How Aggressive Hyena Moms Give Their Kids a Boost

Early one morning I caught sight of Morpheus, silhouetted against a pink African dawn. Her long, sloping neck was stretched out as she loped away from me, disappearing over a hill. I followed her to a nearby plain and was met with the unmistakable sound of a group of hyenas squabbling over a carcass. Morpheus entered the fray, first lunging at a smaller male on her right. A moment later, she looked up briefly, her nose and mouth covered in blood, then turned and snapped at a hyena feeding nearby.

I'm intimately acquainted with Morpheus and these other hyenas because they have been studied for more than twenty years by various members of the lab where I did my Ph.D. research; I've staked these hyenas out at dens for hours on end and followed them as they raced across open plains. From watching these animals, we've learned about hyenas' social system, their physiology, and the conservation challenges they face.

But to me, it's the aggression that is the most fascinating thing about hyenas. It's rule-based and constrained by specific social norms, but at the same time, it's incredibly primal and ruthless. Studying aggression has helped us understand what makes hyenas tick, offering us a glimpse into the evolutionary pressures that have made them one of the most unusual and misunderstood species in the animal kingdom.

Formidable females

For more than 1000 years, people believed that hyenas were hermaphrodites, since female hyenas have long, fully-erectile pseudopenises that mimic male genitalia. Seeing a hyena play the role of mom while sporting what looks like a penis would bewilder even an astute naturalist. Not only do female hyenas look like males, they are also the more aggressive and socially dominant sex, exhibiting aggression more than three times more often than male hyenas do.

For many animals, too much aggression is detrimental, at least in terms of reproductive success; in baboons, aggressive females have reduced fertility and increased rates of miscarriage , and in western bluebirds, overly-aggressive males tend to fledge fewer offspring than other males. But in these species, males are generally more aggressive than females; how is aggressiveness related to fitness in a species where females are the more aggressive sex?

Life in the clan

Hyenas live in huge social groups called clans that are structured by a "linear dominance hierarchy." That's the scientific way of saying that in these societies, a high-ranking individual is dominant to every lower-ranking animal in the clan: Morpheus is dominant to Scrabble, who is dominant to Hendrix, and so on. For hyenas, social rank isn't just a title or a badge of honor. Rank determines access to food, so a high-ranking hyena like Morpheus can drive a lower-ranking hyena off a kill at any time, no matter who hunted or scavenged the meat.

Social rank also plays an important role in aggressive behavior among hyenas, since dominance determines who can exhibit aggression toward whom. Aggression is nearly always directed down the hierarchy, toward lower-ranking hyenas (and if a hyena disregards this rule, it's not taken lightly by other clan members). This means that the highest-ranking hyenas have a lot of opportunities for aggression - they can attack nearly any other hyena in the clan - whereas lower-ranking hyenas have far fewer possible targets. Aggression can occur over food, in defense of cubs, or to reprimand a pesky suitor.

But unlike many species, aggression doesn't dictate social rank among hyenas; instead, social rank is inherited. Hyenas are stuck with their lot in life, unable to move up the hierarchy. So does all this aggression actually benefit hyenas, and if so, how?

The implications of aggression

Aggressiveness, it turns out, varies drastically among hyenas; some hyenas tend to threaten - or outright attack - group members more frequently than others do. There is more than a five-fold difference in the aggression rates of the least aggressive and the most aggressive females, even after controlling for social rank and the number of opportunities for aggression.

This type of consistent variation in behavior, called "animal personality," is being found in several traits, such as sociability, boldness, and docility, across many species. And aggressiveness, like other personality traits, can have major implications for fitness. However, for hyenas, aggression doesn't affect fitness by improving a hyena's own survival; aggressive females don't live longer or survive at higher rates than others that attack less often.

