« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 30, 2005
Two More Weeks Til Baby Panda Cub Gets A Name
The National Zoo has had a rough time recently, what with rat poison scandals and such. Now finally, we've had soon good news. Giant panda Mei Xiang had a male cub earlier this summer, and he's doing really well.
They praised the mothering skills of Mei Xiang, who was holding a rubber toy at the moment of birth and at first seemed surprised by her squawking cub. But she quickly gave it her full attention.
"She looked kind of startled for all of about two minutes, and then she picked the cub up," said Lisa M. Stevens, associate curator for pandas and primates. "She picked it right up and began cuddling and cradling it. The cub responded immediately and settled in."
...
The cub will not be named until it is 100 days old, a Chinese tradition.
More at: Zoo's Pandas Produce First Cub, High Hopes
The Smithsonian National Zoo posts lots of info on his progress on their website, including a live panda cam that I spent a good 30 minutes watching. I took a couple screen captures to show you the kind of cuteness you can find for yourself if you check it out.
The cub started at a little over a pound and now he's gained about 10 pounds and is started to be much more active and vocal. You can check out the his growth progress here.
The Zoo's female panda, Mei Xiang, gave birth to a cub on July 9. For at least three months, she and the cub will be in the indoor area of the Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat, which will be closed to minimize disturbance.
...
The panda cams provide a window into the world of the Zoo's new giant panda mother, Mei Xiang. She gave birth to a male cub on July 9. At its first exam on August 2, it weighed a little less than two pounds.
Watch Mom & Cub: PandaCam
They've also got a photo gallery going, this is my favorite photo from it so far.
Posted by sorsha at 10:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Man & The Monkey
A couple of weeks ago, scientists announced that they had sequenced the genome of the chimpanzee and found that it very similar to the human genome. How similar? They are 96% percent the same.
First of all, what does this mean? Well, I gave some thought to this as a person and as a software engineer, and I had mixed feelings.
I have two other siblings that share my genetic make-up as well as similar environmental conditions. While we share some basic physical similarities, my brothers and I have very different personalities and mannerisms.
As a software engineer, I started thinking about the whole 96% figure. In object-oriented programming, we have the concept of derivation - having a generic object which we derive from to create more specific objects. For example, the object Vehicle might have derived objects Car, Motorcycle, Moped, Truck, Airplane, etc. A well-build class will put as much of the "similar" vehicle-wide features in the base class Vehicle (All have wheels, seats, engine, fuel, etc). A more interesting example would be a base class LivingCreature and all it's derived classes... Ok, so I don't want to bore you with the technicalities, but here are my conclusions:
That 4% difference - Just like the small, tailored derivations from the Vehicle class to make the Car class so unique and specific, it's the details, the differences, that illustrate and define the chimp versus the human.
I think the software programming analogy also illustrates that there are lots of "shared" features amongst all living things. The basic building blocks are always there, and the features and functionality may vary, but from a generalized perspective, 96% starts sounding acceptable - all living things perform similar behaviors like eat, sleep, reproduce, etc. It's only the details. You soon realize you're asking questions like "How many eyes" instead of "Do they have eyes?"
Self-awareness seems to be the primary ability that leads people to think of a species as evolved or human-like. But what is self-awareness? How is it determined?
Scientists define an animal as "self-aware" if it touches a painted spot on its own face when it looks in a mirror. People start to recognize themselves in this way at around age 2. Apes and dolphins figure it out in adulthood. Most monkeys, on the other hand, ignore facial markings. They just don't understand that the image in the mirror is their own.
More at: Monkeys in the Mirror
So what's most fascinating about that 4% is that it must contain all that magical stuff that some people think separates us from the beasts... a reasoning you've probably guessed by now I do not adhere to.
Despite the similarities in human and chimp genomes, the scientists identified some 40 million differences among the three billion DNA molecules, or nucleotides, in each genome.
