This reminds me of Christopher Stone's 1972 article, "Do Trees Have Standing?" and subsequent book on the same subject.

Anyway, the Indian Constitution doesn't quite give rights to nature, but makes the protection of nature a duty of the state and every citizen:Article 48A: The State shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country.

Article 51A: It shall be the duty of every... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 5:22 AM on September 30, 2008

The official trailer (Youtube link) for Mad About English, a movie about China's love affair with learning English.
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 8:49 AM on September 15, 2008

I can't find it online, but the favorite photo I've seen from this year's Paralympics is of a one-legged track cyclist competing. (Using one leg, not one leg + prosthetic.) Has anyone else seen it?

Is it this photo of the Chinese cyclist Tang Qi?
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 12:01 AM on September 13, 2008

Also I'd be interested to learn whether those top-of-the-mark Chinese/Singapore students receive separate instruction in math at the primary grades, rather than lumping it in together with all core subjects under one teacher.

In Singapore, Math is a separate, standalone subject - we don't have individual subjects for each area of mathematics. Each school year, everyone learns a bit of arithmetic, geometry, algebra, calculus, statistics (and whatever... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 7:48 PM on July 10, 2008

Recommendations (links?) from the assembled gallery?

I'm partial to this video of her singing Love is a Losing Game. Particularly poignant, if you know even a little bit about her and "her Blake".
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 9:00 AM on June 23, 2008

I must have been in an alternate New York, because everyone I met there was exceedingly friendly and helpful. Of course, I knew better than to stop and gawk on the sidewalk or to stand on the left on the subway escalators, and I personally shoved people into the subway carriage. But I never expected to be offered assistance on multiple occasions without even requesting for it, and I now miss that friendly "how are you?" around every corner.
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 1:38 PM on May 21, 2008

Best Experienced with Headphones On

... on a gray and rainy day, with your eyes closed.

Thanks, netbros. The Observatory is one of my favourite Singaporean bands, and Leslie Low (also former frontman of the now-defunct Humpback Oak) does know how to bring out the melancholy.
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 1:30 PM on May 21, 2008

Cells grown in a vat still need to eat. And they'll need some sort of immune system for keeping them safe from infection, respiratory systems for keeping them alive, and so on. Nature has already spent millions of years evolving solutions to these very problems.

The First International In Vitro Meat Consortium just released a preliminary economic viability report (pdf), estimating that in-vitro meat can be produced in large quantities at about 3300... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 12:33 AM on April 23, 2008

And because of the understandable interest in preserving family lines, you can't pay a Li enough money to become a Qiang, or a Sima, or any of the hundreds of other surnames that have fallen into almost total disuse.

You don't need to pay them if you use the law: "Police in China, where most of the 1.3 billion people share just 100 surnames, are considering rules which would combine both parents' family names to prevent so much duplication...... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 9:35 PM on April 13, 2008

null, yes they are:Elephants, when left to their own devices, are profoundly social creatures. A herd of them is, in essence, one incomprehensibly massive elephant: a somewhat loosely bound and yet intricately interconnected, tensile organism. Young elephants are raised within an extended, multitiered network of doting female caregivers that includes the birth mother, grandmothers, aunts and friends. These relations are maintained over a life span as long as 70 years. Studies of established... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hellopanda at 11:36 PM on March 24, 2008