Frida Kahlo 'Portrait of a Lady in White' Sells for $5.8 Million at Christies Latin America

Frida Kahlo, Portrait of a Lady in White (c. 1929). Courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd. via ArtNet

Frida Kahlo’s ‘Portrait of a Lady in White’ (c. 1929) carried a pre-auction estimate of $3 -$5 million. The painting sold Wednesday at Christie’s Latin American art sale in New York for more than $5.8 million, making it the second-highest price ever paid for a Frida Kahlo painting. Her ‘Dos Desnudos en el Bosque (La Tierra Misma)’ (1939) sold for over $8 million at Christie’s in 2016

A visitor looks at “Portrait of a Lady in White” at the Frida Kahlo Retrospective at Martin-Gropius-Bau on April 29, 2010 in Berlin. Courtesy of Sean Gallup via ArtNet.

The painting has been maintained in private collections, most recently the collection of Dr. Helga Prignitz-Poda, a Kahlo scholar. One of Kahlo’s few oil paintings, “Recent research suggests that the subject of the portrait is Kahlo’s high school friend Elena Boder, a Russian émigré and an influential doctor. It was previously believed that the sitter was Kahlo’s American friend Dorothy Brown Fox.” writes Forbes.

Lucy Hughes' Bioplastic Made From Fish Scales Just Won the James Dyson Award

Most people look at fish guts and think, “eww.”

Lucy Hughes looked at the bloody waste from a fish processing plant and saw opportunity.

Then a student in product design at the University of Sussex, Hughes was interested in making use of things people normally throw away. So she arranged to visit a fish processing plant near her university, on England’s southern coast.

She came away a bit smelly—“I had to wash even my shoes,” she says—but inspired. After tinkering with various fish parts, she developed a plastic-like material made from scales and skin. Not only is it made from waste, it’s also biodegradable.

The material, MarinaTex, won Hughes this year’s James Dyson Award. The £30,000 (nearly $39,000) award is given to a recent design or engineering graduate who develops a product that solves a problem with ingenuity. Hughes, 24, beat out 1,078 entrants from 28 different countries.

Hughes, who grew up in suburban London, has always loved to spend time near the ocean. As a budding product designer—she graduated this summer—she was disturbed by statistics like 40 percent of plastic produced for packaging is only used once, and that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea by weight than fish. She wanted to develop something sustainable, and figured the sea itself was a good place to start, given that the University of Sussex is outside the beach town of Brighton.

“There’s value in waste, and we should be looking towards waste products rather than virgin materials if we could,” Hughes says. Read more about Hughes’ project Smithsonian.com.

Hang Tight, America: The Redcoats Are Coming | Shag Haircuts Unite

Hang Tight, America: The Redcoats Are Coming | Shag Haircuts Unite

Rule number one of the little bit of grunge, a little rock, rigorously disheveled shag haircut is that the woman should be seriously rebellious and not faking it when choosing to get shaggy. Shags are not for imposters and poll readers. Rather, the shag haircut is for leaders like 70s’s women Jane Fonda and Debbie Harry, who are activists to the core decades later.

‘Shag’ is a 16th-century word, possibly from an Old English term for “rough, matted hair or wool. Men primarily, but some women also, have adopted their own definition of ‘shag’ and it has a strongly sexual connotation, as in “S(he) is a great shag.” There’s typically a ‘but’ that follows, as in “She’s a great shag but a total airhead.”

Shags are generally considered to be nonconforming, sexy haircuts, willfully embraced by their owners. Besides Fonda and Harry, the shaggy bob is also tagged to Meg Ryan and more recently Taylor Swift and Alexa Chung. Vogue Italia breaks down all the shag haircut details and shares celebs with their shags.

Jane Fonda, Still Flexing Shag Muscle

The return of shags — now a year-old trend in the US — gets new cred with female resistance. We all know that American women Democrats, Independents and increasingly, educated Republican women are exercising serious shag credentials.