The vast majority of those differences are not biologically significant, but researchers were able to identify a couple thousand differences that are potentially important to the evolution of the human lineage.
More at: Chimps, Humans 96 Percent the Same, Gene Study Finds
I find it very interesting that the first major issue to arise from the 96/4 announcement is not related to how that 4% must contain all sorts of interesting goodies, but instead that it has reignited the debate on the ethics of chimp bio-research. People are arguing that this proves that chimps are too much like humans and therefore should be treated more like them in terms of medical research.
Now, I am all for the ethical treatment of animals (including humans) in all situations - I really don't think I need genetic justification for it, though. We discover that we share some genetic makeup with some other animal and that get's them on the "ok" list? How arrogant that we needed that kind of justification before we would consider the ethical treatment of the animal? And why is 4% such an important number. What of the other creatures we find that are only 4% different from our new friends, the chimps? At what percentage is unethical conduct justified?
Chimp research proponents point out that important medical advances, such as the development of a hepatitis B vaccine, have been achieved through research with chimpanzees.
...
Other researchers, however, say that they have an ethical responsibility to treat chimps differently than other research animals. Critics point to the animals' genetic similarity to humans, their ability to use tools, and their sense of "self."
More At: Should Labs Treat Chimps More Like Humans?
I know people argue about what makes for ethical treatment - whether it's to people or animals. I am not saying that medical testing can't sometimes highly beneficial but I think that there are sounds reasons and unsound ones. Finding a cure for hepatitis is certainly a worthy concern, whereas manufacturing cosmetics is not.
Posted by sorsha at 2:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2005
Parasitic Worms Prompt Grasshoppers To Leap To Their Deaths
Okay, so this story caught my interest because the National Geographic article said that that parasitic worms were "brainwashing" the grasshoppers into jumping into people's pools, causing them to commit suicide.
This is a great example of how writing and word usage in an article can greatly effect the slant. Brainwashing? This word implies intent, intelligent design (heh,heh), not to mention it has "evil" connotations.
Scientists say hairworms, which live inside grasshoppers, pump the insects with a cocktail of chemicals that makes them commit suicide by leaping into water. The parasites then swim away from their drowning hosts to continue their life cycle.
...
This biochemical tampering appears to drive the grasshopper to water just when the hairworm is ready to reproduce.
More at: National Geographic: Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms
What if I were to say that a type of parasitic worm makes you hungry, causing you to eat a lot. Would that be brainwashing? Or would it simply be a biological response to not getting enough energy from food consumption because the parasite is stealing some of it?
Now let's say that the parasite makes you thirsty - or makes you feel like you've been set on fire. You jump into a pool - either to drink or to cool off. Were you brainwashed or just incredibly uncomfortable and acting on it?
According to Answers.com, brainwashing is to teach something to accept a system of thought uncritically. I don't think brainwashing applies here for several reasons. First, you'd have to believe that grasshoppers have critical thinking abilities. Secondly, what are the chances that a parasitic worm used mental coercion to compell the grasshopper to act?
I think it's more likely that the side effects of the parasitic worm - the chemicals it produces make the grasshopper feel something that would cause it to jump into water (thirst, heat, ask a grasshopper expert). The side effect could be a mutation that has continued to be passed from worm generation to generation because these are the worms that successfully make it into the next stage of their life. It's just survival of the fittest, or at least the cleverest.
Parasitology is a type of symbiosis (living together). There are three general kinds of symbiotic relationship: phoresis (travel together, no real benefits), commensalism (it benefits, host is neither helped nor harmed), mutualism (both benefit), and parasitism (lives at the expense of the host).
I guess I was just tweaked by the wording of the article, but I have to admit, it's an interesting, if creepy, example of adaptation.
So, in a little side note... my husband Shane and I try to read each other's blog posts whenever we can, but it often takes too much out of our days, so we instead we talk about how we haven't kept up with posts over dinner or on walks and discuss some of the more interesting topics. Sometimes this can be really funny, like when we're talking about brainwashing parasitic worms while serving ourselves yummy asian lettuce wraps at the local salar bar Fresh Choice (a personal dining favorite).