Instead, the benefits of aggressiveness are seen later down the line, in the survival of offspring. Female hyenas that are particularly aggressive over food successfully rear a larger proportion of their cubs to adulthood than do females that aggress less often over food. But interestingly, the benefits of aggressiveness depend on social rank. For high-ranking hyenas, aggressiveness doesn't matter much in terms of reproductive success; the offspring of dominant females do well no matter how aggressive their mom is. However, for hyenas low on the totem pole, aggression plays an important role in reproductive success, greatly improving their offspring's odds of surviving until adulthood. But how?

Competition and reputations

It all comes down to acquiring resources for your offspring. High-ranking hyenas already have prime access to food, so being super-aggressive at a kill or carcass isn't a huge advantage. However, for hyenas low on the totem pole, being able to secure a little extra food for a cub could mean the difference between its survival and starvation.

When cubs begin eating meat at around 4 months of age, they start visiting kills with their moms. But as these cubs attempt to eat, they are often harassed by older hyenas and chased off the carcass. Additionally, these young hyenas have another disadvantage when it comes to feeding: their skulls haven't finished developing yet. Although being able to crush bone is a big benefit for hyenas evolutionarily, it's a huge morphological handicap for cubs. It takes up to 35 months for a hyena's skull to develop the integrity and strength to crack bone, so until about three years of age, young hyenas feed more slowly and less efficiently than adults. Combine this physical disadvantage with the incredible feeding competition seen at kills, and cubs - especially low-ranking ones - often don't get much to eat during these communal feeding situations.

Here's where a mom's aggressiveness comes in: we found that the cubs of aggressive females are tolerated better, and are able to feed longer, at these kills than the cubs of less aggressive females are. By being super-aggressive, moms secure extra feeding time and valuable calories for their cubs during this particularly handicapped period in their lives. Although we don't completely understand the process yet, aggressive females appear to develop a type of "mean girl" reputation within the clan that gives their offspring a boost early in life. This effect is incredibly strong and persists even when the mom isn't present at the kill, allowing cubs to benefit from their mom's aggressiveness even in her absence. This increased access to resources benefits low-ranking hyenas disproportionately, since they generally have very limited access to food.

A combination of behavioral, morphological, and ecological research has helped us begin to understand why these highly aggressive and masculinized females have been favored evolutionarily. But even after 20 years of intensive research, there's so much more to learn; we still aren't sure what the functions and implications of male aggression are, and it's possible that there are consequences of aggression in females that we haven't yet discovered.

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After parent's cancer death, one in five kids self-injure

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One in five teens who lost one of their parents to cancer cut or burn themselves, compared to one in ten teens with two living parents, according to a new Swedish study.

"We were very surprised to find that so many did it," said lead researcher Tove Grenklo, a behavioral scientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Cutting and burning is thought to be how some troubled teens express their emotions, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Those teens may hurt themselves if they can't talk about their feelings, are upset or have low self esteem.

Earlier this year, a study found that children start harming themselves as early as third grade. (see Reuters Health article of June 11, 2012. http://reut.rs/Kveo8v)

The study's researchers write in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that past research showed children with one dead parent are already more likely to have - among other things - psychiatric problems, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and anxiety.

Grenklo and her colleagues wanted to see if they were also more likely to hurt themselves.

For the study, they used Sweden's national death databases to find and survey teens who lost one of their parents to cancer between 2000 and 2003, when they were between 13 and 16.

They then found teens who still had two living parents for a comparison group.

Of the 851 teens who lost a parent, 622 returned their survey, as did 330 of the 451 teens in the comparison group.

Overall, about 20 percent of the teens with only one surviving parent said they hurt themselves, compared to about 10 percent of teens with both parents living.

'WE SHOULD TALK WITH EACH OTHER'

"This study is one of the first to establish that (losing a parent to cancer) might be a unique risk factor for this behavior," said Stephen Lewis, who was not involved with the new study but has studied self-injury at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Lewis added that the study's findings seem to be in line with other estimates of how many teens injure themselves.

The researchers say teens may be driven to self-injure after their parents' deaths by an increased sense of emotional distress and numbness.