Michelle Obama Is Schiaparelli Goddess of Strength and Energy at Smithsonian Fundraiser

Michelle Obama with Schiaparelli Creative Director Daniel Roseberry. © Paul Morigi/Invision/AP/Shutterstock via British Vogue

Michelle Obama loves yellow, and she achieved true goddess stature wearing a custom Schiaparelli gown to the American Portrait Gala. Obama attended the event to support her friend Lin-Manuel Miranda, now a permanent fixture on the wall of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, in artwork by Mark Seliger.

“What I love most is that [Lin] believes it’s his duty to lift up those around him, especially the next generation,” the beloved former First Lady said of the ‘Hamilton’ creator. “He’s someone who has, in melody and rhyme and connection, painted as honest a portrait of our country as I’ve ever seen. Love this guy.”

Speaking of Michelle Obama’s dress, Schiaparelli Creative Director Daniel Roseberry commented on the design: “The inspiration for the shape originally came from the crinoline which is often found underneath couture gowns, but the real starting point for the overall look was the colour. The acidic tone echoes Elsa Schiaparelli’s signature shocking pink, and we also felt that it matched the strength and energy of Mrs Obama. It was such an honour to make this special gown for her.”

Roseberry waxed lyrical about Madame Schiaparelli when he took the creative reins at the house in April. “She was a master of the modern; her work reflected the chaos and hope of the turbulent era in which she lived,” he said. “Today, we find ourselves asking similarly big, identity-shaping questions of our own: What does art look like? What is identity? How do we dress for the end of the world?” via British Vogue.

Besides Lin-Manuel Miranda, other honorees included Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee band Earth, Wind & Fire, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi.

The event raised more than $2 million in support of the Smithsonian museum’s endowment for exhibitions, with more than 700 guests in attendance. The Washingtontonian provides photos galore.

Adesuwe Aighewi's Life Philosophy: I Can Feel Sexy While Claiming a Better World

Adesuwe Aighewi's Life Philosophy: I Can Feel Sexy While Claiming a Better World

Top model Adesuwa Aighewi covers the December 2019 issue of S Moda for El Pais. Aighewi is styled by Paula Delgado in images by Jack Waterlot./

AOC articulates Adesuwa Aighewi’s activist, documentary producer narrative constantly — as recently as last week — but we just learned a new reference from her S Moda interview. BTW, do you know that AOC tracks the intersection of black beauty, racism in fashion and beyond, colonialism, slavery in America and contemporary Africa in our GlamTribal channel”

‘How To Make a Slave’ by Willie Lynch

What AOC notes — and has never been exposed to in decades of work in civil rights — is her reference to ‘How To Make a Slave’ by Willie Lynch, an alleged slave owner in the West Indies. Looking for the best reference on this alleged, but heavily disputed speech, I will share this link for LongReads, because 1) it’s researched by librarians using the wayback machine, and it involves Kanye West. Denzel Washington quotes the letter at length in the 2007 film ‘The Great Debaters’.

Multiple voices in this article argue that the letter is a construction from the ‘60s or ‘70s, one created to confuse and disempower people of color. Rest assured that AOC will be investigating Aighewi’s reference to ‘How To Make a Slave’.

Baltimore Museum Will Acquire Work Only By Women Artists in 2020

Georgia O’Keeffe's "Pink Tulip" is on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of its 2020 Vision initiative,which will be a year-long series of exhibitions and programs focused solely on female artists. (The Baltimore Museum of Art)

Women artists received a tough love message in a recent survey of art acquisitions by America’s museums. Only 11 percent of art acquired by 26 of America’s top museums for their permanent collections from 2008 to 2018, is the work of women artists.

The Baltimore Museum of Art announced a new drive for women artists, announcing that in 2020, the museum will only acquire work for its permanent collection that is produced by women.

The decision is an attempt by the museum to “truly be radical and emphasize to the arts communities that we are taking this initiative quite seriously,” and “re-correcting the canon,” chief curator Asma Naeem said.

The initiative comes as many museums in Washington and across America prepare to celebrate women artists in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment and women’s right to vote. It’s also expected that the newly Democratic state government of Virginia will ratify the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) early in 2020, pushing the amendment across the finish line with state ratifications. The time is beyond the original ratification dates, and the issue will surely be moved into the federal court system.

