Cape Town’s Summer Tourism Season Gets Back into Action

In December 2011, Cape Town Tourism revealed that member surveys were showing increased optimism and better early results in the 2011/2012 summer tourism season. Following the release of results from its second member survey, it appears that predictions for a much-improved season were right on the money.

106 accommodation establishment industry members responded to Cape Town Tourism’s second summer survey, which examined tourism numbers for December 2011 and January 2012. The survey found that in December 2011, 60.4% of respondents reported occupancy levels of over 60%. In a slight leveling out, 54.7% of industry members had occupancy levels of over 60%, but a total of 66% of respondents noticed an increase in occupancy levels when compared with the same period last year.

Travelers were reported to be a mix of both domestic and international tourists from Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Western Cape respectively. International visitors hailed from Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and the USA. Only 11.4% of accommodation respondents answered negatively when asked how they expected their establishment to perform in the coming summer months when comparing occupancy levels with the same period last year.

In the tour operator sector, 52.2% of respondents reported an increase in bookings for December 2011. For January 2012, 58.3% of respondents saw an increase. Whilst tour operators reported bookings from both local and international markets, 70.8% of respondents reported most of their bookings to be from the UK, USA and Germany respectively. The main attractions booked during this period were Cape Point, the Cape Winelands, Table Mountain and the V&A Waterfront. Only 12.5% of respondents expect their establishments to do worse in February and March when booking levels are compared to the same period last year.

The top tourism attractions also reported excellent trade with 78.9% of respondents noting an upswing in December 2011 and January 2012. Significantly, 63.2% reported an increase in revenue to match the increase in bookings. Visitors were received from both the local and international market with all attractions surveying high numbers from the Western Cape, then Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal. International visitors were predominantly from Germany, the UK, and the USA and China equally. Only 15.8% of respondents expect to do worse during the remaining summer months than for the same period last year.

Table Mountain Cableway reported a record 116 000 visitors for December 2011 and another record month for January 2012 with 103 000 visitors. Excellent weather during these months, the current annual sunset special, as well as exposure garnered from the New 7 Wonders of Nature campaign, is thought to be the reason for this significant increase. Visitors in December were predominantly local and domestic, whilst international visitor figures started picking up in January.

Cape Point saw 87 119 visitors through the park gate and 31 696 visitors use the Funicular in December 2011, whilst January 2012 saw 79 973 visitors enter the park and 41 580 patrons make use of the Funicular. Thus far, February is being reported as an excellent month.

At the V&A Waterfront, foot count for December 2011 was estimated to be two million, which put 2011 on par with the predicted 22.5 million visitors annually. Both December 2011 and January 2012 have shown positive year on year growth with a good combination of both local and international visitors. International visitors from core markets, events and an increase in business tourism are reported to have played a role in the increased visitor numbers for February. Waterfront hotels have also forecasted positive figures for February and March 2012.

The City Sightseeing bus reported a busy peak season with the bulk of patrons being domestic visitors over this period. The recently launched canal cruise is also becoming popular thanks to City Sightseeing’s captive audience as well as packages on City Sightseeing tickets.

Restaurants in Cape Town reported an increase in bookings for the December 2011 - January 2012 period. It was reported that there was a good combination of both domestic and international visitors with a surprising upswing by locals, but still more bookings from European travelers. The majority of restaurant respondents are positive about the coming summer months when looking at their forward bookings.

For the calendar year of 2011 overall passenger numbers at Cape Town International Airport grew by 4.05%. With just under 8.5 million passengers processed in 2011 it can be hailed the year of regained growth. Deidre Davids, Communications Manager, Airports Company South Africa: Cape Town International Airport, comments; “In essence this means that while passenger numbers had started to slowly but steadily grow we had not yet recorded as much growth as in 2007. Now we have finally surpassed that and if the trend continues we are on track to regain the growth of the past four years”.

For the month of December total passenger movement showed an increase of 7% compared to the same period last year. December 2011 saw over 330 000 domestic arriving passengers, and an impressive increase of 17% for international arriving passenger numbers compared to the same period last year.

The month of January has seen passenger numbers at Cape Town International Airport continue to climb in line with the trend of the past three months. January saw international arriving passenger numbers grow by a remarkable 15% compared to January 2011. Domestic arriving passengers grew by 4% for January compared to January last year. Total passenger numbers for January 2012 marked a healthy 8% growth compared to January last year. Davids adds; “The International passenger numbers are extremely impressive and confirm that November marks the beginning of the peak season with the months that follow all showing good growth”.

Cape Town Tourism’s Visitor Information Centers reported having engaged with 13 477 walk-in visitors during December 2011 and 14 762 in January 2012. For December these figures indicated an equal split of domestic and international visitors; however, January saw an upswing in foreign visitors with a further increase expected for February as per previous years’ trends. The increase in walk-in visitors for December, and a decrease in email enquiries, shows that more visitors were in destination, making use of the VIC network and not making use of email as in the preceding months whilst planning their trips.

Enver Duminy, Acting CEO of Cape Town Tourism, comments; “The responses we’ve seen from this second survey, as well as the conversations we have had the tourism industry, are encouraging. We are seeing increased booking levels and, for the most part, spirits in the industry are positive. Added value is high on the agenda with visitors from our domestic as well as international key source markets. As a destination, Cape Town offers tremendous value in terms of visitor experience. Travelers from all markets are spoiled for choice by competitor destinations and it is vital that we continue to diversify our offering across the range of tourism products and experiences. We will continue to market Cape Town on traditional and new media platforms, engage with our trade contacts and forge new relationships in emerging markets. Original, authentic products or services that are great value for money will keep them coming back for more.”

