’s nuclear future in a fine mist. Massive electricity towers stand in the wet fog looking like identical giants with slumping shoulders. “British weather,” says Philippe Leigné while looking at the dirty hulks of concrete that comprise the nuclear reactors Flamanville 1 and 2. The construction foreman for French energy titan Electricité de France then points to a pit near the foot of a small rise.

    “We have to move 600,000 cubic meters of granite,” says Leigné. There’s not much time left. He has to pour the foundation for Flamanville 3 onto the rocky Norman soil this year to keep what will become the world’s most powerful reactor on schedule to deliver electricity to the grid by 2012. … More

  • ‘Time for a Revolution’: Ways to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe

    The rapid change in the world’s climate and shrinking oil and natural gas reserves are forcing a radical shift in the way we think about energy. Declining prosperity seems unavoidable unless the global community chooses a more sustainable approach to producing and consuming energy.

    Have you taken a shower today? Have you sipped a cup of hot coffee, stepped out of your warm apartment and driven to work? Booked your next vacation flight?

    People have never enjoyed as much material comfort as they do today. More than one-tenth of the world’s population own cars, and 4 billion people have electricity in their homes. Growing prosperity has been the goal of civilization since people began to populate the earth. That prosperity is measurable — by a currency called energy.

    Mankind burns up to 10 million tons of crude oil a day, 12.5 million tons of hard coal and 7.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. All this consumption is accompanied by the creeping certainty that supplies will run out in only a few decades. Besides, the evidence that things are on the decline has never been more clear than since early February of this year, when … More

  • Elephant Poaching on the Rise: Africa Mulls Loosening Ivory Trade Ban

    Some African nations are seeking to relax an international ban on the ivory trade, but wildlife conservations fear that will lead to a renewed massacre of African elephants. Meanwhile, poachers in Africa are killing more elephants than they have in almost 20 years.

    Four hours before the freighter was scheduled to arrive in Singapore, customs officials received a tip; and sure enough, when they examined a container from Malawi, they discovered 532 gleaming elephant tusks. The tusks were accompanied by a shipment of 42,120 hankos, carved ivory seals used in Japan to notarize documents. By the time they had finished their inspection, Singapore harbor officials had seized more than 6.5 tons of gleaming ivory. The Hankos alone were worth around $8.4 million. That 2002 Singapore smuggling bust has …. More

  • European Wildlife: Bringing the Sturgeon Back to Germany

    Biologists want to repopulate German rivers with sturgeon. A test batch of aquarium-raised fish has already been re-introduced and a school of fish will likely be released in the Oder River this autumn.

    By Philip Bethge

    Seen from above, the young sturgeon resemble little prehistoric sharks. They splay their rounded fins as if they were little wings and glide elegantly through the water using their pointed tails. The only things that don’t seem to fit into the picture are the yellow plastic bands attached to their angular dorsal fins.

    “We’ve marked the fish so we can identify them later,” says Frank Kirschbaum as he adeptly scoops one of the sturgeon from the water and runs his finger over its archaic-looking bone plates, which line the narrow, 30 centimeter (12 inch) body like an ornamental strip. The sturgeon gasping for oxygen in Kirschbaum’s hand is one year old. In a few weeks, it may be drawing oxygen from the Oder River.

    Kirschbaum is a fish specialist at Berlin’s Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). He’s pursuing an ambitious species-protection project along with his colleague Jörn Gessner and Polish researchers. “We’re planning Europe’s largest practical experiment in sturgeon re-population,” Gessner says. The scientists want to set some 6,000 young fish free in the Oder by 2008. That would herald the return of sturgeon to Germany’s rivers.

    “You could find sturgeon virtually anywhere in this country as recently as a century ago,” says Henning von Nordheim from Germany’s Federal Nature Conservation Agency, which has invested about €2 million ($2.6 million) in the sturgeon program. “The sturgeon is the product of 200 million years of natural history, (and) we want this charismatic animal to feel at home in our rivers again.”

    A primordial fish

    The sturgeon is one of those rare creatures that have survived virtually unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs. Most of the sleek, bony-sided fish spend the greater part of their lives in the sea, like salmon, and migrate upriver only to mate. They’re threatened with extinction worldwide, but 27 varieties of sturgeon still live in the world’s rivers, including the Hausen variety, which can weigh up to a ton and yields the best Russian caviar.

