Memo to badgers: You really need to hire a publicist.

Case in point: an ad for a car that claims to have superduper soundproofing. A dude is locked in the car with a nursing badger mom and her tykes. The badgers are described as “ferocious.” And they’re all asleep. Awww. The car windows are rolled up. An announcer says: “If awakened, the badger will gnaw [the human’s] face off.” A cannon is fired repeatedly. The soundproofing appears to work. Then dude-in-the-car’s cell phone goes off. Mother Badger snarls and lunges.

Not a good moment for the badger image.

It turns out badgers have a history of bad P.R. That’s what I learned from Roger Packham, a senior ecosystems biologist at the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. He’s been studying them since 2003 because of their endangered status in B.C.

Back in the 1940s and ‘50s, British Columbians were trapping 300 to 400 badgers a year. Today, says Packham, “we feel we have fewer than 400 left in B.C.”

“Persecution” was probably the main reason for their decline, Packham says. In other words, people kill them. “There’s a big myth that livestock fall into badger burrows and break their legs. So the only good badger, as far as a lot of farmers are concerned, is a dead badger.” Hence the trapping. Badgers were also pursued for their fur pelts. And nowadays, they often end up as roadkill.

As for the accuracy of the ad, Packham makes two Very Important Points:

1) “I don’t think you want to mess with any nursing mother, badger or human or anything else.”

2) “Let’s just face it: Badgers nursing their babies are not going to end up in a car in the first place.”

But what if a human came into close contact with a badger. Would it gnaw off the human’s face?

Packham says he’s had his nose fewer than 10 inches from a badger’s nose and never been threatened. (Ground squirrels and marmots, staples of the badger diet, would likely say otherwise.)

What’s more, Packham once worked with a vet who was implanting radios in badger body cavities to track the animals in the wild. And the vet made a comment about how easy the badgers were to handle. “His comment was, ‘If this was a house cat, we’d all be bleeding by now.’ ”

Meowr.

You can check our Packham’s badger work at www.badgers.bc.ca.  

-Marc Silver

We’re not saying foreign films get no respect. After all, they are nominated for Oscars. But be honest: Have you heard of this year’s five nominees? And do you personally sit through movies with subtitles? Here’s a rundown of Oscar’s foreign favorites, a generally grim and foreboding quintet, screened last week at National Geographic headquarters as part of the All Roads Film Project.

Katyn

From: Poland

Plot: In 1940 in Katyn Forest, the Soviets massacred 12,000 Polish soldiers. In the five years of war that follow, their families of the soldiers, and the few survivors, struggle to make sense of their lives while trying to learn the truth about what happened at Katyn.

Oscar-worthy moment: The events of that awful day are revealed in a flashback, prompted when the wife of Lieutenant Andrzej receives his journal in 1945. As his words are read aloud, the movie shows the confusion of the soldiers as they're herded onto a train, presumably bound for a labor camp; the bureaucracy of the Soviets, who process each new arrival as if there's some future ahead; and the brutal crime itself.

Subtitles: 100 percent readable.

Will it win: It certainly deserves to. The movie vividly depicts the physical and mental torments that afflict families coping with the aftermath of a massacre. And the Academy usually admires movies whose multiple storylines collide in a powerful conclusion. -William E. Barr

12

From: Russia

Plot: Twelve angry Muscovite jurors ponder the case of a young Chechen boy accused of killing his adoptive Russian stepfather. Scenes of armed conflict in Chechnya are interspersed with the boy’s personal history and the jury-room efforts to determine the truth.

Subtitles: Easy to read—and native Russian speakers who sat next to me praised the translation. Chechen dialogue is also subtitled in both Russian and English.

Oscar-worthy moment: As the accused paces in a small cell, the foreman of the jury tries to explain how they cna save the boy's life if they dig in and uncover the truth about the case. He breaks down mid-sentence. Then the camera pulls back from the boy’s feet to show that he's not pacing; he's performing a traditional Chechen dance–a way to express his ties to his lost family and the homeland he loves and misses.

Will it win: A bit too heavy-handed and didactic to take home the statue, but the actors deserve a special award for their staggeringly impressive work. -Nicholas Mott

The Counterfeiters

From: Austria

Plot: Instead of making  money by making art, Salomon "Sali" Sorowitsch, a Jewish artist in pre-World War II Germany, makes money by making fake money. He’s caught, arrested, and sent to a concentration camp but ends up leading Himmler's secret operation to flood the U.S. and Britain with counterfeit bills.