(Source: TravelDailyNews)

District 9 (2009)

District 9 is a 2009 science fiction thriller film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It was written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James. The film won the 2010 Saturn Award for Best International Film presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, and was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2010: including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Editing.

The story, adapted from Alive in Joburg, a 2005 short film directed by Blomkamp and produced by Sharlto Copley and Simon Hansen, pivots on the themes of xenophobia and social segregation. The title and premise of District 9 were inspired by events that took place in District Six, Cape Town during the apartheid era. The film was produced for $30 million and shot on location in Chiawelo, Soweto, presenting fictional interviews, news footage, and video from surveillance cameras in a part-mock documentary style format. A viral marketing campaign began in 2008, at the San Diego Comic-Con, while the theatrical trailer appeared in July 2009. Released by TriStar Pictures, the film opened to critical acclaim on August 14, 2009, in North America and earned $37 million in its opening weekend. Many saw the film as a sleeper hit for its relatively unknown cast and modest-budget production, while achieving success and popularity during its theatrical run.

Versace's High-Tech Valkyrie Heritage at Milan Fashion Week

Goth met heritage, met high-tech, met chain mail in the latest runway show from Versace, a fall 2012 collection that began brilliantly but ultimately revealed this house's difficulty in re-modeling itself for our century's second decade.

The show, staged in the courtyard of the beautiful Versace palazzo in central Milan on the evening of Friday, Feb. 24, began with lots of pep. A black and silver regiment of powerful cool girls, wearing melanges of guipure lace, micro chain mail and Celtic crosses.

What worked best were the cocktails in velvet or lambskin, lathered with crystal appliques crosses, which somehow recalled wrought iron railings. Cut well above the knee, and anchored by high boots - many made in woven leather made to look like fishnet stockings - they had a punchy elan that was both very dynamic and very Versace.

Flared coat dresses, finished with micro studs, lace over chiffon party dresses or a stunning astrakhan bomber with a metal breastplate all stuck the audience as path-breaking yet ideal for a club entrance.

A posh Goth mood rippled through this collection in Milan's most theatrical season in memory.

Throughout, there was a warrior woman at play in the show, a sort of Thor princess meets downtown posh punk - best exemplified by the sexy, multi-buckle fur coats and the models' haircuts. Rock goddess fringes and pancake makeup gave the models a sexy yet stilted air, and made this collection so problematic.

The clothes were reverential to the Versace canon but not a true re-statement of the style. This was never more clear than in the finale, when the metal and leather strip inserts looked like a popular high street brand was paying homage to Versace rather than the great house itself staging its own re-invention.

A slew of print dresses featuring faux metallic lettering of the name Versace, which were then reproduced in a clever video screen that suddenly illuminated the catwalk, made for an up-tempo finale. But, ultimately, this was a modest moment for Versace, precisely, in a season of theatrical style when one would have expected a triumph.

Swedish Crown Princess 'Victoria' Gives Birth to Baby Girl

Sweden's heir to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, gave birth to a baby girl on Thursday, which could help restore the monarchy's battered popularity.

"My feelings are a little bit all over the place," Prince Daniel, the 34-year-old Victoria's husband, told a news conference, holding back tears as he announced the birth of the couple's first child.

The baby was 51 cm (20 inches) and weighed 3.28 kg (7 pounds), he added.

"The crown princess feels brilliant, she is so happy and everything has gone very well. The little daughter and the crown princess are very well," added Daniel, a personal fitness trainer who married Victoria in a glittering 2010 wedding.

The monarchy in the Nordic state has seen its popularity fall in recent years, particularly after a 2010 book about the playboy lifestyle of King Carl XVI Gustaf, who has been on the throne since 1973.

The king in May 2011 used a rare interview with Swedish news agency TT to apologize for undermining trust in the monarchy, but denied strip club visit allegations and any knowledge of a friend's underworld contacts to silence the scandals.

A poll after the TT interview, commissioned by daily Dagens Nyheter, showed 66 percent of Swedes backing the symbolic-power monarchy, down from 70 percent in November 2009 and 74 percent in February 2009.

(Reuters)

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

The End of Faith. The God Delusion. Letter to a Christian Nation. Bestseller lists are filled with doubters. But what happens when you actually doubt your doubts?

Although a vocal minority continues to attack the Christian faith, for most Americans, faith is a large part of their lives: 86 percent of Americans refer to themselves as religious, and 75 percent of all Americans consider themselves Christians. So how should they respond to these passionate, learned, and persuasive books that promote science and secularism over religion and faith? For years, Tim Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced “doubts” skeptics bring to his Manhattan church. And in The Reason for God, he single-handedly dismantles each of them. Written with atheists, agnostics, and skeptics in mind, Keller also provides an intelligent platform on which true believers can stand their ground when bombarded by the backlash. The Reason for God challenges such ideology at its core and points to the true path and purpose of Christianity.

Why is there suffering in the world? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Why isn’t Christianity more inclusive? Shouldn’t the Christian God be a god of love? How can one religion be “right” and the rest “wrong”? Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God? These are just a few of the questions even ardent believers wrestle with today. In this book, Tim Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations and reasoning, and even pop culture to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.

Headline Feb 26, 2012 / !WOW!

!WOW! 

WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY FOR COMPUTERS-INTERNET-WIRELESS

Respectful Dedication Christopher Hitchens-Johann Hari/Independent UK - James Wolcott

!WOW! stands elevated to byzantine splendour!!
We have recorded and history will record the 'World Students Society for Computers-Interent-Wireless was founded in 2011, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to bring together all and every single student of the world together, into a lasting cuclture of fun, motivation, adventure, and knowledge. In order never to depend on our respective Governments to cultivate the critical technologies of the future. These are the new axioms of business.

This is a relentless technological age and this impacts the student's life and future every moment and in every dimension. This moment also implies a great responsibility. However necessary it is to gain a functional mastery of technology, students also must actively participate in its evolution, its use and its effects. Our voices, our sheer numbers, the sum total of all our skills is what qualifies !WOW! to play.

In the world of technology, change is truly a constant. This was true of steam power; it is also true for computers, internet, wireless and students. Therefore, students who embrace these axioms and vision will do more for building a better world than all the leaders of the world combined and raised to the power N. Every student we have surveyed or spoken to on this subject agreed whole heartedly. So lets ensure our future by shaping it. This also means that we must spend some of our working moments in helping other students get ready for the present and the future.

So before I part, let me give you a sweet reminder, not to miss the next best part tomorrow.

Good night!

SAM Daily Times-The Voice of the Voiceless.

Is over-eating linked to memory loss?

According to a study on aging conducted by the Mayo Clinic, in days ahead it may be discovered that overeating causes memory loss.

Mayo researchers caution against reading too much into their work thus far correlating caloric intake in the elderly with the onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)—the stage between normal age-related memory loss and early Alzheimer's disease. Still, a report they plan to present in April at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans indicates that overeating may greatly increase the risk of memory loss for elderly people. 

100 Years Old In 2 Weeks And Still Teaching

Olivia Neubauer: 100 Years Old In 2 Weeks And Still Teaching At Chicago School
The Monday after Olivia Neubauer turns 100 next month, she'll do what she's done every school day since 1935 -- teach.

Neubauer teaches reading to kindergarten and pre-k students at Ashburn Lutheran School, where she's worked since it opened in 1963, after 16 years of teaching elsewhere, CBS Chicago reports. Neubauer began her career at Pullman Tech High School.

After she passes this milestone on March 11, Neubauer says she has no intention of stopping.

"My son keeps saying, 'Mom, when are you going to quit?" she told ABC Chicago. "I say the Lord will tell me when to quit."

Neubauer helped found the school in 1964, according to the associated church's website, and has been actively involved ever since. An annual fund and scholarship fund are maintained in her name.

Neubauer attributes her longevity to genes. She told ABC her mother lived to 100, and two of her cousins lived to be 101.

Using the word "miss" banned in france

Using the word "mademoiselle", or "miss", on official forms will be banned in France after prime minister François Fillon issued an instruction to all ministries to drop the term.
Asking a woman's "maiden name" (or "nom de jeune fille" in French) or "married name" will also be banished from official documents.
Instead, all women will be known as "madame" in future, "just like the equivalent of "monsieur" for men, which does not prejudge their marital status" said the official note.
Instead, the simple "nom de famille" ("family name") will replace masculine terms such as "nom patronymique" and "nom d'époux".
The prime minister has instructed his ministers to get the terms removed "as soon as possible" although officials will be allowed to use up existing stocks of forms so as not to waste public funds.
The move is a surprise success for two feminist groups who launched a campaign to banish "mademoiselle".
Osez le Féminisme and Les Chiennes de Garde launched their campaign to banish the term in September.
"There is no reason for two salutations for women which divide them into two categories: married and unmarried," said Julie Muret, spokeswoman for Osez le Féminisme, at the time.

New Ultradense Planet Found; Astronomers Baffled

A newly discovered planet 4,000 light-years away is just too dense.
Dubbed CoRoT-20b, the planet is thought to be a gas giant about four-fifths the size of Jupiter and orbits close to a sunlike star.
Despite the new planet's relatively diminutive size, this world has four times Jupiter's mass, making CoRoT-20b one of the densest known planets, a new study says.
That poses a problem for astronomers: If CoRoT-20b is structured like a traditional gas giant, with a solid core surrounded by a gassy atmosphere, the planet's core would have to make up 50 to 77 percent of the world's total mass.
By contrast, Jupiter's core is thought to represent just 15 percent of that planet's mass.
To have such a robust core, CoRoT-20b would defy current theories for how planets form.

Read More on NatGeo

When Oxford Tory group failed to pay £1,200 bill...

A controversial Oxford Tory club failed to pay a £1,200 charity black tie dinner bill at Cavalry and Guards Club where Liam Fox was guest of honour. It led to the 88-year-old society suffering the indignity of being stripped of its university recognition.

The association, which counts Baroness Thatcher as its patron, has lost the right to use Oxford’s name after it failed to settle a £1,200 debt for the black-tie banquet, attended by the former defence secretary Dr Liam Fox.

The society, whose former members include five current Cabinet ministers, held the dinner for 32 in support of the Army Benevolent Fund at the Cavalry and Guards Club on Pall Mall in June 2009.


But despite the best efforts of military club to chase the £1,215.06 debt, it seems no one recalls who was meant to put the cheque in the post.

