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Young New Caledonian crows learn to use tools by going to "tool-school", where they can observe their parents at work.
These crows are renowned for their extraordinary intelligence and ability to fashion tools to solve problems.
Now a new study has revealed more about how they do it: wild New Caledonian crows live in unusually small family groups, scientists say.
That allows parent birds to take juveniles to tool-using sites, and let young birds play with "grown up" tools.
Talented toolsmiths
Birds belonging to the crow family such as magpies, crows and ravens, known as corvids, are renowned for their innovative behaviour, relatively large brains and general intelligence.
Even among this group, New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) stand out: they make the most complex tools of any animal yet studied apart from humans.
For example, they will evolve and improve the shape of their tools over time, and will fashion left handed or right handed tools.
These tools are usually made to help catch insects and other invertebrates.
Earlier this year, scientists at the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand discovered that the birds were able to use three tools in succession to reach some food.
However, despite these extraordinary abilities, little is known about how wild New Caledonian crows live, and how they acquire these skills.
To investigate, Jenny Holzhaider and colleagues at the University of Auckland studied the social organisation of New Caledonian crows in their natural habitat on the island of Maré, New Caledonia, which lies in the South Pacific Ocean to the east of Australia and north of New Zealand.
Observations revealed that unlike many other crow species, New Caledonian crows are not highly social.
Instead, they tend to live in small, tight-knit family units comprising two parents and offspring from up to two consecutive breeding years.
Clever crows can use many tools to solve a task
The parents stay together all year and seem to especially tolerate the presence of the juveniles.
"Their social system is based on high quality relationships with a small number of crows, especially immediate family," co-researcher Gavin Hunt told the BBC.
The discovery rules out the idea that New Caledonian crows live in complex social groups, and learn their skills from their peers.
Instead it suggests that the crows develop their tool-using abilities by "keeping it in the family", say the researchers, who publish their findings in the journal Animal Behaviour.
What is more, the parent crows appear to go to considerable lengths to ensure their offspring can learn how to fashion and use tools.
"[Juveniles] closely follow and watch their parents' behaviour, are taken to tool using sites, and are 'allowed' to use the tools of their parents," says Dr Hunt.
Structuring their education in this way may also help explain how the crows improve their tools over time, as young crows may learn from their parent's mistakes.
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Saturday, 30 October 2010
BBC - Earth News - Clever New Caledonian crows go to parents' tool school
Boris Johnson backs down over 'Kosovo' comments on housing benefit cuts | Politics | guardian.co.uk
Houses in central London. Photograph: Paul Owen
Boris Johnson was today forced to row back to avert a political row with David Cameron after warning that he intended to block "Kosovo-style social cleansing" of poorer people from London as a result of the housing benefit cuts being introduced by the coalition.
The mayor of London became the most high-profile Conservative to express fears about the housing benefit changes as cross-party concern about the effect of the changes on the poor escalated.
Both Cameron and Nick Clegg made clear their distaste at Johnson's decision to add his opinions to the growing dissent and refer to social cleansing in relation to the government's policy.
Within hours of making the remarks, the mayor insisted he was quoted "out of context" and claimed that he did not agree with the "wild accusations" of "social cleansing" made by critics of the housing benefit cuts.
But this morning he had told BBC London: "What we will not see, and will not accept, is any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of London.
"On my watch, you are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living and have put down roots."
Despite the prime minister's insistence that the measures would go ahead unamended, Johnson indicated today that he was in talks with Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, to press the case for a three-pronged plan to mitigate the impact on Londoners.
His comments came the day after Cameron told MPs that ministers would be "sticking to our policies" on this issue.
The prime minister was less than impressed with the outspoken Tory mayor, with a spokesman stating that Cameron did not agree with Johnson's views or the way he had chosen to express them.
The spokesman said: "The prime minister does not agree with what Boris Johnson has said, or indeed the way he said it. He thinks the policy is the right one."
Clegg said he "very strongly" disagreed with Johnson's comments, but accepted there were particular problems in parts of London.
"In London, there are hotspots of very high property prices which create particular dilemmas and difficulties," the deputy prime minister said.
