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"Wallace I think had a role in this - his book 'Darwinism' for example. He tended to downplay his role in public forums and that just didn't serve him well.
"When it [natural selection] was resurrected, it was always associated with Darwin."
He said when evolutionary biology really took off in the 1940s, the history of the discovery had been largely forgotten.
A Darwin "industry" developed and, said Prof Costa, it viewed Darwin as the "great visionary".
While little has changed since in terms of public acclaim, there are signs that Wallace's work is gaining more recognition in certain circles.
A series of events are being held around the world to commemorate the centenary of Wallace's death this year under the Wallace100 banner.
These include an exhibition in Swansea, a lecture in Berlin and a two-day conference in Malaysia.
Comedian Bill Bailey recently unveiled a restored portrait of Wallace at the Natural History Museum and has also filmed a two-part documentary for the BBC about Wallace.
Thousands of Wallace's letters have been put online for the first time, including correspondence with Darwin about evolution by natural selection.
There is even hope for the statue with renewed efforts being made to raise the rest of the money by August.
But gaining the same level of acclaim as Darwin is another matter.
"I think that in the popular imagination, it would be very, very difficult. It's indelibly Darwin and monkeys," said Prof Costa.
"I don't think there's much we can do about that but I do think he will emerge from relative eclipse by Darwin, certainly in the broad academic world and the world of naturalists.
A historic presidential election in Indonesia was precariously balanced on Wednesdayafter both candidates declared themselves winners, raising the prospect of a tense standoff in the Islamic world's biggest democracy.
Just hours after the polls closed, Joko Widodo, the governor of Jakarta who has made the fight against corruption and social injustice key policies, gave a live television address claiming victory, setting off scenes of jubilation among his supporters.
"We are grateful that based on the counting of the quick counts, Jokowi-JK has won," he said, referring to his own nickname and the initials of his running mate, Jusuf Kalla. He cited one of the early post-election counts, which samples votes from around the country and which gave him about 52% of vote compared with about 48% for his rival, Prabowo Subianto, an ex-general and son-in-law of the former dictator Suharto.
"This is the victory of all people of Indonesia," Jokowi later told supporters. Another credible quick count by the pollster Saiful Mujani with similar figures gave Jokowi 52.95% and Prabowo 47.05%.
But his opponent was in no mood to concede, appearing on television later to say: "We are grateful from the incoming data that we received the mandate of the people."
Numerous quick counts cited on television channels showed significant variations in result, depending on the political affiliation of the TV channel. The quick counts conducted by the Centre for Policy Studies and the Indonesia Voice Network, put Prabowo in front by 1% to 4%.
Political analyst Yohanes Sulaiman said: "I think basically we are going to be in limbo. Are you actually willing to tell Prabowo to his face: 'Hey, you are wrong'?"
Prabowo, who was dismissed from the Indonesian army special forces for ordering the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists in 1998, is known to have a short temper.
His supporters admire him for his firmness, arguing that Indonesia, a nation strung across 17,000 islands and home to hundreds of ethnic groups and cultures, needs a strong, unifying leader.
Other analysts believe the dual claim could end up in a long drawn-out constitutional battle that is unlikely to be resolved for months.
The elections are seen as a crucial test of democracy in the world's fourth most populous country, as they should result in Indonesia's first democratic transfer of power from one elected leader to another. Indonesia has offered a respectable example, in recent years, of a Muslim-majority country that threw off dictatorship and blossomed economically under a democratic system.
On his official Twitter account, the outgoing president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has publicly endorsed Prabowo, urged for peace to be preserved.
He asked both camps to "restrain themselves and not to mass on the streets to celebrate, until an official KPU [election commission] announcement".
Yudhoyono repeated his comments several hours later, adding that the conflicting counts did not qualify as the "official results".
Authorities said up to 250,000 police officers were on standby across the country and while there are fears that the conflicting declarations could cause unrest, as of Wednesday evening there were no reported incidents.
Before the election several credible pollsters had placed Jokowi ahead of Prabowo, but maintained that the race was too close to call.
At the polls, voters appeared to be equally divided over their choice of the next president.
Voting preferences were more pronounced across demographic lines. First-time voters, who account for a third of the 187 million electorate, tended to favour Jokowi.
Anis Komariah, 28, commenting on Jokowi's reputation for clean governance as she voted in south Jakarta, said: "He is the type of person that is sincere, and the parties that support him, he didn't offer them ministerial positions."