Celebrating women artists is great, but just as American women have learned with achieving the ERA, progress is very painful and slow.

“Curators say they struggle to convince their acquisition committees to pay up for work, particularly by older, overlooked female artists, who frequently lack an auction history that might be used to validate the asking price,” the investigative report on museum acquisitions stated.

AOC discovered a perfect example of this reality in our recent post about 99-year-old artist Luchita Hurtado.

“If you think about the word ‘artist,’ there’s a tacit assumption that it’s a male genius who is in fact the artist,” Naeem said. “That can be seen in the fact that we even call these ‘women artists.’ They’re not women artists. They’re artists.”

Artist Emma Kohlmann by Mariya Pepelanova for Eurowoman December 2019

Artist Emma Kohlmann by Mariya Pepelanova for Eurowoman December 2019

Artist Emma Kohlmann @meiow_mix is lensed by Mariya Pepelanova for the December 2019 issue of Eurowoman Denmark. Fashion editor Frederikke Raun styles Emma, who was interviewed in Amadeus Magazine in 2018.

Multimedia artist Emma Kohlmann exists in three different worlds: her quaint, quiet life in Northampton, Massachusetts; her social, gallery-hopping life in New York City and Los Angeles; and the indefinable otherworldly life she has created through her colorful and abstract watercolors. Each world is a telling reflection of Emma’s multifaceted personality and the disparate needs she has in order to fuel her creativity.

Emma’s watercolor world is playful and somewhat naive. It’s balanced, yet completely off-balanced. It’s intrinsically political, unwittingly powerful, and aesthetically stunning. It’s a way for the Massachusetts-based artist to retreat into a figurative world that doesn’t define an ideal form. Fascinated by the idea of constructing things that are beautiful, but are not attached to certain forms of identity, Emma sees the body as political. There are aspects that are visible and others that are hidden. There are parts that are celebrated and others that are obliterated, and she wants all of them to be acknowledged. Driven by her desire to deconstruct what is learned, her lively figures aren’t confined to traditional gender norms, and who or what these figures are is irrelevant. What’s most crucial for Emma is branching out of the typical male canon of nudity, transgressing the image, and remaining absolutely limitless in her presentation of such.

Mary McCartney Eyes Sustainable Fashions for Vogue Poland November 2019

Mary McCartney Eyes Sustainable Fashions for Vogue Poland November 2019

Models Ewa Witkowska, Kamila Szczawińska and Maria Zakrzewska cover the November 2019 issue of Vogue Poland. Describing the shoot in the Polish countryside of Warmia and Mazury, Vogue Poland shares details of their real-world trajectories in the modeling world.

Designer Stella McCartney’s sister, English photographer Mary McCartney is behind the lens, photographing all-sustainable fashions in the cover story ‘For Nature’, style by Daniela Agnelli. McCartney is a Global Ambassador for Meat Free Mondays , cofounded by the McCartney family, and Green Monday, embracing a fully-sustainable lifestyle like her sister Stella. / Hair by Michal Bielecki; makeup by Aneta Kostrzewa

Botswana’s Okavango Delta Is Created by a Delicate Balance, but for How Much Longer?

Botswana’s Okavango Delta Is Created by a Delicate Balance, but for How Much Longer?

The Okavango Delta in northern Botswana is a mosaic of water paths, floodplains and arid islands. The delta sits in the Okavango river basin, which spans three African countries: Angola, Namibia and Botswana.

Because it’s an oasis, in a semi-arid area, it hosts a rich array of plants and attracts a huge variety of wildlife.

As a unique ecosystem, in 2014 it was placed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list and it is an iconic tourist destination, which generates 13% of Botswana’s GDP.

But it’s a fragile natural area. It’s controlled by deformations of the Earth’s crust over a long time (thousands to millions of years) and by annual water flows and evaporation. The size of the flooded delta from year to year varies between 3,500km² and 9,000km² because of weather fluctuations which control its water supply.