Space Elevator, Going Up

According to The Daily Yomiuri, Tokyo construction company, Obayashi Corporation, hopes to erect a space elevator by 2050. As a doff of the cap to our British readers, the space lift would ferry passengers and cargo along a carbon nanotube ribbon from a terrestrial terminal to a spaceport nearly a quarter of the way to the moon.
How is this possible? Well, on paper, here's what's on tap:
At the end of a 59,652-mile-long, carbon-nanotube cable, there would be a counterweight floating in space and anchoring the assembly connected to the ground terminal. Passengers would travel from terra firma to a spaceport research center equipped with residential facilities located 22,369 miles above the Earth's surface.
No location has been revealed yet, but because the assembly would rely on centrifugal force to keep the ribbon taut, the base station needs to be located near the equator. Here's looking at you, Pontianak, Indonesia.
An ambitious project indeed, sure to have many ups and downs.

Discovery news

Failed Inventions Museum Opens In Austria

Austria Opens Museum of Failed Inventions

Necessity is the mother of invention, but is a museum dedicated to inventions that didn't work a necessary invention?
Fritz Gall thinks so.
A failed inventor himself, Gall decided to create a museum in his home town of Herrnbaumgarten, Austria, dedicated to the inventions that, unlike the personal computer, lightbulb or even wheel, have no chance of changing history -- or anything.
The inventions on display at the Museum of Nonsense are much more mundane, according to The Nation. They're bizarre.
For instance, let's say your at a public event and you don't want to be recognized on camera. One inventor dreamed up the "portable anonymizer" -- a stick with a black bar that you'd hold in front of your eyes -- to obscure yourself from the public's prying eyes.
Other inventions that nobody will ever use include a portable hole straight out of a "Roadrunner" cartoon, a fully transportable hat stand, a bristleless toothbrush for people with no teeth, and a fits-anyone jumper with sleeves in various lengths.
Read More on huffington

Apple forced to disable iPhone push email in Germany

Apple said on Friday that it has disabled the push email function for its mobile devices in Germany in an ongoing patent dispute with MMI.

The disabling of the push service, which automatically sends messages from the receiving email server to the devices as soon as they're received, rather than waiting to be polled by the device, will affect customers using Apple's MobileMe and iCloud email.

Apple said those customers can still receive email using other settings.

The move follows a ruling by a Mannheim court earlier this month that Apple had infringed upon a Motorola patent on push email technology.

Apple says it believes its own patent is valid and is appealing the decision.

Motorola asserts that its patent – which the independent patents blogger Florian Müller said dates back to the days of the pager – covers Apple's implementation of "push" systems.

It is the second time Apple has been forced by a court ruling in favour of Motorola to alter its offerings in Germany. Earlier in February it was obliged to remove some items from its online store in Germany when it lost a court case related to its use of 3G and UMTS systems, which are covered by MMI-owned patents.

But the latter move sparked a complaint by Apple to the European Commission that the company was abusing "standards-essential" patents, which are those deemed to have been necessary to make devices compliant with standards such as Wi-Fi and mobile phone connectivity.

Such patents are meant to be licensed on "FRAND" – fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory – terms, so that they are available to any company willing to license them.

Denying the use of FRAND patents could attract antitrust investigation from the European Commission – as is already happening with Samsung over some of its countersuits against Apple. If found guilty of abuse, the company could be charged up to 10% of its revenues. If MMI is owned by Google then the parent company might be liable.

Microsoft has also filed a similar complaint against MMI with the European Commission over its enforcement of what are claimed to be "standards-essential" patents.

The withdrawal of the push email service – for which the patent does not fall under FRAND licensing – comes against a backdrop of frenzied litigation between many of the biggest names in technology as they try to assert their intellectual property and to hinder rivals in the smartphone and tablet market.

Apple is currently suing Android handset makers including MMI, Samsung and HTC in various courts around the world, while a number of countersuits by the same companies are trying to hit back. Microsoft, meanwhile, has succeeded in getting many Android makers to pay it royalties on patents that it says cover Android.

Apple last week won a case against MMI in Germany over its patented "slide to unlock" feature, arguing that MMI's version on its Android phones too closely matched its version, which shows "guide rails" for the unlock mechanism.

Motorola said the case would not affect existing users and that it had "new designs" in place which would not infringe the patent, although it did not respond to enquiries about how the new design differed.

Almost 1m Young People Not In Education, Employment Or Training

Almost 1 million young people are not in school, work or training, according to official figures which underline the extent to which the economic slowdown is hurting school-leavers.

One in six 16- to 24-year-olds was a "neet" (not in education, employment or training) in the last three months of 2011, according to statistics published by the Department for Education (pdf).

The figures show that while the proportion of 16- to 18-year-olds who were out of school or training has remained stable year-on-year, there has been a big drop in the employment rate for school-leavers.

Tony Dolphin, chief economist with the Institute for Public Policy Research, said: "Firms haven't reacted [to the downturn] by upping the number of redundancies. What they have done is hesitate in taking on new workers. Older people who are in jobs are keeping them – young people looking for jobs are not getting them."

The figures show that 958,000 young people aged 16-24 were considered to be neet in the fourth quarter of 2011. For the same period in 2010, the figure was 939,000. A total of 178,000 people aged 16-18 were neet in the last quarter of 2011.

A government spokesman said it was investing almost £1bn over the next three years to encourage young people into education, training and jobs.

"The number of young people who are not in education, employment or training has been too high for too long – we are determined to bring the numbers down," he said.