Posted by sorsha at 2:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2005
Tigers In Trouble
Remember what I said about the international agreement that protects endangered plants and wildlife (CITES)? Their policies are enforced by the individual countries that have signed the agreement. So right now, there's a problem.
Despite being on the critically endangered listings, tigers are being poached in India and then sold openly in the markets of China. However, investigators have found that the animals are coming from India - from wildlife refuges like the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan. Earlier this year, the entire tiger population of Sariska was found to be gone, just gone. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, they have recovered 83 tiger skins from poachers so far in the investigation of tiger poaching and sales. Now consider that tiger populations worldwide are in the hundreds or low thousands, depending on the subspecies. Below is a shortened account of wild tiger populations from Wikipedia:
The Bengal Tiger - Approximate 800 tigers are living in Sundarban area, also can be found in Nepal and Bhutan.
Indochinese Tiger - Estimates vary between 1,200 to 1,800.The Sumatran Tiger - The wild population estimated between 400 and 500
The Siberian Tiger - There are less than 400 of these tigers in the wild, and many populations are likely to no longer be genetically viable, subject to potentially catastrophic inbreeding.The South China Tiger - The last known wild South Chinese tiger was shot and killed in 1994, and no live tigers have been seen in their natural habitat for the last 20 years.
The Javan Tiger - The last specimen was sighted in 1979.
The Caspian Tiger - The last reliable sighting in 1968.
The Balinese Tiger - The last was killed in 1937.
More at: Wikipedia: Tigers
Now, back to that whole policing concept: Both India and China are members of CITES. In theory, they are supposed to handle the poaching problem with local enforcement officials. However, it looks like India has not been funding such initiatives adequately and poaching is a huge problem that has been left virtually unchecked.
Of Rs 1.2 crore sanctioned by Project Tiger this year, only Rs 20 lakh has been used. The forest department can’t access more unless the state government also releases an equal amount of funds. They have only five guns, two revolvers, three jeeps and four motorcyles to patrol this forest.
More at: Have you seen a tiger at Sariska since June? If yes, you’re the only one
Likewise, this isn't the first endangered species to show up on the Chinese and Tibetan markets. Traditional Chinese medicinal (TCM) ingredients are often comprised of animals considered endangered or threatened. Unfortunately, you may notice a bit of a pattern in some of the most popular medicinal qualities these endangered species share - they're often used as sex enhancers. This use likely makes it especially difficult to track and deal with - there's a lot of money there and people are not likely to admit usage.
Some Traditional "Cures"
Tigers: Impotence, arthritis, muscular atrophy
Rhinos: Aphrodisiac, Fever
Sharks: Anti-cancer, Poison cure, Sore throat, and just about every other ailment known
Other endangered animals sometimes used in TCM include many types of endangered bears, seals, turtles and leopards.
So perhaps you think this is Asia's problem. Well, the United States is also a big consumer. Remember that the smuggling of wildlife is a trade second only to drugs in the United States.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service import statistics show that between 1985 and 1992, nearly 2 million medicinal items containing wildlife parts or derivatives were known to be imported into the United States. Of these, thirty percent contained or purported to contain endangered or protected species, and were either confiscated or forfeited to the government...
In addition to possibly containing protected species, most of these medicines have not been approved for sale by the FDA. As a result of these and other restrictions, many medicines are not properly declared upon import to the United States and are instead smuggled into the country.
More at: Traditional Chinese Medicine Trade
Another very interesting site on the traffiking of endangered species is traffic.org, a CITES affiliate program whose mission is to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not a threat to the conservation of nature.
If you're traveling out of the United States, you might want to check out the Buyer Beware Brochure.
Update!