Any change to the processes that form the delta will have an impact on the wildlife and local economic activities. Its grassy floodplains are food for grazing animals in the dry period. Losses of this habitat will cause declines in wildlife and livestock. It’s therefore imperative to understand what creates and sustains the delta for the future management of the system.

Two Traps Where Woolly Mammoths Were Driven to Their Deaths Found in Mexico

Two Traps Where Woolly Mammoths Were Driven to Their Deaths Found in Mexico

In the neighborhood of Tultepec, just north of Mexico City, plans were recently underway to convert a patch of land into a garbage dump. But during preparatory excavations, workers at the site found themselves digging up woolly mammoth bones—hundreds of them. Over the course of ten months of archaeological and anthropological work, experts were able to piece together a grim picture of what appears to have been a prehistoric hunting site. The team had, according to the Associated Press, stumbled upon two large man-made traps—pits where hunters drove woolly mammoths to their deaths.

Researchers with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the discovery this week, saying that it lends “unprecedented context” to experts’ understanding of how ancient humans hunted woolly mammoths. The pits date to 15,000 years ago, each measuring 5.5 feet deep and 82 feet long, reports CNN's Jack Guy. Inside the pits were 824 mammoth bones, among them eight skulls, five jaws, a hundred vertebrae and 179 ribs. Experts say the remains correspond to at least 14 individual mammoths. Bones belonging to a camel and a horse were also found.

According to INAH researchers, the pits may have been vital tools for ensnaring a formidable prey; woolly mammoths, which went extinct some 4,000 years ago, could stand more than 11 feet tall and weigh up to eight tons. Experts think that groups of hunters, perhaps numbering between 20 and 30 people, would separate one individual from the herd and drive it towards the pits, possibly frightening it with torches and branches. Once inside the trap, the animal would be killed.

New York City Foie Gras Ban Awaits Mayor's Pen | Alternatives Do Exist

Image Credits: Top Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash; Bottom Culinaria.

It appears that New York will ban foie gras but now on a three-year phase-in schedule to help upstate farmers retool, writes Food & Wine. Down about six paragraphs, I note that Councilwoman Carlina Rivera -- the bill's sponsor -- references an alternative way of feeding the geese, which is considered to be acceptable. She said

"I also encourage all foie gras-producing farms, many of which purport to use sustainable practices, to pursue other methods of foie gras production, such as those done by farmers in Spain that employ different methods using highly dense foods.” '

So foie gras doesn't have to be banned as a food, suggests Rivera. It's being banned over a force-feeding process that is generally considered to be disgusting, the most involved one becomes in understanding the story behind the delicacy. Apparently, there’s an alternative feeding process for the geese used in Spain that is much more humane.

Note that restaurants can "give away" the foie gras, based on the new law. But it's interesting to know that there is an alternative, more humane process that could end this entire food fight. I believe this same philosophy of fundamental to the functioning of a democracy, so this article has me reflecting.

Long ago activist ,upstate New York Blue Hill Chef Dan Barber launched the conversation around an ‘ethical’ fois gras alternative and the issue has received considerable attention. Listen to Barber speak to the issue and see related reading links below.

Dan Barber’s Foie Gras TED Talk

Related Here’s an ‘audacious’ science project: foie gras without the controversy Science | Business July 2019

The farmer who makes ‘ethical’ foie gras The Guardian

: This Man Might Be Producing the World’s Only Ethical Foie Gras VICE Jan 2015

Can Dan Barber Produce a Humane Foie Gras? TheKitchn.com Dec. 2011

New Ancient Ape Species Rewrites the Story of Bipedalism and Humans

New Ancient Ape Species Rewrites the Story of Bipedalism

When Madelaine Böhme, a researcher at the University of Tübingen in Germany, unearthed the partial skeleton of an ancient ape at the Hammerschmiede clay pit in Bavaria, she knew she was looking at something special. Compared to fragments, an intact partial skeleton can tell paleoanthropologists about a creature’s body proportions and how its anatomy might have functioned. A relative newcomer to the field and a paleoclimatologist by trade, Böhme enlisted Begun’s expertise in analyzing the fossil ape.