Another possible explanation for the increase is that the teens lost a caretaker who would notice their emotional suffering and prevent self-injury, they add.

As for prevention, both Grenklo and Lewis emphasized communication.

"I'm a strong believer that we should talk with each other," said Grenklo. "Children need to know the facts of what happened and why. And that it's OK to be sad and talk about the diseased parent."

"We know one of the reasons people self injure is that they use injuring as a way to release their emotions," said Lewis, who added that it's important for parents, family members and teachers to know how to talk about self-injury and how to prevent it.

Lewis said information on preventing and handling self injury can be found at SIOutreach.org - a Web site where he is co-director.

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Disability expected to rise as more premature babies survive

LONDON (Reuters) - Little progress has been made in improving the long-term health of extremely premature babies, and with pre-term births on the rise across Europe, rates of serious disability are likely to increase, doctors said on Wednesday.

A decade of advances in medicine mean more babies born at between 22 and 26 weeks gestation manage to survive, but rates of severe health complications remain as high as they were in 1995, according to research by neonatal specialists in Britain.

The findings of two separate studies published in the British Medical Journal suggest the number of children and adults with disabilities caused by premature birth will rise in coming years.

Babies born before 27 weeks of gestation - 13 weeks before they would be considered full term - face a battle for survival. Many of those who do survive face problems such as lung conditions, learning difficulties and cerebral palsy.

Rates of premature birth are rising in many European countries and are particularly high in Britain and the United States.

"As the number of children that survive pre-term birth continues to rise, so will the number who experience disability throughout their lives," said Neil Marlow, of University College London's Institute for Women's Health, who worked on both studies and presented the results at a briefing in London.

He said this was "likely to have an impact on the demand for health, education and social care services."

The two studies, led by Marlow and Kate Costeloe of Queen Mary, University of London, compared a group of babies born in the UK between 22 and 26 weeks' gestation in 2006 with those born between 22 and 25 weeks over a 10-month period in 1995.

The first one looked at the immediate survival rates and the health - until they went home from hospital - of extremely premature babies born in 2006 and compared them with 1995 rates.

Researchers found the number of babies born at 22 to 25 weeks and admitted to intensive care increased by 44 percent during this period. The number of babies who survived long enough to go home from hospital increased by 13 percent.

There was no significant increase in survival of babies born before 24 weeks - the current legal limit for abortion in Britain - and the number of babies who had major health complications was unchanged over the decade.

Costeloe said what while survival rates for babies born at less than 27 weeks gestation were moving in the "right direction", there was still room for improvement.

"We can't be complacent, because the fact of the matter is, that in 2006 if at this gestation you were alive at the end of the first week, you had no greater chance of going home (from hospital) than you would have done had you managed to survive the first week of life in 1995."

The second study looked at the health of the 2006 babies when at three years old and compared this with 1995. It found that while 11 percent more babies survived to three without disabilities the proportion of survivors born between 22 and 25 weeks with severe disability was about the same - at 18 percent in 1995 and 19 percent in 2006.

The researchers also found a link between gestational age and the risk of disability, with babies born earlier more likely to have serious health complications at three years of age.

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Iron may prevent behavioral issues in small babies

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Iron supplements may help boost brain development and ward off behavioral problems in babies who are born a bit on the small side, a new study from Sweden suggests.

Low birth-weight babies are more likely to end up iron deficient, researchers said. They need more of the nutrient for catch-up growth and haven't stored as much as other babies if they're also born premature.

For that reason, very early-term and very small babies are often put on iron - but less research has looked at babies born just shy of normal weight, to see if they are also at risk.

"I think this further solidifies the evidence that it's a very good idea to give these (marginally low birth-weight) children iron supplements," said Dr. Magnus Domellof, from Umea University, who worked on the study.

The research was led by his colleague, Dr. Staffan Berglund. Their team followed 285 infants born between 4 pounds, 7 ounces and 5 pounds, 8 ounces.