    The Elbe, the Weser, the Oder and other German rivers feeding the North Sea and the Baltic once belonged to the fish’s habitat. As recently as 1888 fishermen on the Elbe managed to catch about 3,500 sturgeon, including massive specimens weighing between 60 and 70 kilograms, or 132 and 154 pounds. (The fish can reach a length of up to six meters, or 20 feet.) But the 20th century thinned their population. Factories and sewage from the cities polluted the rivers; modern weirs prevented the fish from reaching their spawning grounds. The last German sturgeon was seen in the Eider, a small river in Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein region, in 1969. Since then, sturgeon has been considered extinct in Germany.

    Now researchers at Berlin’s IGB want the fish repatriated. This project looks promising, at least along the Oder, which feeds the Baltic Sea. The Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhyncus) migrated to the Baltic about 1,000 years ago, displacing the European variety, and adopted the river between Germany and Poland as its natural home. This proved to be a stroke of luck for the biologists, because Atlantic sturgeon still live in the tens of thousands in North America.

    The young fish at the IGB in Berlin were imported from across the Atlantic. They travelled to Europe via Canada as fertilized eggs. In some cases the scientists even transported fully grown sturgeon: Twenty of the massive gilled creatures flew to Frankfurt airport on Air Canada last April. IGB researchers had caught them in St. John’s River in southern Canada, then transported them to Halifax airport across a distance of 600 kilometers (373 miles).

    Back from extinction

    These fish now swim in aquariums in the Regional Center for Agriculture and Fishery in the Baltic Sea town of Born. They’ve grown to a length of almost two meters (6.6 feet). “We hope they’ll soon be ready to spawn,” says Gessner. “Then we want to start breeding young sturgeon for the Oder ourselves.”

    Repopulating the Elbe and Weser Rivers will be more difficult. Both North Sea tributaries were once dominated by the European variety of sturgeon (Acipenser sturio). Unlike its Atlantic counterpart, the European variety is now extremely rare. The Gironde River, near Bordeaux, France, is the only place where an estimated 2,000 of the European variety still exist. “That’s the only variety suitable for repopulating the North Sea tributaries,” says Kirschbaum. “Anything else would mean falsifying the historical situation.”

    Kirschbaum imported some of these fish from France in 1996. Sixteen adult sturgeon born in the Gironde now populate the IGB aquariums. Taking care of these demanding creatures is no easy task, though; they refuse to touch regular food. Every day, Kirschbaum has to feed his primordial gourmets five kilograms (11 pounds) of imported French prawns.

    But it pays off. Kirschbaum discovered eggs in one of his female sturgeon early this year. The discovery was a sensation. It’s been 10 years since scientists last saw young sturgeon in the Gironde. “If we can breed them, that would be an enormous success,” says Kirschbaum. Repopulating the Elbe, at least in theory, would then be possible. The question is whether migrant fish can navigate the river. “There’s a weir near the town of Geesthacht on the Elbe,” Kirschbaum says. The weir blocks the route the sturgeon would follow to reach their spawning ground. The weir, in fact, was built to let salmon cross it. “But it won’t work for sturgeon,” says Kirschbaum.

    Not enough for caviar

    So the scientists, for now, have pinned their hopes on the Oder. They consider the river sufficiently unspoiled to attempt repopulation. “Since 1997, we’ve done research to find out whether there still are spawning grounds in the Oder or any of its tributaries,” says Gessner. The researchers found a number of gravelly sections of riverbed provided with a strong current, the kind sturgeon need to deposit their eggs — most of them in the Polish river Warta. Local fishermen have been informed, too: Proposals have been developed to change their net-pulling techniques in order to avoid trapping the sturgeon, which live mainly close to the river bottom.

    The researchers eventually want to attach ultrasonic devices to all these fish and follow them by boat. They’ve tested the method in the Peene, a little river in West Pomerania — since July they’ve observed the behavior of 15 young, ultrasonic-equipped sturgeon there.

    Now the IGB scientists are waiting for the right moment to release sturgeon into the Oder. They had been focused on a date in April, but the plan fell through at the last minute because of a political quarrel over expanding the river’s usefulness as a commercial waterway.

    Now, though, the signs are favorable again. Some sturgeon could be placed in the Oder as part of preliminary tests in late fall. The river itself would stand to benefit, say the biologists. “If we restore the sturgeon’s habitat, the whole ecosystem will improve,” says Kirschbaum. Typical river fish such as barbs and rock herring could follow the sturgeon back to the Oder.

