Steel and Wood

One of the more unusual stories to emerge from the tsunami crisis was the tale of an Indian helicopter attacked by indigenous Andamanese on Sentinel Island with bows and arrows. And although there were early fears that large numbers of the Andaman's indigenous population had been wiped out by the tidal waves, many are supposing that they were able to survive by reading the natural signals of tide, water and observing the behaviour of animals...

The image is bizarre, but arresting - the great steel bird of the 21st century confronted by the weapons of a culture that reaches back into the paleaolithic. When speaking about cultures and places far from our own, words like "unspoilt" or phrases like "the world's last paradise" are to be avoided. However the Andamans and Nicobar Islands must surely be one of the few places in the world where we, with a postcolonial conciousness, can actually try to prevent the worst excesses of encroachment on indigenous peoples....

But amidst the human tragedy and our apparent insignificance against the forces of the universe, let's remember that just occasionally, us humans can make and do some pretty amazing things (one of them is tabbed web browsing in Firefox) NASA's two Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been crawling around the planet for a year, drilling, taking pictures and generally doing some interplanetary science. Both robots have lasted three times longer than their designed longevity of 90 days. Roll on the launch of Huygens into Titan's atmosphere !