"We are making sure that young people have the skills they need to get ready for work – creating the biggest apprenticeships programme our country has ever seen and overhauling vocational education, so all employers can be confident about the rigour of our qualifications."

Earlier this week, Nick Clegg announced a £126m scheme to get 16- to 17-year-olds back into employment or education.

Under the initiative, which is part of the government's "youth contract" scheme, charities and businesses will be invited to bid for contracts worth up to £2,200 to take on young people.

At least 55,000 neets – those who have no GCSEs at grades C or above – are expected to benefit.

Dolphin said: "Last autumn, the government announced plans for a new 'youth contract' including 160,000 job subsidies and an extra 20,000 apprenticeships. It is a policy yet to be implemented. Assuming there is no slippage, the youth contract will come on stream in April, more than a year after the abolition of the future jobs fund and the education maintenance allowance (EMA).

"Today's neet figures show just how many young people have struggled to find work or access training during that period of policy vacuum."

The figures prompted renewed criticism of the government's decision to scrap the EMA, which was aimed at students in households earning less than £21,000 a year. It was replaced with a bursary fund targeted at the poorest students.

James Mills, head of the Save EMA campaign, said: "By scrapping EMA this government is creating a lost generation of young people and these figures are proof that there is now a growing invisible army of teenagers who have been cut loose."

Barnardo's deputy chief executive, Jane Stacey, said: "Whilst it is encouraging that the government is seeking to provide more support to get young people earning and learning, resources also need to be focused on helping them avoid becoming neet in the first place.

"A recent Barnardo's report found that since the replacement of the EMA with the bursary fund, some students are now being forced to skip meals just to afford the bus to college. More investment is needed to ensure that students from poorer backgrounds can actually afford to stay on in education and training."

Read article at the original source here.

Exam boards ordered to tighten up four GCSEs

Exam boards have been ordered to tighten up GCSEs in four subjects amid concerns it is becoming easier for pupils to pass. The exams regulator, Ofqual, announced it was making changes to GCSEs in English literature, maths, history and geography to ensure students studied the whole curriculum.

It is understood the move comes after concerns were raised that pupils were only studying topics that were likely to come up in the exams, rather than the entire course. The Ofqual chief executive, Glenys Stacey, said: "We are tightening GCSEs in these key subjects to make sure students cover the whole curriculum. "We want our young people to have the best possible educational experience, with qualifications that prepare them for the future.

"The exam boards have welcomed this steer from the regulator and are to look again at these qualifications and how the rules are interpreted to make sure that young people taking them have to study an appropriate range and depth of the subject."

It is understood that Friday's announcement is part of an attempt to move away from teaching to the test and to encourage breadth of study, with pupils learning everything in the course.

Mathematics Education: Being Outwitted by Stupidity

By Barry Garelick 

In a well-publicized paper that addressed why some students were not learning to read, Reid Lyon (2001) concluded that children from disadvantaged backgrounds where early childhood education was not available failed to read because they did not receive effective instruction in the early grades. Many of these children then required special education services to make up for this early failure in reading instruction, which were by and large instruction in phonics as the means of decoding. Some of these students had no specific learning disability other than lack of access to effective instruction. These findings are significant because a similar dynamic is at play in math education: the effective treatment for many students who would otherwise be labeled learning disabled is also the effective preventative measure.

In 2010 approximately 2.4 million students were identified with learning disabilities — about three times as many as were identified in 1976-1977. (Seehttp://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/xls/tabn045.xls andhttp://www.ideadata.org/arc_toc12.asp#partbEX). This increase raises the question of whether the shift in instructional emphasis over the past several decades has increased the number of low achieving children because of poor or ineffective instruction who would have swum with the rest of the pack when traditional math teaching prevailed. I believe that what is offered as treatment for math learning disabilities is what we could have done—and need to be doing—in the first place. While there has been a good amount of research and effort into early interventions in reading and decoding instruction, extremely little research of equivalent quality on the learning of mathematics exists. Given the education establishment’s resistance to the idea that traditional math teaching methods are effective, this research is very much needed to draw such a definitive conclusion about the effect of instruction on the diagnosis of learning disabilities.

Some Background:
Over the past several decades, math education in the United States has shifted from the traditional model of math instruction to “reform math”. The traditional model has been criticized for relying on rote memorization rather than conceptual understanding. Calling the traditional approach “skills based”, math reformers deride it and claim that it teaches students only how to follow the teacher’s direction in solving routine problems, but does not teach students how to think critically or to solve non-routine problems. Traditional/skills-based teaching, the argument goes, doesn’t meet the demands of our 21st century world.

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, the criticism of traditional math teaching is based largely on a mischaracterization of how it is/has been taught, and misrepresented as having failed thousands of students in math education despite evidence of its effectiveness in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. Reacting to this characterization of the traditional model, math reformers promote a teaching approach in which understanding and process dominate over content. In lower grades, mental math and number sense are emphasized before students are fluent with procedures and number facts. Procedural fluency is seldom achieved. In lieu of the standard methods for adding/subtracting, multiplying and dividing, in some programs students are taught strategies and alternative methods. Whole class and teacher-led explicit instruction (and even teacher-led discovery) has given way to what the education establishment believes is superior: students working in groups in a collaborative learning environment. Classrooms have become student-centered and inquiry-based. The grouping of students by ability has almost entirely disappeared in the lower grades—full inclusion has become the norm. Reformers dismiss the possibility that understanding and discovery can be achieved by students working on sets of math problems individually and that procedural fluency is a prerequisite to understanding. Much of the education establishment now believes it is the other way around; if students have the understanding, then the need to work many problems (which they term “drill and kill”) can be avoided.