    But it will take some time before the project’s success can be gauged. Sturgeon need 10 to 15 years to grow sexually mature. Only then can they return to their native rivers to spawn. “It would be a sensation if even a few of those fish survive that long and then find their way back to the Oder,” says Gessner.

    Anyone looking forward to buying Baltic Sea caviar, though, will be disappointed. Sturgeon roe from Europe used to be a gourmet specialty, Gessner admits — “but if some of our sturgeon come back and a fisher catches one of them, that will hardly be enough to give birth to a new industry.”

    –> read original article at SPIEGEL Online International

  • Bearded Vultures Re-introduced to the Alps: The Return of the Bone Crusher

    In the 19th century, the Bearded Vulture had a bad press. It was accused of carrying off and devouring lambs and even small children. Alpine authorities declared open season on the bird and the last one was shot in 1913. But the vulture, which is capable of digesting large bones, is back thanks to a successful and costly 20-year program of introducing bred birds into the wild.

    By Philip Bethge

    Portobello and Tauernwand aren’t yet comfortable with their new-found freedom. The two bearded vultures, born and bred in captivity, seem wary as they slowly ascend to a height of 1,500 meters above the Seebachtal valley in the Austrian Alps.

    Half an hour earlier rangers had hauled the birds up the mountain in wooden crates to their new home in a prepared nest. The birds are part of Europe’s longest-running wildlife re-introduction scheme. Since 1986 zoologists in Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland have released 144 bearded vultures to the Alps.

    They recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the project. “Progress so far has been very pleasing,” said Hans Frey of Vienna’s Veterinary University who is coordinating the program. “The project proves that with persistence the re-introduction of wild animals can actually work.”

    The bird doesn’t look like a typical vulture and is often mistaken for a Golden Eagle. It has a conspicuous red circle around the eyes and a wingspan of around 2.7 meters. A black strip over the eyes and the bristles at the base of the beak form the distinctive appearance of a beard.

    Character assassination wiped out the Bearded Vulture in the Alps in the 19th century. The local population blamed the scavenger for the loss of lambs, goats and even small children. Hunters were offered rewards for shooting them and the last vulture living in the alps is believed to have been shot in 1913 in the Italian Aosta valley.

    “The Bearded Vulture unfortunately never had a very good image,” said Frey, adding that it didn’t reserve its reputation because the birds aren’t dangerous to living animals.

    Bone Crusher

    The bird feeds mainly on the bleached bones of dead goats and sheep. If the bones are too big, it drops them 50 to 80 meters onto plates of rock to shatter them, and eats the splinters. No other animal is capable of digesting bone which means that the Bearded Vulture has no competitors for its food. Its powerful stomach acids can dissolve even large bones.

    By the beginning of the 20th century the “Bone Crusher” was virtually extinct in the wild in Europe. Then in the 1970s zoologists decided to try to re-introduce the bird to the Alps. “We managed to breed the birds again,” said Frey, who manages Europe’s largest vulture breeding station at Haringsee near Vienna.

    In 1986 the first four Bearded Vultures were released in the Hohe Tauern national park. Since then birds have also been released in Switzerland’s Engadin region, Italy’s Stilfser Joch national park, and in the French Haute Savoie region, as well as the Maritime Alps. In 1997 the first of these birds bred and 33 chicks have been born in the wild so far.

    “Conditions for Bearded Vultures are better now than 100 years ago,” said Wolfgang Fremuth of Frankfurt’s Zoological Society which co-financed the project. Less hunting takes place in the Alps, which means that there is more wildlife. And another problem appears to have been solved. “We were surprised, but the population has embraced the Bearded Vulture to an incredible extent.”

    Some 200 guests braved rainy weather to witness the release of Portobello and Tauernwind, which marked the 20th anniversary of the re-introduction program. Even local hunter Ferdinand Gorton praised the project. He said there had initially been some resistance to it. “But if one explains it well it becomes understandable even to the most simple hunter,” he said.

    Natural garbage collectors

    “The return of the vulture means farmers won’t have to remove dead animals,” said Frey. In addition, many local hoteliers have discovered the bird as a tourist attraction. Biologists see other advantages. “Bearded Vultures together with other types of vultures are a natural form of waste disposal and are important for the ecosystem of the mountains,” said Fremuth. Humans alone were to blame for their disappearance. “We have a duty to bring them back.”

    The plan could work. Around 100 of the released birds are known to have remained in the Alps. Almost 5,000 unpaid helpers regularly document their whereabouts.

    Newcomers Portobello and Tauernwind are constantly monitored. They will soon leave the Seebachtal valley. Biologists hope that in four to six years they will return to the Hohen Tauern range to breed.