The well-respected magazine Nature recently ran a column called Viagra helps out endangered species, which discussed how some people are switching from traditional Chinese-medicine based on animal products to standard pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, animal parts like rhino horn are still used in other traditional medicines, but this is still good news since the "sex drug" market is the toughest one to crack, in my opinion.
Posted by sorsha at 12:27 PM | TrackBack
September 23, 2005
My Coworkers Are Monkeys: I Knew It!
I've always known my coworkers were monkeys. Perhaps that's why the CareerBuilder.com superbowl commericals always cracked me up. Now there's a new book out called The Ape in the Corner Office : Understanding the Workplace Beast in All of Us by Richard Conniff.
Conniff draws some interesting parallels between the way chimps and humans act in their relative social hierarchies. He comes to some surprising conclusions about what behaviors make an effective and successful leader by studying how primates (including humans) climb and fall the social ladder, trying to maintain a balance between cooperation and intimidation and conflict.
"Conflict and aggression are normal primate behaviors, and that's not a bad thing. But most people's perception of the animal world is that they think it's only [full of] conflict."
Conniff believes conflict plays an important but more limited social role in the wild than cooperation.
"Even chimps, who have a reputation for being brutal, only spend 5 percent of the day in antagonistic behaviors and 15 to 20 percent of the day grooming one another.
More at: National Geographic: Office "Jungle" Mirrors Primate Behavior
You can pick up a copy of Conniff's book at Amazon.com.
Posted by sorsha at 1:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2005
The Asian Cheetah
I've talked about cheetah's before, like in He Wants To See The Cheetahs, but those were mostly African cheetahs.
There is also the Asian cheetah, which is basically considered extinct, with less than a hundred animals thought to be left alive.
Sultans once kept thousands of cheetahs in their stables for hunting purposes, but they are very shy and their numbers have dwindled so that they are rarely seen by humans.
One way that biologists try to find out more about animals that are hard to locate is by placing remote cameras in areas likely to have cheetah activity. Sometimes these cameras take pictures on a schedule, and other times the camera is triggered by movement or other factors.
In Iran's Dar-e Anjir Wildlife Refuge, they hit paydirt. A whole family of cheetahs - a mother and 4 six-month-old cubs, was caught on film while resting in the shade of a tree. This is fantastic news, for the cub mortality rate is very high and a family this strong and healthy has not been seen in a very long time.
Its numbers may be as spotty as its coat, but the rare Asiatic cheetah is holding its own, as seen in this photograph taken by an automatic "camera trap" in Iran. A female cheetah and her four six-month-old cubs wandered into the camera's range while settling down for a rest in the shade. Experts say this is the largest group of the endangered cheetah ever photographed.
More at: National Geographic: Rare Cheetahs Caught In Camera Trap
Posted by sorsha at 1:56 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 17, 2005
Why Can't I Have A Pet Hippo?
I used to joke with one of my Australian friends that when he came to visit me, I wanted him to bring me a pet wallaby. I've changed my mind. I think I want a hippo instead, but I don't know if I could afford the coffee bill...
A couple of years ago, a South African family rescued a 35-pound orphaned baby hippopotamus. They bottle-fed her and several years later, she's the world's only tame hippo.
Jessica... who now weighs 600kg, spends her days grazing the front lawn
...
She is free to swim off and rejoin wild hippos who regularly pay her visits, but she remains faithful to the Jouberts. She sleeps on the couple's verandah on a mattress at night, and wakes up at 6am for her dog biscuits, bowl of wheat bran and coffee.
She never leaves the Jouberts' side - even turning a key in a locked door to get into the house, where she watches television with them at night.
And when Jessica fancies a swim in the river, Mrs Joubert accompanies her down to the bank and swims on Jessica's back, arms around her neck.
...
"When I swim with her in the river, she's so gentle she lets me ride on her back and we swim together."
...
Jessica drinks up to 20 litres of weak coffee each day.
If she's swimming in the river and Mr Joubert calls her, she heaves herself up the bank and follows him.