When the babies were six weeks old, the researchers randomly assigned them to get iron drops - either one or two milligrams per kilogram of body weight - or iron-free placebo drops each day until their six-month birthday.

Then at age three and a half, Domellof's team brought the kids back for IQ tests and surveyed parents about their behavioral issues. The researchers compared kids in the iron- and placebo-drop study groups with another 95 children who were born at normal weight.

There were no IQ differences based on whether the smaller-than-average babies had been put on an iron regimen. All three low birth-weight groups had average scores between 104 and 105. ("Cognitive impairment" in this study was considered an IQ under 85.)

However, significantly more babies given placebo drops had behavioral problems, as reported by their parents. The issues included problems managing emotional reactions, anxiety and depression, as well as sleep and attention problems.

Almost 13 percent of the placebo-group babies scored above the cutoff for clinical behavior problems, versus about 3 percent of kids who'd taken iron drops and kids from the normal-weight comparison group.

That suggests iron deficiency in infancy may be a direct cause of behavioral problems later in childhood, the researchers wrote Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

They are continuing to monitor the same group of kids as they get older, to see if new cognitive or behavioral problems develop or old ones get better as the children head into grade school.

Domellof said he and his colleagues didn't see any extra stomach problems in kids or delayed growth linked to the use of iron drops. Some research has suggested giving excessive iron to young kids who aren't deficient may stunt their development.

But, "I would not be afraid of recommending this to all children (born) below 2,500 grams (5 pounds, 8 ounces) at this dose," Domellof told Reuters Health.

"Here's where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," said Dr. Michael Georgieff, a child development researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis who had reviewed the study as part of Berglund's dissertation committee.

He told Reuters Health that it's important for all parents to know their baby's iron requirements when they leave the hospital.

"The issue with these marginally low birth-weight infants is, people really haven't paid a lot of attention to them, but the evidence is accumulating that they are at risk for behavioral problems and less than ideal cognitive function," said Dr. Betsy Lozoff, who studies the effects of iron deficiency in infants at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

For most babies in the United States, extra iron is recommended starting at four to six months, either through supplements if the mother is breastfeeding or through formula. Very small or premature babies typically have their iron monitored from birth.

But Lozoff, who wasn't involved in the new research, said that in many places, there are no recommendations for how to treat babies who are just below a normal birth weight.

"This would suggest that it should just be a routine supplementation, and it can be at a low level of iron," she told Reuters Health.

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C-Sections Save Kids and Moms in Tanzania

It never ceases to amaze me how much the world says it wants to save children's lives and how rarely it tries to do the one thing that has been proven to protect more youngsters than anything else--keeping their mothers alive. (Maybe if it was called "orphan prevention?") That is why I was so pleased to hear that Tanzania's efforts to expand skilled medical care to all women during labor and delivery have started to pay off.  Dying during childbirth--typically from bleeding, high blood pressure or infection--is one of the most common causes of mortality for women in the poorest regions of the world--despite the fact that death in these situations is largely preventable.

The president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, spoke on October 2 at the United Nations in New York about the encouraging results of a pilot program designed to safeguard the lives of pregnant women in the remotest parts of the country--far from any hospital or major medical center. He began, however, by reciting a few sobering statistics. Currently, about 454 pregnant women die for every 100,000 live births of children in Tanzania. That ratio translates to about 8,500 women dying during or shortly after childbirth each year in Tanzania (population 46 million). Or another way of looking at it, 23 women die during childbirth each and every day there. By contrast, the maternal death rate in the U.S. was 12.7 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2007, or 548 women across the country annually .

The main idea for improving the maternal death rate in Tanzania (or any other poor country) is simple to explain and supported by solid evidence--although the logistics for putting it into place can be daunting. However it takes some getting used to--and a bit of background information--for people who are used to living in the richest parts of the world.