    At that point the time may have come to stop the program and leave the Bearded Vulture population alone. “We hope we will be able to stop releasing animals from 2010 because the population is regenerating itself,” said Frey. The project will have spent around €100,000 on each new vulture.

    Frey recommends that future generations show more foresight. “Rendering a species extinct only to re-introduce it later is incredibly expensive. Wildlife protection pays off — it’s always cheaper in the end.”

    –> read original article at SPIEGEL Online International

  • Me and My Pet Tiger: “Trespassers Will Be Eaten”

    Eccentric private citizens in the United States own more tigers than exist in the wild worldwide. But owning big cats can be a dangerous hobby, especially when the animals turn on their owners.

    Vincent Lowe, 49, didn’t even have enough time to fire his .357 caliber pistol. In one powerful leap, the 500-pound tiger crashed through the brittle wire of its cage and pinned Lowe to the ground. The tiger’s bite fractured Lowe’s neck like a bread stick, killing him almost instantaneously. “He was not supposed to work that close to the tiger’s cage. He ignored every rule in the book and provoked the cat!” Robert Baudy is sitting in his living room, darkened by heavy drapes, wearing khaki-colored safari clothing and looking like an octogenarian reincarnation of Dr. Marsh Tracy from the 1960’s TV series “Daktari.”

    “I picked up one of my rifles and ran over to him,” says Baudy. “I had to shoot my own tiger!” But then a smile flickers across the face of the 83-year-old. “With an excellent rifle, by the way, a .22 magnum, German-made. It only took me two shots.”

    Baudy clearly enjoys playing the part of the big game hunter. A native Frenchman, Baudy has spent the last 30 years raising tigers, lions, pumas and leopards in Center Hill, Florida. Thousands of big cats have been born under the ancient oaks on Baudy’s farm, “Savage Kingdom.” Baudy apparently views the death of his employee, Vincent Lowe, as little more than a workplace accident. But for others the case merely emphasizes the absurdity of the tiger industry.

    “I’m the enemy number one in the cat business, according to animal rights activists,” says Baudy. He gazes thoughtfully at an enormous painting of two tigers in the snow hanging on his living room wall. “You know,” says the tiger breeder, “those activists are just a bunch of nuts. Is it my fault if people don’t know how to handle these animals?”

    Welcome to America, the land of the predator. There are more tigers living in the United States than anywhere else in the world. Estimates range from 10,000 to 15,000 animals. By comparison, experts believe that there are at most 7,000 tigers living in the wild worldwide.

    Thousands of Americans have succumbed to a fascination with the biggest and strongest of all predatory big cats. Breeders like Baudy supply the industry with cuddly baby tigers. But the kittens soon grow into big, powerful animals, quickly becoming too much for many owners to handle. Animal rights activists are critical of the practice because many of the animals, crippled and traumatized, end up spending their final days in bleak roadside zoos.

    (—> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE International)

    This world, fueled by an odd mix of adrenaline, dried cat urine and the slightly pungent odor of the fresh meat tigers eat in bulk on a daily basis, is especially prevalent in Florida. This sort of eccentricity that would prompt someone to buy a tiger is evident to anyone who drives through the glitzy artificial world of West Palm Beach. A sign on the heavy metal gate of Steve Sipek’s estate says it all: “Trespassers will be eaten.” The 64-year-old actor, who once played Tarzan, doesn’t just own tigers as pets. He literally lives, sleeps and cuddles with them. In fact, Sipek has transformed his entire house into a cage for big cats. Visitors to the former king of the jungle’s home enter a narrow passageway through a rickety door. The lord of the manor sits with two of his cats, Bo and Little Bo, in a room behind a wire-mesh fence. A thin metal bar is the only thing preventing the two tigers from breaking out of the enclosure.

    Sipek is a giant of a man. Using the stage name Steve Hawkes, he acted in films like “Tarzan, King of the Jungle” and “Tarzan and the Brown Prince” in the 1960s and 70s. He also played a blood-drinking giant turkey in an obscure B movie called “Blood Freak.” But being a tamer of big cats is the role of his life. Sipek says he experienced an awakening of sorts when a lion chained to his arm once pulled him out of a burning film set, and he has believed that he was chosen to take care of big cats ever since.

    “Touching a tiger is like touching the face of God,” says Sipek. He has cared for more than 100 big cats in his house over the years. “I saved my cats from a life in a cage,” he claims. “They can even use the pool here.”