More at: NEWS.com.au: Hippo just one of the family
Okay, so this story is weird on SO MANY LEVELS...
Firstly, I think it's great that this family saved an abandoned baby hippo, but I have to wonder if they live out in the boonies. The last thing I would want is for someone to be surprised by a full grown hippo when they knocked on the front door.
Hippos are the third largest land animal (after elephant and rhino) and they are very dangerous animals - killing more people per year than all the other dangerous predators combined (crocs, lions, leopards, hyenas, elephants, etc.)
That said, they are such unbelievably cool animals! I fell in love with hippos when we spent a night chilling at the Shimuwini Bush Camp in Kruger National Park. Our cabin was right on the Letaba River. A bloat (a group of hippos) hung out across the riverbank, as well as in the water. I had never heard them vocalize before, and was very surprised but their cute snorting grunts.
We were visiting in early spring and so there were several young hippos in the group. The mothers were very protective of their babies. The babies, who couldn't swim, bounced up and down on their mothers' backs in order to reach the surface to breathe. At one point, we even witnessed a lioness attack a mother and baby, only to have the mother hippo cause some serious damage to the lioness, saving her baby.
What I think is especially interesting about this crazy coffee-drinking hippo is that it leads me to believe that hippos may be a lot smarter than generally thought. They aren't just highly territorial grumpy "river horses". Perhaps hippos haven't been studied more because their attitude makes them less tolerate to invasive intelligence research and testing, but I would have expected some understanding of their intelligence to be discovered by zoo hippo keepers...
However, it doesn't surprise me terribly that hippos are smarter than we thought. Recent DNA studies related evolutionary family trees have shown that hippos are the closest relatives to cetaceans like whales and dolphins. We all know that whales and dolphins are intelligent, so it makes sense that their closest relative, the hippo, is as well.
All I know, is that if I get myself a pet hippo, I had better get a pygmy one, since I live in a townhome in California, and the koi pond in the backyard is pretty small.
Check out our Frolicking Hippos podcast - a video program highlighting these playful animals!
Check out our Kenya Waterhole podcast - a video program experiencing a sunrise in Africa!
Posted by sorsha at 9:50 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
September 10, 2005
Mad About Monkeys
A Monkey Made Me Do It
Remember when I talked about those snow monkeys in Japan that attacked us and stole all our stuff? Well, it's actually quite a problem with the locals. Monkeys harass people for food and cause some pretty serious property damage. However sometimes, just like saying the dog did it or something, it's not really monkeys at all...
JAPAN -
A man dressed in a monkey costume threatened an employee at a local convenience store with a knife in the predawn hours of Tuesday in an unsuccessful robbery attempt.
...
Simian stealings have been reported in the recent past in Japan. However, these thefts were usually carried out by Japanese macaques robbing fields of fruits in Aomori Prefecture or tourists of their sweets in Tochigi Prefecture's Nikko.
Thefts by monkeys prompted Nikko to outlaw tourists feeding the primates in the area, with fines for offenders. These simian thefts, however, were all carried out by actual monkeys and not a person wearing a monkey suit.
More at: WTOP Radio: Man, Dressed as Monkey, Tries to Rob Store
Let me tell you, the monkeys are smarter than this guy. They would have gotten away with it! That said, they would have been after the rice crackers, not the money.
Speaking of the smart monkeys... what about primates with tools?
Posted by sorsha at 10:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Monkey Wrenches: Primates With Tools
Monkey's Using Tools - Intelligent Breakthrough or Mimicry?
You may know that chimpanzees and gorillas have been known to use tools - like reeds to suck termites out of holes and such, but routine tool usage is not common. Now, researchers have discovered another instance in a wild population of capuchins-monkeys.
BRAZIL -
Apparently capuchins—monkeys more familiar as organ grinders and in circus sideshows—are ingenious enough on their own to use crude stones for cracking palm nuts.
...