Young voters, who have taken to social media in huge numbers during the election – at one point on Wednesday six out of 10 top trending hashtags worldwide referred to Indonesia's election – believe that Jokowi represents a clean break with the past.
Older voters who are likely to have vivid memories of the mass riots that led to the fall of Suharto in 1998, say they favour Prabowo, seeing him as a strong, commanding leader who they believed would better unify the country.
Rofiq Mohammad, a 48-year-old voter, said: "I think a strong leader is important because we don't want a situation like the Middle East.
"If things get unstable, everything will go bad and maybe so bad that it will be difficult to come back again. Indonesian stability is the most important."
However, there appeared to be a consensus among voters in the world's third-largest democracy that the election should go ahead peacefully amid fears that riots could break out in the event of a tight or contested result. Official results are not expected for two weeks.
Edward Gunawan, a film producer who flew home to Indonesia from Bangkok in the middle of a shoot so he could vote for the first time, said that in recent weeks selfies and pictures of food had vanished from his social media feeds.
"It's interesting that your news feed is suddenly filled with very serious stuff, but I see it as a very encouraging sign," said Gunawan, who likened the mood to the election of US president Barack Obama in 2008. "My generation and even the younger generation are getting involved and getting excited about the political process."
Don't get too comfortable. Kate. In a week, you won't even be "Prince William's ex-girlfriend," so work that shielding-your-eyes-from-the-harsh-public-glare while you still can!
The ‘Forever War’ gets a new lease on life under the Trump administration, but the White House has yet to set out a strategy.
The top general overseeing America’s wars told Congress Thursday that more U.S. troops will likely be needed in Afghanistan to help train and advise Afghan forces, and left the door open to sending more U.S. forces into Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State.
The comments by Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, come amid rapid changes in the U.S. military posture in the region. Just this week, approximately 400 U.S. Marines deployed to a base near the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria to assist U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as they move on the city. Additionally, U.S. Army special operations forces were rushed to northern Syria to act as a buffer between the SDF and Turkish-backed militias who had been threatening their bases around the city of Manbij, and American warplanes unleashed a new wave of bombing runs on al Qaeda in Yemen.
Taken together, the deployments and air raids signal a willingness by the Trump administration to escalate American military involvement in fighting the Islamic State and al Qaeda in some of their long-held sanctuaries. The expanding military operations, however, run counter to Trump’s campaign rhetoric, in which he scoffed at the idea of “nation-building” or being drawn into overseas missions. But he has consistently vowed to defeat Islamic State and other extremists.
The deployments raise questions about the overall U.S. policy in the Middle East and other jihadist hotspots like Somalia or northern Africa. U.S. military commanders have been careful not to portray the recent moves as a broad change in existing policy, but instead as plans long in the works. One former Obama administration official told FP that the strikes in Yemen and troop increases in Syria are “really more of a continuation than a departure from Obama administration counterterrorism policy,” albeit significantly accelerated from the ponderous way the Obama team made its decisions.
It’s not just a question of more boots on the ground. Votel said that bringing in more troops would involve rewriting the current strategy that keeps most U.S. soldiers in an advisory role, and in which commandos can only engage in combat if they’re fired on.
If the administration follows the military’s advice, it would mark the reversal of a years-long trend in Afghanistan that has seen the U.S. military’s presence steadily decrease to about 8,400 troops from a peak of about 100,000 troops in 2010 and 2011.
Votel’s comments echo those made last month by the Gen. John Nicholson, head of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, that he would likely need “a few thousand more” troops to take part in the training mission. The number of Americans in the fight fluctuates from month to month, as Nicholson has the ability to pull in hundreds of troops at a time on a temporary basis to act as what the military calls “enablers” to buttress the coalition’s efforts. Their short-term deployments don’t count against the cap on the number of U.S. troops officially acknowledged to be in the country.
In January, the Pentagon announced that it was preparing to deploy 300 Marines to the restive Helmand province in Afghanistan’s south, which saw some of the fiercest fighting during the war’s worst days, and is the site of vicious fighting between government forces and a resurgent Taliban. But the former rulers of the country are hardly the only threat. On Wednesday, ISIS militants dressed as doctors entered a military hospital in Kabul and slaughtered 30 doctors, nurses, and patients in the group’s bloodiest attack in Afghanistan to date.