First, the background information. Ideally, when a pregnant woman develops an infection, has a worrisome increase in blood pressure or starts bleeding excessively, you'd like to treat the cause--with antibiotics, antihypertensives or anti-clotting medication, as needed. But these medications or, more often, the people with the knowledge needed to administer them correctly during pregnancy are often not available in the poorest areas of the world. On the other hand, delivering the baby right away, via cesarean section, can frequently solve the immediate problem and save both the mom's and child's life or simplify their subsequent treatment.

Now, you might think that correctly giving medication is easier than performing surgery, but in fact, that is not always the case. It can actually be easier and safer to train nurses and clinical officers (individuals who are trained to give basic medical care in many poor countries but who are not medical doctors) to perform cesarean sections in many areas of the world where access to sophisticate medical care is simply unavailable.

And so that is what Tanzania did. With support from Bloomberg Philanthropy, the government's Ministry of Health expanded access to emergency obstetric care in a few health care districts by training non-physicians to perform cesarean sections and upgrading rural health centers so that the operations could be performed there.

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Software guru McAfee says to seek asylum in Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - U.S. anti-virus software guru John McAfee, who is on the run from police in Belize seeking to question him in a murder probe, has crossed into Guatemala and said on Tuesday he will seek political asylum there.

McAfee has been in hiding for three weeks since police in Belize said they wanted to question him as "a person of interest" about the murder of fellow American Gregory Faull, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

McAfee smuggled himself and his girlfriend, Samantha, across the porous land border that Belize shares with Guatemala. He stayed at a hotel in a national park before heading for Guatemala City on Monday evening.

"I have no plans much for the future now. The reason I chose Guatemala is two-fold," McAfee told Reuters by telephone from Guatemala's Supreme Court, flanked by his lawyer, former attorney general and lawyer Telesforo Guerra.

"It is a country bordering Belize, it is a country that understands the corruption within Belize and most importantly, the former attorney general of the country is Samantha's uncle and I knew that he would assist us with legal proceedings."

McAfee has denied involvement in the murder and told Reuters on Monday he would not turn himself in. He posted repeatedly on his blog www.whoismcafee.com while on the run, describing how he would constantly change his disguise to elude capture.

On Tuesday, he appeared with his hair and goatee died black, and wearing a dark suit and tie - a far cry from the surfer-style blonde hair highlights, shorts and tribal-tattooed bare shoulders he sported in Belize.

"(Guerra) is now attempting to get political asylum for myself and for Sam. I don't think there will be much of a problem. From here I can speak freely and safely," McAfee said.

TECH GENIUS, "BONKERS"

McAfee says he believes authorities in Belize would kill him if he turned himself in for questioning. Belize's prime minister has denied the claim and called the 67-year-old paranoid and "bonkers."

On the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye, where McAfee has lived for about four years, residents say he is eccentric, impulsive, erratic and at times unstable, with a penchant for guns and young women.

He would often be seen with armed bodyguards, pistols tucked into his belt, and McAfee's neighbor had complained about the loud barking of dogs that guarded his exclusive beachside compound.

His run-in with authorities in Belize is a world away from a successful life in the United States, where he started McAfee Associates in 1989 and made millions of dollars developing the Internet anti-virus software that carries his name.

There was already a case against McAfee in Belize for possession of illegal firearms, and police had previously raided his property on suspicion he was running a lab to make illegal synthetic narcotics.

McAfee says he has been persecuted for refusing to donate money to politicians, that he loves Belize, and considers it his home.

Guatemala is a canny choice to seek refuge. It has long been embroiled in a territorial dispute with Belize. Guatemala claims the southern half of Belize and all of its islands, or cayes, rightfully belong to it. There is no extradition treaty between the two countries.

A Guatemalan government source said there was "no reason" to detain McAfee because there was no legal case against him pending in the country.

Harold Caballeros, Guatemala's foreign minister, said his government was unaware of any arrest warrant and would study McAfee's asylum request once presented, saying its success would "depend on the arguments."