    Then it’s feeding time. Sipek’s girlfriend Kathi drags in two buckets of turkey drumsticks. Sipek is in his element. He holds out the meat at eye level, and the 300-pound cats jump over and eat from his hand. Dessert is milk mixed with egg, served from a baby bottle.

    The cats pay almost no attention to strangers. But if a person turns his back on one of the tigers, it immediately becomes nervous and instinctively crouches as if to pounce. The tension is almost palpable. The person suddenly feels like prey.

    Officer Jesse Lee must have felt that way when Sipek’s tiger Bobo charged him two years ago in July. According to the report by the Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC), “the tigers teeth were showing and his ears were pinned back. Lee stepped back as he fired five rounds from his semi-automatic AR-15.” The tiger lay dead in the bushes. It was 5:20 in the afternoon.

    Bobo had escaped from Sipek’s private zoo the day before. Police officers, wildlife management officers from the FWC and Sipek himself pursued the cat. The tiger was spotted several times, but the stun darts the officers fired missed their target. In the end, Jesse Lee shot the tiger.

    Sipek buried the cat in his front yard. Bobo’s grave is decorated with flowers and animal sculptures. “I wanted to kill that bastard officer bigtime,” says Sipek. “My friends didn’t want to let me, but I would have done it.”

    But according to Lieutenant Charles Dennis of the FWC, “the officer followed agency policy. A 700-pound tiger will injure or kill people. When he grabs you, he has grabbed you. There’s no maybes, no ifs, no buts. He’s gonna kill you.” The heavyset officer sits in his office at the FWC, wearing a cowboy hat, vest and sunglasses. Dennis believes it is far too easy to acquire big cats.

    “In my opinion, we have to be stricter on people who own tigers,” says Dennis, “let me show you why.” He flips open his laptop. A series of blood-covered, mutilated people flashes across the screen. The last image is of a woman with her throat slit open. “Joy Holiday was an animal trainer. The same tiger killed someone else two months earlier.” Why wasn’t the tiger put down? “You know,” says Dennis, “most Americans look at it this way: ‘If you own a tiger, then it’s your problem if that tiger decides to eat you.’”

    According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, five people have been killed by big cats since 2003 in the US alone. More than 40 others have been injured, some severely. In many cases it is the supposed cat experts who become victims. Show star Roy Horn is a famous example. Horn, who with his partner Siegfried Fischbacher formed the world-famous duo Siegfried & Roy, was attacked by a tiger three years ago during a performance at the Hotel Mirage in Las Vegas. The animal, named Montecore, bit into the performer’s neck and dragged the helpless man from the stage. Horn narrowly survived the incident.

    Children have also been killed. Americans are fond of taking posed Polaroid pictures with big cats. It was this kind of photo opportunity that killed 17-year-old Haley Hilderbrand last August. She was posing for a photo next to a tiger in a private zoo in Mound Valley, Kansas. To this day, no one knows why Haley suddenly bent forward. The tiger plunged its teeth into her neck, killing Haley on the spot.

    Even these kinds of incidents haven’t discouraged big cat enthusiasts from allowing their tigers to interact with children. Gloria Johnson, a cat lover from the town of Havana in northern Florida, even refers to “wildlife education” as her mission in life. “There have to be just a few specially, highly trained people to teach children about what extinction means,” says Johnson. “It means never again.”

    Of course, the 51-year-old Johnson counts herself among these cat experts. She bought her one-and-a-half-year-old white tiger Casanova from Baudy for a special price of $5,000. “I volunteered for Robert for a long time,” she explains, “a white baby tiger normally goes for $15,000.” Yellow tigers, she adds, can be had for as little as $1,200.

    Johnson took out a second mortgage so that she could buy Casanova. Her simple wooden house is filled with cat paraphernalia. Groups of schoolchildren regularly crowd into her living room to admire the tiger and her two pumas, Ashukalee and Lakota, in her back yard.

    “I even took Casanova into schools until he was six months old,” says the petite Johnson. She would put the animal, which already weighed 100 pounds at the time, on a leash to show it to the children. Johnson is convinced that the lessons are valuable to kids: “When they look into the eyes of a live tiger, it’s an experience they will not get on the Internet or on TV.”

    Johnson portrays herself in the role of the petite blonde dominating the tiger in her personal version of “Beauty and the Beast.” But animal rights activists say that publicity-hungry cat fans like Johnson merely boost the cat trade because they create even more hype for big cats.