Votel also said he is open to expanding the U.S. military footprint in Iraq and Syria, where there are already approximately 6,000 troops on the ground. “I think as we move more towards the latter part of these operations into more the stability and other aspects of the operations we will see more conventional forces requirements,” he said. He declined to offer any numbers but experts and congressional aides say the reinforcements could range from hundreds to thousands of troops.
In Syria, in addition to the Marine base near Raqqa, there is also a U.S. Army-run logistics hub dubbed Forward Operating Base Thomas near Kobani in Syria’s north, and a Special Operations base closer to Manbij, as well as several U.S.-run training centers for the SDF.
In a trip to the region last month, Gen. Votel brought a handful of reporters — including FP — along to see these outposts. But even outside of Syria, the growing U.S. footprint in key areas of the region was apparent.
At one air base the U.S. military would only describe as being located in “Southwest Asia” due to host nation sensitivities, American F-15s and Belgian F-16s flew round-the-clock missions into Iraq and Syria. One area of the base had recently been given over to the U.S. and its NATO allies to build permanent housing for hundreds of troops and pilots, along with a U.S. Army unit that operated a HIMARS precision rocket system.
“We’re still pouring a lot of concrete in the region — more than I would have thought” at this point in the war, one former Obama administration official told FP.
Actress Shilpa Shinde says she is super excited to provide expert advice for the current season of "Big Boss" on a radio channel.
"I'm super excited to be a part of this show on a radio channel and what better than RED FM. I will be providing expert advice for the current season of 'Big Boss'. Watching these contestants is almost like reliving the entire experience of the house and Bigg Boss' voice now gives me goosebumps.
"While this year has contestants with different personalities, their game strategy is extremely similar. Currently Sreesanth is my favourite contestant and I would like to see him win. Yes, the house is full of controversies and fights but it's also full of fun and madness," the actress said in a statement.
RED FM radio network launched channel no 935 will become the destination for daily "Bigg Boss" rants.
Shilpa, the winner of the 2017 edition of the reality show, will provide inside expertise on your favourite contestants. Popular for her motherly role in the house, she will now decode the strategy of Karanvir Bohra, Sreesanth, Jasleen and all others currently creating an entertaining ruckus in the house.
The actress will discuss the juicy controversies, new developments in the house and predict eliminations. The fans get a chance to discuss this with Shilpa through caller interactions.
This week, ABC’s Castle used Season 5’s “bonus” episode to deliver what series creator Andrew W. Marlowe hoped was “the best clip show television has ever seen.” So… was it?
The premise: While chasing a mad bomber, Beckett unwittingly triggers a pressure-sensitive bombing mechanism, forcing her to stand still for an indeterminate amount of time. To help distract Kate from the dire sitch, Rick stuck around and peppered her with questions about their time together as partners both professional and personal. Annnnnd cue flashbacks galore.
* Part of the fun was revisiting Castle‘s huge array of guest stars over the years. Who knew that Dallas bad girl Julie Gonzalo had once been on?
* Esposito putting Kate and Rick on speakerphone, then tuning out, as they compare notes over who made whom jealous.
* How fun was the montage of them speaking at same time? But for pure emotion, my favorite montage may have been the Beckett’s Greatest Hits one narrated by Captain Montgomery.
What did you think of “Still”? Is it odder than ever that this was to run before “Squab and the Quail,” which opened with Rick acting so indifferent to his lady love? And while I can’t say I have a great recollection of “clip shows” from Happy Days and the like, yeah, this one was incredibly entertaining. And the bombing case was pretty intense and well-paced, though the eventual cracking of the code was a bit of a stretch.
A new study reports that a majority of students are mismatched in college — the quality of the college they attend does not match their academic ability. Mismatch has implications for the design of state higher education systems and for student aid policy. Learn more here. (New to the ECS Research Studies Database).
This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new globalnews site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Economic Observer.
When Liu Li boarded a plane for the United States, she had a little bit of makeup on, was wearing a loose dress, and had her hair up. She tried to hold her handbag in front of her belly in a natural way, just as the middleman had taught her. She was trying to look as calm as any wealthy Chinese lady would look when travelling abroad. But Liu Li couldn't help feeling terribly nervous: she was six months pregnant when she left for the United States, where she wanted to give birth to an American citizen.