The de-emphasis on mastery of basic facts, skills and procedures has met with growing opposition, not only from parents but also from university mathematicians. At a recent conference on math education held in Winnipeg, math professor Stephen Wilson from Johns Hopkins University said, much to the consternation of the educationists on the panel, that “the way mathematicians learn is to learn how to do it first and then figure out how it works later.” This sentiment was also echoed in an article written by Keith Devlin (2006). Such opposition has had limited success, however, in turning the tide away from reform approaches.

The Growth of Learning DisabilitiesStudents struggling in math may not have an actual learning disability but may be in the category termed “low achieving” (LA). Recent studies have begun to distinguish between students who are LA and those who have mathematical learning disabilities (MLD). Geary (2004) states that LA students don’t have any serious cognitive deficits that would prevent them from learning math with appropriate instruction. Students with MLD, however, (about 5-6% of students) do appear to have both general (working memory) and specific (fact retrieval) deficits that result in a real learning disability. Among other reasons, ineffective instruction, may account for the subset of LA students struggling in mathematics.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) initially established the criteria by which students are designated as “learning disabled”. IDEA was reauthorized in 2004 and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA). The reauthorized act changed the criteria by which learning disabilities are defined and removed the requirements of the “significant discrepancy” formula. That formula identified students as learning disabled if they performed significantly worse in school than indicated by their cognitive potential as measured by IQ. IDEIA required instead that states must permit districts to adopt alternative models including the “Response to Intervention” (RtI) model in which struggling students are pulled out of class and given alternative instruction.

What type of alternative instruction is effective? A popular textbook on special education (Rosenberg, et. al, 2008), notes that up to 50% of students with learning disabilities have been shown to overcome their learning difficulties when given explicit instruction. This idea is echoed by others and has become the mainstay of RtI. What Works Clearinghouse finds strong evidence that explicit instruction is an effective intervention, stating: “Instruction during the intervention should be explicit and systematic. This includes providing models of proficient problem solving, verbalization of thought processes, guided practice, corrective feedback, and frequent cumulative review”. Also, the final report of the President’s National Math Advisory Panel states: “Explicit instruction with students who have mathematical difficulties has shown consistently positive effects on performance with word problems and computation. Results are consistent for students with learning disabilities, as well as other students who perform in the lowest third of a typical class.” (p. xxiii). The treatment for low achieving, learning disabled and otherwise struggling students in math thus includes some of the traditional methods for teaching math that have been decried by reformers as having failed millions of students.

The Stealth Growth of Effective Instruction

Although the number of students classified as learning disabled has grown since 1976, the number of students classified as LD since the passage of IDEIA has decreased (see Figure 1). Why the decrease has occurred is not clear. A number of factors may be at play. One may be a provision of No Child Left Behind that allows schools with low numbers of special-education students to avoid reporting the academic progress of those students. Other factors include more charter schools, expanded access to preschools, improved technologies, and greater understanding of which students need specialized services. Last but not least, the decrease may also be due to targeted RtI programs that have reduced the identification of struggling and/or low achieving students as learning disabled. .

Having seen the results of ineffective math curricula and pedagogy as well as having worked with the casualties of such educational experiments, I have no difficulty assuming that RtI plays a significant role in reducing the identification of students with learning disabilities. In my opinion it is only a matter of time before high-quality research and the best professional judgment and experience of accomplished classroom teachers verify it. Such research should include 1) the effect of collaborative/group work compared to individual work, including the effect of grouping on students who may have difficulty socially; 2) the degree to which students on the autistic spectrum (as well as those with other learning disabilities) may depend on direct, structured, systematic instruction; 3) the effect of explicit and systematic instruction of procedures, skills and problem solving, compared with inquiry-based approaches; 4) the effect of sequential and logical presentation of topics that require mastery of specific skills, compared with a spiral approaches to topics that do not lead to closure and 5) Identifying which conditions result in student-led/teacher-facilitated discovery, inquiry-based, and problem-based learning having a positive effect, compared with teacher-led discovery, inquiry-based and problem-based learning. Would such research show that the use of RtI is higher in schools that rely on programs that are low on skills and content but high on trendy unproven techniques and which promise to build critical thinking and higher order thinking skills? If so, shouldn’t we be doing more of the RtI style of teaching in the first place instead of waiting to heal reform math’s casualties?

Until any such research is in, the educational establishment will continue to resist recognizing the merits of traditional math teaching. One education professor with whom I spoke stated that the RtI model fits mathematics for the 1960s, when “skills throughout the K-8 spectrum were the main focus of instruction and is seriously out of date.” Another reformer argued that reform curricula require a good deal of conceptual understanding and that students have to do more than solve word problems. These confident statements assume that traditional methods—and the methods used in RtI—do not provide this understanding. In their view, students who respond to more explicit instruction constitute a group who may simply learn better on a superficial level. Based on these views, I fear that RtI will incorporate the pedagogical features of reform math that has resulted in the use of RtI in the first place.