Böhme and colleagues determined that the bones they found came from a dryopithecine ape, an extinct ancestor of humans and great apes that once lived in the Miocene epoch. The fossils are approximately 11.6 million years old and came from at least four individual apes, including one partial skeleton. The team described the newfound ancestor, named Danuvius guggenmosi, in a study published today in Nature.

‘D. guggenmosi’ was likely a small primate about the size of baboon, with long arms like a bonobo. The creature had flexible elbows and strong hands capable of grasping, which suggests that it could have swung from tree to tree like a modern great ape. But the similarities with known apes stop there. The animal’s lower limbs have much more in common with human anatomy. With extended hips and knees, D. guggenmosi was capable of standing with a straighter posture than that of living African apes, and its knees and ankles were adapted to bear weight. The animal’s locomotion would have therefore shared similarities with both human and ape movement, and D. guggenmosi may have been able to navigate the forest by swinging from tree limbs and walking on two legs.

Nike Signs (No) Arctic Shipping Pledge, Joining H&M Group, Kering, PVH Corp

The truth is that many large corporations have no problem that the Arctic is melting. They want the new shipping route as a terrible example of corporate greed and self-interest. Still, corporate interests are salivating to ship through the Arctic year-round.

It’s very important that NIKE has teamed up with the Ocean Conservancy to launch the Arctic Shipping Corporate Pledge, inviting businesses and industry to join in a commitment against shipping through the Arctic Ocean.

Ships are responsible for more than 18 percent of some air pollutants. It also includes greenhouse gas emissions. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that carbon dioxide emissions from shipping were equal to 2.2% of the global human-made emissions in 2012 and expects them to rise 50 to 250 percent by 2050 if no action is taken.

The Arctic Shipping Corporate Pledge invites companies to commit to not intentionally send ships through this fragile Arctic ecosystem. Today's signatories include companies Bestseller, Columbia, Gap Inc., H&M Group, Kering, Li & Fung, PVH Corp., and ocean carriers CMA CGM, Evergreen, Hapag-Lloyd and Mediterranean Shipping Company.

"The dangers of trans-Arctic shipping routes outweigh all perceived benefits and we cannot ignore the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from shipping on our ocean," says Janis Searles Jones, CEO of Ocean Conservancy. "Ocean Conservancy applauds Nike for recognizing the real bottom line here is a shared responsibility for the health of the Arctic—and believes the announcement will spur much-needed action to prevent risky Arctic shipping and hopes additional commitments to reduce emissions from global shipping will emerge." 

For Nike to take a lead in advancing and promoting awareness of the Arctic Shipping Corporate Pledge is an excellent victory. With all the moves to track how products are made and transported, we can check a product on our phones and see if it's been transported through the Arctic. If the environment means enough to us -- this is where consumer power comes into action. But it takes business leaders like Nike to talk to other corporate leaders on some of these topics. At least, it's a collaborative effort of business and activism like this one.

Queen Elizabeth II Says "Faux Fur Only Going Forward"

Queen Elizabeth II via W Magazine

Queen Liz is onboard: no more fur. Faux fur only on very cold days. Her Majesty has already had all the mink trim -- and any other animal fur -- removed from her most favorite coats, replaced with faux fur.

Stella McCartney has a marvelous new faux fur that is impossible to distinguish from the original — although the Queen’s longtime personal adviser and official dresser Angela Kelly says that Her Majesty’s preference is to move away from fur entirely.

The Humane Society International formally announced that it's "thrilled" before calling on the British government to make the U.K. the first country in the world to ban the sale of fur. The UK branch of PETA, hardly known for low-volume press messages on the subject of animal rights, tweeted "we're raising a glass of gin and Dubonnet to the Queen’s compassionate decision to go fur-free".

Image via Town and Country

After a quick sip, the organization then suggested that perhaps the Queen’s Guard, known worldwide for their enormous bearskin hats could follow Her Majesty’s lead. PETA has been lobbying for faux fur hats to replace the current ones for almost three years, even sending her prototypes from Only Me in 2017, writes Town and Country.

We all curtsy to a modern woman very concerned about protecting heritage and protocol, while keeping British royalty relevant with evolving values.