Liu Li knew that going through customs would be a lot easier than obtaining a U.S. visa. In order to obtain the tourist visa that enabled her to go to America for the delivery, she had to carefully choose her clothes, and spend a lot of time practicing her walking and interview techniques. She memorized a host of details about her hotel booking and about famous sight-seeing spots so as to convince the Embassy officer that she was just another Chinese woman going shopping in the States.
Giving birth to a child abroad is not a privilege reserved to the stars and the very wealthy. An increasing number of expectant middle-class parents also fancy giving their children passports that they can feel proud of. "The return on investment is higher than robbing a bank," the consultancy agent tells women such as Liu. When Chinese children are born in America, they automatically become U.S. citizens. Once they reach 21, their parents will be able to apply for green cards and emigrate.
Those who would prefer a closer destination can go to Hong Kong, whose passport gives access to more than 120 countries without the need of a visa. Advantages include the fact that children will receive bilingual education (which will give them a foothold in the international world), and the fact that they will also enjoy the preferential policies for going to Chinese universities.
After consulting quite a few agencies for expectant mothers, Liu Li chose a reputable one. Airplane tickets, fees for labor, pre- and post-delivery care cost her roughly 20,000. Since most airlines refuse to accept women passengers who are more than 32 weeks pregnant, Liu Li set off for America when she was six months pregnant and then checked into a Chinese birthing center in California.
After her arrival, Liu Li realized that the area was full of facilities set up for Chinese women like herself. On the limited occasions when Liu Li goes to the Punete Hill Mall near her birthing center the facility limits walks outside its premises to three per week, each time for about three hours Liu Li bumps into lots of pregnant Chinese women. Birthing centers such as Liu Li's, which are mostly situated in America's beautiful west coastal areas, operate without a business license, and try to be as discreet as possible. In April, a number of illegally converted maternity centers in Los Angeles were discovered and shut down, which makes Liu Li very nervous.
Going to the United States to give birth and taking a foreign born child back to China usually proves relatively easy. The difficult part starts only later, as Song Jingwen is starting to understand. Because her son has a U.S. passport, the law does not allow him to be registered in his mother's local area, which means that he will not be automatically admitted to Chinese schools. Song will have to register him as a foreigner, and pay an extra fee. His access to education and health care also faces a lot of constraints.
"Some parents obtain fake birth certificates for their children, or cheat the Chinese Embassy to get them Chinese passports. But then they can't get visas or go abroad," Song explains. She is still hesitating on what to do next. If Song gets her son a fake hukou (the Chinese registration system), which would make it easier for him to go to a local school, she fears that all the efforts she has made up to now could be in vain.
A few years ago, Zhao Yong easily obtained a Shanghai hukou for his American born child. "Every time we want to go to the States, we have to get the Hongkong-Macao permit to go though Chinese customs, go to Hong Kong, then fly to the United States and enter the country with the American passport," Zhao Yong says. "The trip is a little bit complicated, but if we fly directly from Shanghai to the States, we won't be able to hide the truth."
Under Chinese law, double nationality is prohibited. According to the American Embassy, once a child has obtained a Chinese hukou, he is considered to have given up his American nationality. The United States is not the only country with strict regulations. A child born in Hong Kong doesn't get the Hong Kong resident identity card right away, but has to go back to Hong Kong regularly every year or two until he is 18 in order to register as a "returned resident," and keep his nationality.
According to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. constitution (ratified in 1868), anyone born in United States automatically becomes an American citizen and obtains access to public education, university loans, voting, and so on... Even so, if one does not work in America or pay taxes after the age of 15, one can only enjoy very limited access to U.S. welfare benefits. "The system doesn't totally exclude people who don't pay taxes here, but those who do not pay as much tax as Americans do cannot expect the same benefits. But each state has different regulations," says Mr. Yang, a Chinese born man who works in New Jersey and has a green card.
"Giving birth to a child in the States is a wonderful dream, but a very costly one too," Song Jingwen concludes. "People who choose to go down this path must know that they will not be paying only for birthing and post birthing care, but they will also be paying a lot more for the whole life."
Super rich Chinese creating "Bordeaux bubble"
After another 12 months of tantalising build-up, Apple this week unleashed its latest batch of consumer products: the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and, at long last, Apple Watch.
In usual fashion, the launch attracted heavy attention from every corner of the globe and in usual fashion, many were hoping that Apple would fall flat on its face. ITProPortal watched everything unfold in California. Here are our initial reactions.