Guerra told Reuters McAfee would return to Belize once his situation in Guatemala was made legal, citing the fact he had crossed into the country illegally to avoid capture by police in Belize.

"He can go to the United States, there is no problem with that," he added. "We have asked the U.S. embassy for support with our (asylum) request."

He said the asylum request would be formally presented on Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City said in a statement McAfee would have to work within the country's legal framework, but declined to elaborate. "The embassy does not comment on the actions of American citizens, due to privacy considerations."

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Pope gets more than half million Twitter followers

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Even though he hasn't sent a single tweet yet, Pope Benedict  had more than half a million Twitter followers in eight languages on Tuesday, the day after the Vatican unveiled his handle: @Pontifex.

They included people ranging from the simple Roman Catholic faithful to a Jewish head of state.

"Your holiness, welcome to Twitter. Our relations with the Vatican are at their best & can form a basis to further peace everywhere," tweeted Israeli President Shimon Peres, who at 89 is four years older than Benedict.

The Vatican said on Monday that Benedict will start tweeting on mostly spiritual topics from December 12.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

On Tuesday afternoon, the English version had the most followers, with nearly 400,000. The next largest was Spanish, with some 93,000. The lowest number of followers was the Arabic, with about 3,500. Benedict's native German had about 10,000.

But the pope, leader of some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, won't be following anyone but himself, the Vatican said.

A look at his official Twitter page on Tuesday showed that he is "following" seven people but they are merely versions of his own Twitter account in different languages.

The first papal tweets will be answers to questions sent to #askpontifex.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays. They will also include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

He will push the button on his first tweet himself on December 12 but in the future most of the tweets will be written by aides, and he will sign off on them.

The Vatican, whose website has been taken down by hackers in the past, said it has taken precautions to make sure the pope's certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican's Secretariat of State will be used for the tweets.

The pope's Twitter page is designed in yellow and white - the colors of the Vatican - and his picture over the backdrop of a St Peter's Square packed with pilgrims.

The page may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

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Royal Baby: Hysteria, humor and "Kate Expectations"

LONDON (Reuters) - At least Britain's Prince William and his wife Catherine have fewer things to worry about now they have announced they are expecting their first child.

A day after breaking the news, the couple popularly known as "Wills and Kate" received advice from the world's media and public on what to call the offspring, what he/she/they will look like, what to wear during pregnancy and even what the child was thinking inside the womb.

In an instant reminder of the goldfish bowl of attention the next generation of royals is destined to live in, newspapers splashed the story across their front pages on Tuesday and filled column after column with news, views and speculation.

"Extinguish all rational thought," the Independent newspaper's commentator John Walsh wrote.

In his article entitled "A feelgood foetus?" he praised the royal family's "impeccable" timing, temporarily diverting attention as it has from Britain's battle with debt and economic stagnation and a blazing row over press regulation.

Tabloid newspapers will relish the chance to cover every twist and turn of the pregnancy and birth, and they have not held back in their opening salvoes.

The Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily newspaper, gave a lengthy account of the announcement concluding with a bizarre photo-montage of what a royal heir might look like created by the Sun's "graphic experts".

Not to be outdone, the royalty-obsessed Daily Mail dedicated its first 13 pages to the topic of the couple, formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and their baby.

Online it ran an analysis comparing two mock-ups of the yet-to-be-born child. Washington-based Joe Mullins produced celebrity-style "beauty" shots, while the MorphThing website came up with significantly less flattering visions.

Retailers were fast out of the blocks - pottery firm Emma Bridgewater has designed a commemorative mug which it expects to sell for 19.95 pounds ($32).

And bookmakers offered odds on the name of the newborn.

Elizabeth, the name of the reigning queen and William's grandmother, looks a decent bet if it is a girl, as does Diana, after his late mother, while Frances, John, Charles and James are also among the most popular options.

But why stop at names? Odds are available on the date of the child's birth, the identity of godmother and godfather, hair color, weight and which celebrity magazine will land rights to the first official pictures.