    “Gloria walks her tiger on a leash and takes him to school, while at the same claiming that tigers are not pets,” says Carole Baskin, “that’s just bullshit.” The platinum blonde from Tampa, Johnson’s arch enemy, made a fortune in real estate and used to invest in the big cat breeding business. “I used to think that I was doing something to help protect the species,” says Baskin, “but I know today that none of the industry’s money goes into conservation.”

    Nowadays Baskin strongly opposes private ownership of tigers. She runs an animal sanctuary in Tampa called Big Cat Rescue, which is essentially a home for the rejects of the big cat industry. Retired circus cats live out their final years at the facility, which also provides a home for unwanted tigers.

    Auroara, a tigress, is a little bit cross-eyed, has a decent overbite and her legs are deformed. “She’s a typical example of what they call a throwaway tiger,” says Baskin’s colleague Scott Lope. “Auroara is the result of the extreme inbreeding that’s customary in the industry to breed sought-after white tigers.” But Auroara was not born white and was sold off on the cheap to a private owner. “He just dropped her off here at some point.”

    Shere Khan is another example. “He has weak bones, bad teeth and his legs are much too short,” says Lope. “He probably grew up in a cage that was much too small and didn’t get the right nutrition, so that he wasn’t able to develop properly.”

    “At some point tigers become too big and too strong for just about all handlers,” says Baskin. She says she is tired of running a sort of refugee camp for rejected big cats, and wants to see stricter legislation on the books. “Ten states have absolutely no restrictions,” she says, adding that while Florida does have laws to regulate the industry, they are almost impossible to enforce. “The law requires 1,000 hours of experience with big cats before you can own a tiger. But the problem is that the ones who are certifying that experience are the ones selling the tigers.”

    On the grounds of Robert Baudy’s “Savage Kingdom,” this sort of criticism seems like activist chatter from a faraway world. There is something timeless and eternal about Baudy’s big cats as they move lithely through their enclosures. “I don’t understand all the excitement,” says Baudy. “Sixty thousand Americans get hurt by horses every year, but only two or three get wounded by tigers.” He gently scratches tiger Romeo through the bars of the animal’s cage. The sound of the cat’s purring echoes like rolling thunder.

    Baudy wistfully surveys his sun-drenched property. He knows that his days are numbered. “I’m on the way to extinction,” he says. He still owns 17 big cats. Two female tigers are pregnant and will soon give birth.

    But this time Baudy won’t be selling the baby tigers. There were consequences to Vincent Lowe’s death. After more than 30 years in the business, this tiger breeder has lost his license.

    Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

    (—> read original article at SPIEGEL ONLINE International)

  • RoboCup 2006: Silicon Players of the Beautiful Game

    Never mind chess — the cool game for smart machines now is soccer. Humanoid robots stumble around the field but learn quickly. They’re playing their own World Cup this week in Germany, and scientists hope machines will beat human champions in less than 50 years.

    Paul, Franz, Gerd, and the shapely Lara aren’t exactly soccer stars. In fact, they’re not even human. They have feet made of carbon fibers and hips with double AC servomotors, powered by lithium-ion batteries with just enough juice for two ten-minute halves. But they’re preparing for a World Cup of their own this week in Germany. “Look at this — that was no coincidence,” says their inventor, Sven Behnke, pointing at a computer screen displaying the moves from a game last year against Japan’s “Team Osaka.” The fact that his protégés scored a single goal still makes Behnke proud.

    He’s a computer scientist from the University of Freiburg who also serves as head coach of the team “NimbRo,” a group of robot athletes that may make soccer history this week. Last year the Freiburg side placed second in their league. Only the Japanese team beat them, 2-1 — in spite of a heroic goal in the second-to-last minute. … More

  • Our Warming World: The Day the Climate Changed

    The climate change debate may have turned an important corner. Sir Nicholas Stern’s report not only put a price tag on global warming, but also argues for an economically viable solution. But will humanity act in time?

    The day the world’s climate changed was a Monday — Monday of last week, to be more precise, at exactly 10 a.m. That was when a gray-haired man with frameless glasses stood before the press to deliver a clear but alarming message. Now, his message having been delivered, no one can claim not to know the true extent of the damage each individual has been doing to the world.

    The core of that message was a number that immediately drove up the planet’s perceived temperature: 5.5 trillion. Sir Nicholas Stern has attached a figure to a phenomenon that is little more than a set of vague concepts for most people. He converted complex physical processes into a unit of measure that directly affects people’s daily lives: money. … More