The study, which was led by University of Georgia psychologist Dorothy Fragaszy, is the first to document tool-use behavior in an entire population of wild capuchins.
...
"This type of tool use is a very sophisticated behavior," said Fragaszy, an expert in capuchins ... "It has never been witnessed in a group of wild monkeys before," she said. "There have been some isolated incidents, but no routine tool use in a wild population."
More at: National Science Foundation: Monkey Business
So I'm trying to wrap my head around this tool usage concept. It seems like it would be impossible to prove that the monkeys have come up with this hammering on their own versus having been trained to do it by a "more intelligent" being like a human... or even perhaps a bird like a macaw (also known to be highly intelligent). So we know the effect - monkeys using tools - and so I started conjecturing on the cause.
Possibility #1 - Training: A somewhat domesticated monkey was actively taught to do this by a human, escaped into the wild, taught all his friends.
Possibility #2 - Mimicry: A monkey watched a human or some other creature do this, mimicked it and found it worked, and taught all its friends.
Possibility #3 - Inventiveness: An industrious monkey came up with the idea all by itself, found it worked, and sent out the memo to teach all all its friends.
Possibility #4 - Accidental Brilliance: An regular monkey accidently successfully broke a nut, wow cool it worked, and thus the behavior is repeated and thus supported for the future. Almost like a random genetic trait becoming dominant because it works well and those monkeys are more likely to live than the monkeys that don't eat the nuts.
So it seems to me that any of these possibilities show that these monkeys are pretty smart - if only because the trait seems to be passed down to the next generation, but how long has this been going on, we don't know.
I think the possibility showing the least "intelligence" is probably #1 - Training - because the monkey isn't actively using the tool, although training may also involve some mimicry, which was #2. That said, mimicry occurs in the wild in lots of species which are generally not considered at the top of the intelligent species lists - like bugs, especially when trying to avoid predation or to feed oneself more effectively. Again, you've got the animals using mimicry (and camouflage) being eaten less often or to eat more often, so the trait - which might have been a random mutation to start - continues to be passed down.
Inventiveness, #3, and accidental brilliance, #4, are almost the same from our perspective, unfortunately. Their difference is basically in the KIND of intelligence - inventiveness shows a problem-solving skill whereas accidental discovery shows solution recognition and re-implementation. It would be amazing to be able to prove that the monkeys methodically went about trying to problem solve: they had a nut, when they would find broken ones, they tasted good, so the monkeys went about figuring out a way to break them open themselves. But since scientists are coming in late in the game and seeing only the results, not the initial evolution of the behavior, there's just no way we'll ever know.
Just after I originally wrote this, the story made the NSF radio/podcast Imagine That! with a cool interview you might want to catch.
Using currency is often considered one of the features of a civilized culture. Well, it didn't take long to teach monkeys to spend, spend, spend! I bet they could be taught "credit" all too easily, as well.
When it comes to shopping, capuchin monkeys act all too human. A new study from Yale University found that capuchins demonstrate the exact same rational and irrational behavior as humans when they are given the power to buy.
...
Research assistants spent hours with the monkeys, training them to recognize the tokens as having a value. Once the capuchins realized that the tokens could be exchanged for treats such as grapes or apple chunks, they resorted to some very human behaviors, including stealing the tokens from other monkeys.
...
In the first experiment, the monkeys were given a budget of 10 tokens and allowed to exchange those tokens for a variety of treats. Research assistants played shopkeeper, each offering a different food. As the monkeys “shopped,” researchers would change the value of the tokens. A token might be worth one grape one day but two grapes the next. Chen says that the monkeys’ reaction to price fluctuation was perfectly rational—and quite human. When prices went up for one food, the monkeys bought less of it. When prices went down, they bought more.