SECOND DAY IN HOSPITAL

Amidst the light-hearted conjecture and celebrity-style gushing, there is the more serious issue of Kate's health.

The 30-year-old, who married William in a fairytale wedding last year watched by an estimated two billion people across the globe, stayed for a second day in hospital on Tuesday to receive treatment for acute morning sickness.

The prince, also 30, spent several hours with his wife on Monday and returned to the King Edward VII Hospital in central London on Tuesday. The duchess has canceled official engagements over the coming days as she recovers.

She has been suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum, a severe morning sickness which experts said did not put the baby at any increased risk but was slightly more common in mothers who were expecting twins.

No matter whether they have a girl or boy, the couple's first-born will become third in line to the British throne after a decision last year to change the rules of succession so that males no longer have precedence as heir.

The government said on Tuesday it would seek to pass the necessary legislation as soon as possible.

"We can ... all celebrate that whether the baby is a boy or a girl, they will have an equal claim to the throne," Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said in a statement.

Reports speculated that the couple had been forced into announcing the pregnancy early by the illness, and, in a royal first, they did so via Twitter with the understated message: "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting a baby."

Twitter quickly exploded in response, including spoof accounts of the views of the queen and the baby itself.

"I may not have bones yet, but I'm already more important than everyone reading this," was the Tweet from @RoyalFetus, which already has nearly 9,000 followers.

The news may help erase the embarrassment this year of the publication of topless photographs of the duchess, taken while she was on holiday in France, in several European publications despite attempts by Buckingham Palace to block them.

It is also likely to further bolster the monarchy's popularity, already riding high from the 2011 wedding and Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in the summer.

World leaders including British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama sent congratulations to the duke and duchess, and foreign media swiftly weighed in.

On the world edition of the New York Times website, the royal baby story appeared well down the front page, yet was the most viewed article on Tuesday.

Italian television gave the announcement heavy coverage, although ordinary people were less enthusiastic.

"You must be lucky to be concerned about this kind of thing," said Rome resident Daniele Nicastro.

"Really, with all the problems we have, of all things you come and ask me about this?"

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Student group takes Facebook privacy gripes to court

VIENNA/DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Austrian student group plans to go to court in a bid to make Facebook Inc, the world's biggest social network, do more to protect the privacy of its hundreds of millions of members.

Campaign group europe-v-facebook, which has been lobbying for reforms at the U.S. company for more than a year, said it would appeal against decisions by the data protection regulator in Ireland, where Facebook has its international headquarters.

The group has filed 22 separate complaints against Facebook, winning some concessions including pushing the social network to switch off its facial recognition feature in Europe.

But it said on Tuesday the changes did not go far enough and it was disappointed with the results of an audit carried out by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) in response to its complaints, which it now plans to challenge in court.

"We'll be fighting Facebook via the DPC," the group's founder, Max Schrems, told Reuters.

The move is one of a number of campaigns against the giants of the internet, who are under pressure from investors to generate more revenue from their huge user bases but also face criticism for storing and sharing personal information.

Internet search engine Google, for example, has been told by the European Union to make changes to a new policy that pools data collected on users of its services including YouTube, gmail and Google+, from which users cannot opt out.

Facebook's shares have dropped 40 percent in value since the company's record-breaking $104 billion initial public offering in May as revenue growth has slowed.

Facebook, due to hold a conference call later on Tuesday to answer customer concerns about its privacy policy, said its data protection policies exceeded European requirements.

"The latest Data Protection report demonstrates not only how Facebook adheres to European data protection law but also how we go beyond it, in achieving best practice," a Facebook spokesman said in an emailed comment.

"Nonetheless we have some vocal critics who will never be happy whatever we do and whatever the DPC concludes."

TECHNOLOGY HUB

Last month, Facebook proposed to combine its user data with that of its recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram, loosen restrictions on emails between its members and share data with other businesses and affiliates that it owns.