"But I disagree with what Boris Johnson has said on the policy, and I certainly and very strongly disagree with the way in which he has expressed his views."
Clegg was angered by similar comments made in the Commons earlier this week by Labour's Chris Bryant.
After Bryant's remarks, the deputy prime minister said the use of the term "cleansing" was "outrageous" and "deeply offensive to people who have witnessed ethnic cleansing".
Housing and homelessness charities have said the housing benefit changes outlined by the chancellor, George Osborne, will have a big impact in urban areas with high rent levels – notably London.
The measures include a 10% cut from 2013 for those out of work for more than a year and an overall cap of £250 a week for a one-bedroom property, rising to £400 a week for a four-bedroom or larger home.
On top of this, the government is imposing a £500 cap on the total benefits a household can claim per week.
Johnson said it made "no economic sense" to force people who lived and worked in inner London out to the suburbs, adding that he did not want to see London's poorest residents sent off to live to bed and breakfast accommodation on the south coast.
"The last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris, where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs," he added.
"I'll emphatically resist any attempt to recreate a London where the rich and poor cannot live together."
Johnson subsequently issued a statement about his earlier reference to "social cleansing" by claiming he had been being quoted out of context.
Just hours after his comments on London radio, he said he believed the government was "absolutely right" to reform the "completely unsustainable" housing benefit system.
"I do not agree with the wild accusations from defenders of the current system that reform will lead to social cleansing," he said.
"It will not and, if you listened carefully to what I said, no such exodus will take place on my watch."
Johnson
Johnson wants the coalition to pay housing benefit directly to landlords rather than to tenants, which he claims would help landlords to lower rents, and has asked for the planned transitional fund to protect families facing eviction to be increased from £20m to £30m next year. He is lobbying for at least 90% of the money to be earmarked for Londoners.
And he urged Duncan Smith to exempt families with children and those in work – which could cost the Treasury tens of millions of pounds.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, stepped up his party's campaign against the housing benefit proposals as MPs debated the reforms this afternoon.
Miliband urged Lib Dem MPs to "vote with their consciences" against the coalition's proposals and signalled his intention to force a Commons vote on the issue and exploit Lib Dem divisions to defeat the government.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror, the Labour leader said his Lib Dem colleagues "are honourable people. They are in politics for the right reasons. I hope they will vote with their consciences when it comes to issues like housing benefit".
He said the coalition was "cutting the housing benefit of poor people in an unjustified way – they are going to potentially make people lose their homes. That is not what they [Lib Dems] came into politics for."
The Conservative party hit back by releasing details of a comment made to MPs in 2008 by James Purnell, the former work and pensions secretary, in which he highlighted the need to reform the housing benefit system. Purnell, who quit government in 2009, said the then Labour government needed to look at working incentives "to ensure that there is fairness with regard to those who are working and those who are not, so that people on benefits do not end up getting subsidies for rents that those who work could never afford".'
Alastair Campbell, the former Labour government spin doctor, wrote on his blog today that Cameron was likely to be "pretty angry" that the Kosovo analogy was made.
"Whether it was planned or not – live radio has a habit of getting a combination of both – it will have been felt in Downing Street, that much is for sure … felt as in 'ouch,' as if David Cameron didn't have enough on his plate today what with a very tricky European summit," he said.
"Take the Kosovo analogy to its logical conclusion, and Johnson is effectively putting his colleague and fellow Old Etonian/Bullingdon Club member into the same bracket as Slobodan Milosevic."
He added: "If it was an accident, we simply add it to the list of over the top statements and gaffes from the gaffe-prone blundering Boris. If it was planned, then DC, we have a problem!"
The housing minister, Grant Shapps, said the government would go ahead with the benefit cap, which he predicted would lead to lower rents.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I don't deny that some people may well need to move. Not tens of thousands – the impact assessment says there are about 17,000 people in London whom the cap would affect.
"Rather than some of the catastrophic predictions that have been made, what's much more likely is that rents will start to fall."
Labour's London mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, called for the cap to be on rents rather than benefits, telling Today: "House prices in London are completely unreal. Therefore you have got to say this is a separate set of parameters. Either you cap the rents, which I would like to see, or you have got to say we are going to see thousands of people displaced from central London.