H&M Trials Clothing Rentals With Stockholm Store's Conscious Exclusive 2012-2019

H&M is launching a new concept store in Stockholm, a venue dedicated to rentals of sustainable ready-to-wear from Conscious Exclusive collections past and present. Pieces from sustainable Conscious Exclusive collections 2012-2019 will be available to customers who are members of H&M’s customer loyalty program.

Members will be able to book a time at the rental space where a stylist treats them to a personalised experience, helping them select some great pieces they can then rent for a week. Members can rent up to three pieces a time at a cost of around 350 Swedish kronor per piece.

“We love offering our fans something extra and we also want to encourage our customers to look on fashion in a circular way as we aim to lead the change towards a circular fashion industry,” says Pascal Brun, Head of Sustainability at H&M

To further inspire customers to reuse and recycle, the store will also offer repair services with an atelier where customers can get their fashion favourites mended or upgraded. The newly furbished Sergels Torg store, which opens end of November, will offer customers a great shopping destination with a curated assortment, a beauty bar and the café-concept It’s Pleat. 

Central Park Seneca Village Monument Will Honor African American Freed Slaves in NYC

A DOUBLE AMBROTYPE PORTRAIT OF ALBRO LYONS, SR. AND MARY JOSEPH LYONS. NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.

NYC Monument Will Honor African-American Family Displaced to Make Way for Central Park

Before Central Park leveled it, Seneca Village was a thriving 20-year-old home to African American freed slaves property owners seeking sanctuary in New York City .

Many of its members owned their own property, set apart from the crowds—and discrimination—of the city’s more populated downtown area. But when local authorities began moving forward with plans to build Central Park, Seneca Village’s residents were forced to leave their homes.

A planned monument announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office earlier this month is set to honor a prominent African-American family that once lived in the bustling community. As Julia Jacobs reports for the New York Times, the monument will pay tribute to the Lyons family, a trio of abolitionists, educators and property owners made up of Albro, Mary Joseph and their daughter Maritcha.

Meet the Powerhouse Talent Team Behind 'Harriet' Movie: Erivo, Lemmons, Martin-Chase

Essence Magazine interviews Tony-Award winner Cynthia Erivo about her starring role as the fearless abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the highly-anticipated biopic ‘Harriet’. I recall seeing Erivo in her powerhouse performance as Celie in the Broadway presentation of ‘The Color Purple’.

The film, which opened Friday and is discussed in depth in AOC’s The True Story Behind the Harriet Tubman Movie -- An Epic Tale of Fearless Heroism tells the story of a determined 5’1” abolitionist who freed more than hundreds of slaves, including herself. A union spy during the Civil War, Tubman was the first woman to lead a military expedition of its kind in America, when she led soldiers with Colonel James Montgomery to raid rice plantations along the Combahee Rover in South Carolina.

THE FILM BRIEFLY DEPICTS THE CIVIL WAR MILITARY EXPEDITION THAT FREED AROUND 750 ENSLAVED PEOPLE AND WAS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND TO BE LED BY A WOMAN. (GLEN WILSON/FOCUS FEATURES)

The film is directed by Kasi Lemmons, whose pedigree includes directing the critically acclaimed and award-winning Southern Gothic film ‘Eve's Bayou’ and her 2007 biopic ‘Talk To Me’ about legendary radio DJ Petey Green. She was described by film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon as "an ongoing testament to the creative possibilities of film".

Producer Debra Martin-Chase. is affiliated with Universal Television, a division of NBC Universal Television Group. It was affiliated with the Walt Disney Company from 2001 to 2016. How refreshing to read Martin-Chase’s comments on BlackEnterprise.com, addressing head-on some commentary of the film from black critics, who are “slave fatigued”.

“This is NOT a slave movie,” Debra Martin Chase declares, her passion for her latest production, Harriet, crackling through the phone. “This is a movie about freedom and empowerment. This is a movie that says we cannot control the circumstances into which we are born, but we can control what we do once we get here.”