Oscar-worthy moment: A table-tennis match between two of the pampered counterfeiters is disrupted when a prisoner in the camp collapses and is shot to death. Adolf Burger insists that the game continue and sends a volley across the table to Sali—a not-so-subtle flash of anger at Sali’s willingness to print counterfeit money for the Nazis. Sali responds with his fists. (For Burger's story, as told by him, check out this Wall Street Journal article.)

Subtitles: Easy to follow, except for the occasional scene when the camera pivots sharply, or when white text is printed on a white background.

Will it win: Unlike many Holocaust films, The Counterfeiters reveals both the courage and cowardice of camp prisoners who must decide at what cost they will risk their lives and honor. With that kind of scenario, The Counterfeiters is likely to cash in with an Oscar. -Ben Block

Beaufort

From: Israel

Plot: In a matter of weeks, Israel will withdraw troops from Lebanon, but that's not soon enough for the soldiers guarding a lonely outpost near the Crusader fortress Beaufort. Bombarded by rocket fire and hemmed in by an explosive device on the road, they mark their final days in Lebanon with an impending sense of doom and dark, nihilistic humor (after a visitor says no thanks to an offer of “deluxe Beaufort toast” with pesto, cherry tomatoes, and Dijon, the toast offerer says, “Good, because we’re out of all three.”)

Oscar-worthy moment: "Ziv [from] the bomb squad," 'coptered in to defuse the explosive device, gets ready to check it out. The early-morning sky is an eerie silver-gray. Protective suit in place, visor down, salty licorice from his mom in his mouth, Ziv taps with a cane, as a blind man would, to look for tripwires—then falls to his knees as if in prayer to inch up to the gadget.

Subtitles: No problems.

Will it win? Beaufort deserves to be honored for its depiction of the absurdity of war. But maybe two hours of the absurdity of war is a bit too much for the Academy. –Marc Silver

Mongol

From: Kazakhstan

Plot:  This movie could be called Genghis Khan: the Early Years. At age nine, Temudgin (birth name of the great Khan) rides with his aristocratic father to select a wife.  On the return trip, a rival tribe poisons dad, and his own tribesmen ransack the family home. Temudgin is locked up until he escapes as a teenager, when he is able to marry Börte. His dedication to her, and the force of his personality, leads him into conflicts with a powerful tribe, his blood brother’s sizeable army, and neighboring China.  In the process he unites the Mongols under a new code of laws and builds an army poised to conquer most of Asia.

Oscar-worthy moment: Carrying torches and wearing fearsome masks, a feuding tribe attacks the home of the now-grown Temudgin. Their goal is to steal his new bride, just as his mother was stolen from their tribe years ago.  An enemy arrow wounds Temudgin as the couple tries to escape. Börte gives herself up after spurring a horse to carry her wounded husband to safety—an act that symbolizes the extraordinary bond between husband and wife.

Subtitles: Straightforward and easy to read, with a touch of poetry: “Look for a wife with a face as flat as a salt lake, and eyes that are narrow. Evil spirits dive into wide eyes and drive them to madness.” 

Will it win? Awkward transitions aside, Mongol impresses with breathtaking scenery and strong performances. Boyish yet stoic, radiating a calm far beyond his years, young Odnyam Odsuren is utterly convincing. So … not your typical foreign-film winner, but a definite dark-horse candidate. -Brad Scriber

The photographers who shoot for National Geographic magazine often find themselves in situations which require great perseverance to make great photographs. But at other times, powerful photography can come from much easier situations.

This was the case when Magnum photographer Chris Anderson made the image of Palestinian workers lined up in the morning at a crossing point in the security wall built around Bethlehem. As Chris explains: “this was hard to miss, they lined up every morning starting around 4 AM.”

But that makes it sound far too simple. Because what Chris did was not simply record the line of people, he “worked” the situation. This is a term often used by photographers when describing how they will shoot a subject for as long as possible. The goal is to capture that one moment when all the elements come together: the light is favorable, the angle is interesting, the subjects are expressive, etc. As story tellers, photojournalists are trying to capture the essence of the situation in a way that is an honest reflection of the event.