While the criticism of traditional methods may have merit for those occasions when it has been taught poorly, the fact that traditional math has been taught badly doesn’t mean we should give up on teaching it properly. Without sufficient skills, critical thinking doesn’t amount to much more than a sound bite. If in fact there is an increasing trend toward effective math instruction, it will have to be stealth enough to fly underneath the radar of the dominant edu-reformers. Unless and until this happens, the thoughtworld of the well-intentioned educational establishment will prevail. Parents and professionals who benefitted from traditional teaching techniques and environments will remain on the outside — and the public will continue to be outwitted by stupidity.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2011). Digest of Education Statistics, 2010 (NCES 2011-015), Chapter 2.

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Technology Added to Preschool Curriculum in Boston

Educators across Boston are noting a shift in the emphasis of the curriculum they’re expected to teach as more schools introduce science, technology, engineering, and math – the so-called STEM subjects – to newly reading preschool students.

Preschools have long followed the practice of elementary education and dabbled with bits and pieces of science-based teaching in their everyday learning: Playing with blocks, for example, learning numbers, and coloring are all aspects of engineering, math, and science, writes Michael B. Farrell at the Boston Globe.


“But what is happening now is that such lessons are becoming formalized within a preschool curriculum. And within the early childhood development community there is a greater emphasis on training teachers to turn simple play into lessons that encourage critical thinking.”

This comes as many education experts, policy makers, and politicians note a sea change in the importance of STEM subjects and the way we teach them, pushing for a greater focus on science, technology, engineering, and math.

The percent of college graduates with science and engineering degrees has declined over the past 45 years, provoking many organizations to promote STEM subjects through competitions and awards as a way to stimulate interest and boost the number of scientists, computer programmers, engineers, and mathematicians coming out of American universities.

“The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks the US 24th among 31 of its member countries in terms of employed 25- to 34-year-olds with degrees in science, math, or related fields.”

However, as part of President Obama’s budget plan for the next year, he is looking to invest to change these statistics. Obama has asked Congress for $80 million to train 100,000 math and science teachers in an effort to produce an estimated 1 million more college graduates with degrees in those subjects.

These plans are nothing new for states like Massachusetts, who, since 2010, have been trying to improve science and math education from the preschool level through high school and encourage more college-bound students to pursue them as majors.

Cathleen Finn, International Business Machines Corp.’s New England manager for corporate affairs, said:

“The focus on STEM in early education is new, but it’s part of an effort to keep the focus on engineering so that we graduate more people in engineering.

“That sets the stage for awareness as kids go through school.’’

However, some education experts who criticize the emphasis on work in the kindergarten classroom, saying that preschools need to strike the right balance between play and instruction.

“And, many say, unstructured time on the playground is an important part of early education.”

Read article at the original source here.

A Meeting Of Historical Minds

Earlier this month, when President Dale Knobel spoke to Tony Lisska’s class, “The History of Granville: A Narrative of Migrations,” the president joked that he was there to check up on the philosophy professor because, Lisska was “practicing history without a license.”

Lisska, of course, is such a devoted history buff that he’s practically famous for it. Despite his tireless pursuit of philosophy through the years, with a special emphasis on the texts of Thomas Aquinas, Lisska has also made time for his “intellectual avocation”—regional history. And Knobel is a “historian-president” with all the credentials to be talking about the past: in addition to his bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and his Ph.D. in history from Northwestern, he holds a bank of knowledge about Granville’s past—a past he’s studied extensively during the 14 years that he has led the college and resided at Monomoy Place.

So put them together and what do you have? A great class discussion about the real story of Granville’s past.

Knobel talked with students about two essays of his—one published back in 2002 by The Historical Times, founded by Lisska, which is the quarterly publication from the Granville Historical Society, and one published in 2005 in Granville, Ohio: A Study in Continuity and Change—both aimed at getting to Granville’s true roots.

His message may catch some people by surprise: Granville wasn’t always a peaceful, quiet, New England-esque village, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in such a romanticized version of the place. Even though Granville’s founders came from New England, they weren’t hoping for bucolic farmland. “They were hoping to become the next Philadelphia,” said Knobel. Those dreams were dashed when the railroad passed the small village by.

The truth is, he said, Granville was made up of hat makers and gun makers and stone quarries and a slaughter yard. “It was a noisy, smelly, busy little place.” In other words, Granville wasn’t born a quiet village, but the people who lived here made it one. “The Granville you see today,” he said, “has been artfully reconstructed.”

And that’s part of Granville’s history, too. “A community of people,” Knobel wrote in Granville, Ohio, “inevitably takes some of its character from its location, its natural setting, and even from its built environment of human construction.”

Read article at the original source here.

Cancer - Some Referred To Specialists Later

A recent study, published Online First in The Lancet Oncology, reveals that although 77% of cancer patients who have strange symptoms are usually sent to the hospital after 1 or 2 consultations, non-white patients, young people, women, and people with uncommon cancers often see their doctors 2 to 3 times before being referred to a cancer specialist.

The study also shows the large differences in the speed of doctors in England when it comes to diagnosing different types of cancer. This is due to the fact that patients with symptoms showing possible multiple melanoma, lung, and pancreatic cancer need many more consultations to determine what is really going on compared to patients with common cancers, such as melanoma, testicular, and breast cancer.

Georgios Lyratzopoulos, lead author of the study, from Cambridge University in the UK commented:

"These findings highlight limitations in current scientific knowledge. Medical research in recent decades has prioritized improving cancer treatments, but knowledge about the 'symptom signature' of common cancers and practical solutions on how best to diagnose them is still emerging. We hope our research can help to generate support for further research into the diagnosis of those cancers where the challenge of section is greatest. This will improve the patients experience of cancer diagnosis and can also lead to earlier and more effective treatment."