“A lot of us are waking up every day feeling hopeless and helpless, and this film is a reminder to all of us that we can each make a difference, in our families, in our churches, our communities, our countries, our world,” she says. “Harriet saved herself, members of her family, and countless others. She changed people’s lives, she changed the course of history. This is an action hero origin story. She was a badass!”

AOC is tracking commentary around the film in our long piece from Smithsonian Magazine, anchor for the National Museum of African American History and Culture — including the responses of women writers vs male writers. And for the record, white people should learn from the complex discussion and keep our mouths shut. ~ Anne

The True Story Behind the Harriet Tubman Movie -- An Epic Tale of Fearless Heroism AOC GlamTribal Blog

The ‘Harriet’ trailer gives you an idea of what’s to come from this hyper-talented cast of black women creatives and business executives.

Satellite Collars to Help Boost Protection for Nigeria’s Largest Remaining Elephant Herd

Satellite Collars to Help Boost Protection for Nigeria’s Largest Remaining Elephant Herd

In early October, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) fitted six elephants in northern Nigeria’s Yankari National Park with satellite collars. The collars will help WCS, which works with the Bauchi state government to manage the park, better monitor and protect Nigeria’s largest remaining herd of elephants.

“The elephants’ collars are quite valuable, not just for protection and for research, but also to reduce human-elephant conflict and promote tourism,” Andrew Dunn, Nigeria director of WCS, told Mongabay.

“It will allow us to know where the elephants are and to make sure our rangers know where they are, watch them closely and make sure the elephants get close protection.”

Dunn said rangers can now track the elephants’ movements and location better and react more quickly when the elephants are in danger or move closer to the edge of the park.

Elephants once ranged from the tropical swamps and rainforests of the south of Nigeria to the savanna in the north, but a combination of poaching, human-elephant conflict, and deforestation from logging for timber and expanding agriculture have diminished these populations.

Beehive Fences Can Help Mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict

Beehive Fences Can Help Mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict

Human-elephant conflict poses major threats to the well-being of both humans and animals. Crop-raiding by elephants across Asia and Africa can be devastating for small farmers, leading to food insecurity, lost opportunity costs, and even death. Crop-raiding and property damage can also result in negative attitudes towards elephant conservation and retaliatory killings of elephants.

Finding effective and inexpensive solutions has proven extremely difficult. Farmers guarding their fields at night lose sleep and put themselves in potentially close proximity to hungry elephants. Killing “problem” elephants is not only inhumane, but is also ineffective at reducing human-elephant conflict. Electric fences, while effective in theory, often fail in practice because they are costly and difficult to maintain.

Bees to the rescue

More recently, conservationists have explored the use of beehive fences as a humane and eco-friendly way to protect crops from elephants. Zoologist Lucy King of the NGO Save the Elephants told Mongabay the idea came from Kenyan farmers, who noticed that elephants avoided foraging in trees that contained beehives.

Great Apes May Use Their Own Experience to Guess What Others Will Do, Giving Them 'Theory of Mind'

A new survey of 47 chimpanzees, bonobos and organgutans suggests great apes draw on personal experience to infer others’ actions, exhibiting a skill once thought to be unique to humans.

Great Apes May Use Their Own Experience to Guess What Others Will Do, Giving Them 'Theory of Mind'

As researchers led by Fumihiro Kano of Japan’s Kyoto University report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings add to a growing body of evidence indicating non-human animals possess “theory of mind,” or the ability to attribute mental states—including beliefs, desires and knowledge—to oneself and others.

According to Cosmos’ Tanya Loos, the study builds on a 2016 investigation also co-authored by Kano. The previous paper, published in the journal Science, showed that great apes are capable of recognizing when others are operating under a false set of assumptions—a key component of theory of mind.

To determine primates’ capacity for understanding false belief, Kano, lead coauthor Christopher Krupenye of Duke University and their colleagues conducted a series of anticipatory looking tests. In the 2016 experiment, great apes watched videos of humans—one dressed as a gorilla—hiding an object and then guessing where it was. One video showed the gorilla-suit actor hiding an object while another human watched. The person then had to guess where the object was hidden. A second video showed the gorilla-suit actor hiding an object after the other human left the room. When the person returned, they had to guess where the object was hidden.