More at: NWF: Spend Like a Monkey
In other news, gorillas have also been known to use tools. Captive gorillas are often kept entertained with tools and such, but seeing tool usage in the wild is a lot more difficult - but it's definately there. For example, recently scientists witnessed gorillas using tools to test the depth of water as well as an industrious gorilla that moved a large tree limb across an area of water to use it as a bridge.
From their vantage point in a clearing at Mbeli Bai in the northern Republic of Congo, Breuer and his colleagues spotted a female gorilla, called Leah, studying a pond before venturing a few steps into it. She then turned back and grabbed a handy metre-long branch from the bank, which she proceeded to use as a 'walking stick', repeatedly prodding the pond's bottom with it. After apparently assessing the depth of the pond with each prod, she eventually moved almost 10 metres from the shore.
...
The researchers saw another female, Efi, using the trunk of a dead shrub as a bridge to cross swampy ground. Efi ripped the 1.3-metre-long, 5-centimetre-wide section from the ground and leant on it like a crutch while she trawled the marshy ground for food. Then she laid it down like a plank and strode over it.
More at: Nature: Gorillas branch out into tool use
It's common to see trained dolphins in captivity and there are lots of sci-fi stories of dolphins being used for reconnaissance like Day Of The Dolphin. Some real dolphins also use tools in the wild. Some Australian dolphins wear sea sponges on their noses in order to protect their beaks. The sponge acts as a barrier against the rocky sea floor as well as stinging creatures which live there.
Scientists first spotted the sponging dolphins in Shark Bay 20 years ago, but they didn't know where the behavior came from. Now, a new study suggests that the dolphins don't figure out the trick on their own, nor do they inherit the ability. Instead, they learn it from their mothers.
More at: Dolphin Sponge Moms
Posted by sorsha at 6:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 7, 2005
The Constant Gardener
It's been too long since I've seen a really good movie - one that sticks with me days after leaving the cinema. British spy novelist John le Carré's The Constant Gardener is one of those movies - it's potent, exciting and beautifully filmed.
The backdrop of The Constant Gardener is northern Kenya, a parsely populated desert region plagued with disease as well as unrest where daily life consists of living in shanty towns or villages under threat of raiders and banditry. Kenya is just one of the many nations fighting the AIDS epidemic, among other medical concerns - and the big benefactorial pharmaceuticals play a complex role. The Kenyans spend a lot of time standing in long lines for medical treatments, some of which seem of a dubious nature to a young activist Tessa Quayle, played by Rachel Weisz.
Then Tessa is discovered murdered, her husband Justin, a quiet British diplomat is suddenly bombarded with supposed secrets his wife has kept from him - infidelity primary among them. Le Carré's story unfolds as Justin, always thought to be unassuming and happier in his garden than confronting any harsh realities, struggles and eventually triumphs in discovering the mysteries behind his wife's death. Her struggle becomes his as he regains his faith in her as well as falls even further in love with her even after her death.
The Constant Gardener is remarkable for any number of reasons. Does this movie have an agenda? Absolutely. It certainly paints a controversial picture of how the pharmaceutical industry operates in the third world. However, this is also a love story and this subplot could have been set against any sort of conspiracy - and holds its own as a poignant story. The way the two main subplots are woven together is what makes this movie brilliant. And wow, the ending will blow you away...
Is it based on true events? I honestly don't know, but I certainly fear the truth here. I'd venture a guess that it was definately inspired by something legitimate, but that's for another discussion. For now, just consider Roger Ebert's comments:
Do drug companies really do this? The recent verdict against the makers of Vioxx indicates that a jury thought Merck sold a drug it knew was dangerous. Facts are the bones beneath the skin of a Le Carre novel. Either he knows what he's talking about, or he is uncommonly persuasive in seeming to. "The Constant Gardener" plays at times like a movie that will result in indictments.
...
Its closing scenes are as cynical about international politics and commerce as I can imagine. I would like to believe they are an exaggeration, but I fear they are not. This is one of the year's best films.
More at: Roger Ebert: The Constant Gardener
Posted by sorsha at 4:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