"We know that London councils are starting to make block bookings at bed and breakfasts along the south coast."
BBC News - Broadband failure hits thousands of homes across UK
29 October 2010 Last updated at 23:49Share this page
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Broadband failure hits thousands of homes across UK
BT said the internet problems were affecting a 'significant part' of the UK
Tens of thousands of homes across the UK are without internet broadband on Friday night.
BT has confirmed the technical problems are affecting a "significant part" of the UK and say engineers are working to fix them.
Northern Ireland, Scotland and the north of England are the main areas affected.
A spokesman for BT said the company hoped to restore service as soon as possible.
"There's an issue with a node in Edinburgh and we've sent our engineers to deal with it," he added.
BT's website said it was "aware of a temporary problem" affecting the Fair Isles, Northern Highlands and Islands area, as well as the Edinburgh area.
Who should we look to to clamp down on bosses' pay? | Business | guardian.co.uk
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UK boardroom pay leaps 55% in a year | Business | guardian.co.uk
Boardroom pay has leapt 55%. Photograph: Martin Argles
Britain's bosses have been accused of greed and ignoring economic reality after boardroom pay leapt by 55% over the last year.
FTSE 100 directors saw their total earnings soar in the 12 months to June, thanks to sharp rises in bonuses and performance-related pay. The average FTSE 100 chief executive now earns £4.9m a year, or almost 200 times the average wage.
Unions reacted angrily to the report today. "Don't they know that this is meant to be austerity Britain?" said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.
"These mega-pay rises blow away any claim that we are all in this together. While the poor and those on middle incomes lose out from cuts and pay squeezes, top directors continue to take home telephone number salaries without being overly troubled by tax," Barber added.
He called on shareholders and the government to get a tighter grip on executive pay, at a time when ordinary workers have seen their pay kept in check by the economic downturn.
The report was welcomed by business secretary Vince Cable, who announced a review of corporate behaviour and pay earlier this week. He said it was time for executive pay to "come back down to earth".
"We have to question whether it is linked closely enough to company performance. I'm determined to take a really close look at these important issues and want to see a wide response from industry to my review," Cable said.
Incomes Data Services, who conducted the research, said bonuses paid to directors of FTSE 100 companies increased by 34%, while basic pay rose by 3.6%. The amount of money waiting to be disgorged from long-term incentive schemes soared by 73%, to a total of £259m, and share option gains leapt by 90%.
The FTSE 100 rose by less than a fifth over the same period.
Steve Tatton of IDS said the report suggested that companies returned to "business as usual" once the recession ended.
"It seems the days of earnings restraint were short-lived. It is as though the recession never happened," Tatton warned.
"This time last year a number of companies actually reduced their bonus ceilings. Twelve months later it appears as if these measures have been reversed, with around 40 companies reporting higher bonus scheme maxima," he added.
Bart Becht, who runs consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser, was the most highly paid FTSE 100 chief executive. He made £90m last year. IDS also calculated that Tony Pidgley of Berkeley Group enjoyed total earnings of £38.4m, followed by Mick Davis of Xstrata with £26.9m. All three benefited from share options granted in previous years. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said "boardroom greed is alive and well", adding that several FTSE CEOs have come out in support of the coalition government's deficit-reduction plans.
"Let us not forget that these are the same people urging the Government to make deep cuts in jobs and services and in the welfare on which the poorest in our society rely," Kenny said.
In calculating total earnings IDS includes a range of payments and benefits, including the notional and actual value of share option gains, and the total cash value of long-term incentive plans.
A year ago, IDS's report found that total earnings among FTSE 100 CEOs fell by 1.5% between June 2008 and 2009, in the teeth of the recession. However, a 7.4% rise in basic pay cushioned bosses from the impact of the downturn.
Several of Britain's biggest companies faced shareholder anger this year over their executive pay awards. Tesco suffered one of the biggest revolts in years when nearly half its investors failed to back its remuneration policy.
Marks & Spencer was criticised for giving its new chief executive a £15m deal, while J Sainsbury had to defend a 60% rise in CEO Justin King's total earnings, which jumped to £8m.
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