Researchers explain that the number of visits a patient has with their doctor before being referred to the hospital can greatly impact the patient experience.

Strange New Leaf-Nosed Bat Found in Vietnam

A new species of bat whose face bristles with leaf-like protrusions has been discovered in Vietnam, a new study says.
When scientists first spotted Griffin's leaf-nosed bat in Chu Mom Ray National Park in 2008, the animal was almost mistaken for a known species, the great leaf-nosed bat, said Vu Dinh Thong, of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi.
Still, Vu Dinh and his team, thinking there was a chance the bat might in fact be new to science, used nets to catch some of the docile animals.
"While captured, some similar body-sized bats, i.e. [the] great leaf-nosed bat, reacts very angrily," he said by email. "But Griffin's leaf-nosed bat seems quite gentle."
The team did, however, have to contend with some vexing creatures—the "unbelievably high" number of leeches that take over Chu Mom Ray during rainy season, he said.
"It seems the leeches tried their best to capture us while we were trapping bats," Vu Dinh said.
"Fortunately, we won."
New Bat Still a Mystery
The team recorded the captured bats' sonar frequencies and took tissue samples from a few specimens.
The results revealed that the bat issues calls at a different frequency from the great leaf-nosed bat, which hinted that the newfound specimen is a new species. Genetic results confirmed the species—named Hipposideros griffini—is genetically distinct, according to the study, published recently in the Journal of Mammalogy.
So far, "absolutely little is known" about H. griffini, Vu Dinh said. Like all leaf-nosed bats, the newfound mammal has strange, leaf-like projections on its nose that may aid in echolocation—sending out sound waves and listening for echoes bouncing off objects, including prey.
The bat was also found in only two national parks, though further research may uncover more habitats for the creature, Vu Dinh said.
"This finding also suggested that Vietnam would be home to a highly diverse bat fauna, and that some species living within the country are not discovered."


 Source: National Geographic

Judges: Get professors out of poorhouse

Professors across Germany could get major pay raises after the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that the basic salary agreement reached in Hesse state was unconstitutionally low.
Nationwide rules introduced in 2005 enabled states to set low basic salaries, but also allowed universities to pay bonuses to introduce an element of competition into the academic world. It removed the link between the age of professors and their pay.
But the court ruled the bottom-ranking Hesse salary of €3,711 was not enough – although it is not the lowest professor pay in Germany.
The judges ruled by 6 to 1 that civil servants were all entitled to earn a wage concomitant to their rank, experience and responsibilities – and agreed with a lawsuit filed by a Philipp University of Marburg professor, that his pay was not fair.

Who Defends Your Phone: Robots or Humans?

At the start of this month, Google sent a message to Android malware authors: No more Mr. Nice Guy. In a blog post, engineering vice president Hiroshi Lockheimer wrote that Google had been scanning Android Market apps "for a while now" with an automated routine called Bouncer.
Lockheimer's post explained that Bouncer inspects apps for known malware and troubling behavior, in part by running them on simulated Android phones. It works, he said: "Between the first and second halves of 2011, we saw a 40 percent decrease in the number of potentially malicious downloads from Android Market."

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Concern Over Rare Rhino Rouses Clean Energy Drive in Malaysia

Potential threats to the rare Sumatran rhino, coral reefs, and other fragile animals helped galvanize a highly publicized fight last year to stop a coal-fired plant from being built on the east coast of Sabah, Malaysia.
The activists were armed with evidence that renewable energy such as hydropower, geothermal, and waste from the region's abundant oil palm mills could compete with coal in costs.
Activists won the impassioned battle when government officials killed the plant in February 2011. But they haven't yet achieved their goal of getting this ecotourism destination—one of the most biologically diverse spots on earth—to go renewable and serve as a model for other environmentally sensitive areas around the globe.
Instead, a 300-megawatt natural gas plant, announced earlier this month, is slated to ease Sabah's power crunch. The capacity of the proposed plant dwarfs that of renewable energy plants in Sabah. Renewable energy has been progressing slowly, and a key financial incentive for new projects is in limbo.
"The natural gas plant is our only viable option at the moment," Masidi Manjun, Sabah state minister of tourism, culture and environment, said by email. Natural gas is readily available offshore, he noted, and will generate the reliable electricity needed for economic growth. "This includes the development of new resorts, especially beach resorts, that are in short supply at the moment." He predicted renewable energy will have a significant role—in the future.

National Geographic

"Nomad" Planets More Common Than Thought, May Orbit Black Holes

Stars and even black holes likely harbor "rogue," or "nomad," planets that were kicked out of the star systems where they were born, new simulations suggest. At the same time, a separate study suggests nomad planets are much more common than thought.
Astronomers used to shrug off notions of rogue planets, also called free-floating planets. Yet in the past few years, indirect observations of these galactic wanderers—combined with detailed supercomputer simulations—have suggested they do exist.
A study released Thursday, for instance, hints rogue planets might outnumber the Milky Way's 200 to 400 billion stars by a mind-boggling 100,000 to 1. Scientists previously thought there were only about two drifter planets for every star.
But what was still poorly understood was whether stars, black holes, and even other planets can capture such free-floating planets.
To find out, two astrophysicists simulated the evolution of several sizes and densities of star clusters. Eventually such clusters would dissipate as a galaxy's gravity pulled them apart.
The simulations suggested that between 3 and 6 percent of stars host rogue planets—a much higher number than thought.

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