Apple is back... sort of. It certainly felt that way during the conference. There was a real sense of anticipation that I haven't witnessed at an Apple event for quite some time – partly drummed up by the hype surrounding the Apple Watch – and, for the first time during Tim Cook's tenure as CEO, this was somewhat fulfilled.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus basically amount to everything we expected: bigger, more expensive, and packing slightly better specs than the 5S. It's still shocking that the iPhone 6 still doesn't feature a Full HD screen, and that both models only carry 1GB of RAM, wishy-washy primary and secondary cameras and a sub-2,500mAh battery, but Apple knows its customers will pay an arm and a leg for them anyway. After all, the iPhone as much a fashion item as a mobile.
The Apple Watch was the real star of the show, not purely because of how good it is but, rather, the statement it makes. Rumours about the wearable have made the rounds for well over a year and during that time a lot of other companies have entered the smartwatch arena. It's actually likely that firms such as Samsung and Sony only released their own, desperately poor, smartwatches so hastily in order to beat Apple to market.
The Apple Watch boasts a certain elegance and simplicity that place it way above its rivals in this sphere. The demonstration of the Digital Crown alone truly put Samsung's and Sony's efforts to shame. It was brutally embarrassing.
This time last year, Apple released the iPhone 5S and 5C, two phones that went relatively unchallenged as the king and queen of the smartphone market. This year, things could hardly be more different. With high-end contenders like the LG G3, HTC One M8 and Sony's latest offering, the Xperia Z3, the iPhone 6 is definitely swimming with sharks.
With the iPhone 6, Apple needed to leapfrog a generation of phones, and it just hasn't done that. The company that was always ahead has started playing a game of catch-up, bowing to market pressure on design features that have long been a staple of its product, like the button on the edge of the phone. In about six months we'll be seeing the Sony Xperia Z4, and Apple won't even be half way through designing the next iPhone.
Many features like waterproofing and dustproofing, as well as wireless charging, are inexplicably absent, whereas Apple's competition has been using them for several generations of phones already. While the iPhone 6 does offer a host of great features, like TouchID and the new mobile payments wallet, and looks like it offers a great all-round experience, this is more of the same from Apple, when it needed something different.
Frankly a lukewarm showing from the company that once ruled the industry.
Everyone was expecting and hoping for something big from Apple at the launch of the iPhone 6 yesterday, but I would say that the company only half-delivered on this expectation.
In terms of the phones themselves, which were supposed to be the main attractions, I was slightly disappointed with what Apple had come up with. Well, maybe that's a bit harsh, but I'll say I definitely wasn't excited by the new hardware. Don't get me wrong, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are certainly upgrades on the 5S. They are both bigger, the displays are better and the processors more powerful, but then they get let down by only featuring 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear camera, both of which you'd expect to find on a mid-range handset.
What did get my heart pounding was the Apple Watch. I know lots of people are still sceptical about wearables in general, but I think Apple has absolutely nailed it. Firstly, the Apple Watch looks great. It's sleek and stylish rather than awkward and bulky and can be customised through a range of different straps that actually make it look like a normal watch.
Add to that the Digital Crown dial that allows you to scroll through menus without having to touch and obstruct the screen, the nifty Digital Touch communication feature, the sleek user interface, the abundance of apps at your disposal and all the sport and fitness capabilities and I believe that Apple has finally delivered another revolutionary product.
The past two weeks have been an intense build-up to Apple's major launch event, with near-daily leaks, rumours, and possibilities. Apple does hype incredibly well. I was almost blinded to the fact that it was just a phone.
Watching the conference, it seems that Apple thinks that the new iPhone 6 range is akin to the second coming, when in reality all we got was... a new iPhone. The stats are fine - obviously faster CPU, GPU, etc. - but nothing spectacular. The biggest "get" for Apple users was probably the bigger battery, but the previous iPhone's battery life was so abysmal it's hardly surprising the company upgraded it.
However, the Apple Watch, if it works how Apple says it does, is the first smartwatch that I haven't laughed at. It's beautifully designed, and it appears that Apple hasn't done what most other tech companies have done, where they just try to shrink their phone into a watch.
Full disclosure: I'm not an Apple guy, but through the constant "Our products are the best products" Tim Cook spiel, the conference revealed that Apple is still pushing forward boundaries in the tech landscape.
P.S. No U2, if you force people to "own" your album, it doesn't make it the "biggest album launch ever.

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