For the wall photo, Chris moved to action as the sun began to climb and illuminate the subjects, he scampered up onto the fence so that he could shoot down on the scene. The higher angle helped to separate the crowd of people and to make it clear that this was indeed a line. And by shooting down the line, Chris employed the converging diagonal lines of the perspective to draw the eye along in the composition.

And then the scene interestingly composed, one worker walked up and scaled the fence to join his friends just a few feet in front of Chris. “It added the needed dramatic element to the photograph,” Chris explained. It was a serendipitous moment that helped to elevate a good image to one that became a dramatic and story telling. The photo went from being good to great.

One way that Chris achieves images with such a natural feel is that he often shoots with a “normal” focal length 50mm lens. Chris says “I know it so well, that I know what is in the frame even before the camera reaches my eye. … this is the way the eye sees, the perspective is the same and there is no distortion.”

The way that Chris works is a lesson for any  aspiring photographers who assumes that having a large selection of lenses, from ultra-wide to super telephoto, is essential to making great photographs. It is simply not true. Superior photographs can be made with the simplest of gear. The important thing is to take time to learn the capabilities of your camera so well that you instinctively know when to capture the magical dance of elements that come together to make a great photograph.

Chris’ story on Bethlehem was just honored with an award in the annual World Press Photography competition. Click here to see more of Chris’ photographs.

Chaos reigns in the elephant herd. African wild dogs are everywhere—darting between gigantic legs, spinning in circles, leaping to nip tails. The dogs clearly enjoy the moment of play.

It seemed like a normal hunt in search of an impala dinner when the wild dogs in Botswana’s Okavango Delta started out that afternoon. Then they bumped into the herd. I understand why the elephants were upset, but why would the dogs behave in a way that has nothing to do with feeding the pack? Their behavior probably scared away every impala in the area. What were they thinking?

This month’s cover story, “Minds of Their Own,” explores what animals—wild and domesticated—are thinking. Virginia Morell writes about a border collie with a vocabulary of over 300 words. I’m not surprised. My own border collie, Millie, opens doors, gets into cabinets, herds the family, and when she feels like it, follows my commands. Then there’s our cockatiel, Minnie Pearl, who imitates the telephone (we frantically run to answer it) and sings an alert when visitors turn into our driveway, a quarter mile away.

Our article is not a prescription for getting your pets to behave, but it does offer insight into animal intelligence. The more we learn about how animals think, the more we learn about ourselves. If you don’t believe me, ask Millie.

Photograph by Chris Johns

Rob Galbraith is reporting that Canon may finally be getting down to the root cause of their focusing challenges with the 1D MKIII. The buzz out of PMA is that engineers in Japan have isolated a problem that goes beyond the sub-mirror repair and 1.1.3 firmware update which didn’t fully create a cure — it seems the main autofocus circuitry is putting out so much information that lenses may be over correcting.

"In closed door meetings at the PMA 2008 trade show in Las Vegas, at Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix, Arizona and on the phone, by our count it's a minimum of four different professional market reps that have revealed to photographers or managers at seven different sites using the EOS-1D Mark III that a new fix is in the works. In other words, Canon USA reps have been directed by their superiors to begin contacting VIP customers, and to tell those customers that there's good news pending on the EOS-1D Mark III autofocus front."

Canon will now have to decide the best course of action to implement this new fix. Hopefully it will be the final solution to an aggravating problem that has tarnished the sales and reputation of what has been one of the best camera lines on the market for photojournalists.

Rob’s web site has been out front on this issue from the start, if you own a 1D MKIII I’d suggest reading his latest update.

— Ken Geiger 

Maybe it’s just imbedded in my DNA but I can’t help being a gadget geek, fortunately that passion melds well with my job description here at National Geographic. It also affords me opportunities to visit some of the largest photography trade shows, like the 84th annual Photo Marketing Association (PMA) convention being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

There are literally thousands of cameras and photo doodads set out for hands-on display and scads of eager manufacture’s representatives on call to explain and demonstrate the newest widgets for 2008. It’s like visiting the world’s largest candy store except you get to satisfy your sweet tooth with photo gear!

Last month I reported on a difference in speed when copying large numbers of files from a server to a PC or a Mac.  I performed the tests again but this time the source of the files was a hard drive connected via firewire cable.  This time the difference between Mac and PC was negligible.  The new, striking graph is available after the jump.