Late on Monday, it invited users to vote on the proposed changes to its policies, which have generated almost 90,000 user comments as well as concerns from some privacy-advocacy groups and a request for more information from the DPC.

Ian Maude, an analyst at London-based technology and media analysis firm Enders Analysis, said privacy concerns were not stopping more and more people from using social networks.

"Every time Facebook gets its wrist slapped, they make some adjustments to their privacy policy," he added.

Among its complaints, europe-v-facebook said more than 40,000 Facebook users who had requested a copy of the data Facebook was holding on them had not received anything several months after making a request.

Ireland has become a hub for the international operations of U.S. technology firms including Google and Microsoft, who are attracted by a generous tax regime and in return create employment for thousands.

Gary Davies, Ireland's deputy data protection commissioner, denied Facebook's investment in Ireland had influenced regulation of the company.

"We have handled this in a highly professional and focused way and we have brought about huge changes in the way Facebook handles personal data," he told Reuters.

Europe-v-facebook said it believed its Irish battle had the potential to become a test case for data protection law and had a good chance of landing up in the European Court of Justice.

Schrems said the case could cost the group around 100,000 euros ($130,000), which it hoped to raise via crowd-funding - money provided by a collection of individuals - on the Internet.

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Student group takes Facebook privacy gripes to court

VIENNA/DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Austrian student group plans to go to court in a bid to make Facebook Inc, the world's biggest social network, do more to protect the privacy of its hundreds of millions of members.

Campaign group europe-v-facebook, which has been lobbying for reforms at the U.S. company for more than a year, said it would appeal against decisions by the data protection regulator in Ireland, where Facebook has its international headquarters.

The group has filed 22 separate complaints against Facebook, winning some concessions including pushing the social network to switch off its facial recognition feature in Europe.

But it said on Tuesday the changes did not go far enough and it was disappointed with the results of an audit carried out by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) in response to its complaints, which it now plans to challenge in court.

"We'll be fighting Facebook via the DPC," the group's founder, Max Schrems, told Reuters.

The move is one of a number of campaigns against the giants of the internet, who are under pressure from investors to generate more revenue from their huge user bases but also face criticism for storing and sharing personal information.

Internet search engine Google, for example, has been told by the European Union to make changes to a new policy that pools data collected on users of its services including YouTube, gmail and Google+, from which users cannot opt out.

Facebook's shares have dropped 40 percent in value since the company's record-breaking $104 billion initial public offering in May as revenue growth has slowed.

Facebook, due to hold a conference call later on Tuesday to answer customer concerns about its privacy policy, said its data protection policies exceeded European requirements.

"The latest Data Protection report demonstrates not only how Facebook adheres to European data protection law but also how we go beyond it, in achieving best practice," a Facebook spokesman said in an emailed comment.

"Nonetheless we have some vocal critics who will never be happy whatever we do and whatever the DPC concludes."

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Last month, Facebook proposed to combine its user data with that of its recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram, loosen restrictions on emails between its members and share data with other businesses and affiliates that it owns.

Late on Monday, it invited users to vote on the proposed changes to its policies, which have generated almost 90,000 user comments as well as concerns from some privacy-advocacy groups and a request for more information from the DPC.

Ian Maude, an analyst at London-based technology and media analysis firm Enders Analysis, said privacy concerns were not stopping more and more people from using social networks.

"Every time Facebook gets its wrist slapped, they make some adjustments to their privacy policy," he added.

Among its complaints, europe-v-facebook said more than 40,000 Facebook users who had requested a copy of the data Facebook was holding on them had not received anything several months after making a request.

Ireland has become a hub for the international operations of U.S. technology firms including Google and Microsoft, who are attracted by a generous tax regime and in return create employment for thousands.

Gary Davies, Ireland's deputy data protection commissioner, denied Facebook's investment in Ireland had influenced regulation of the company.

"We have handled this in a highly professional and focused way and we have brought about huge changes in the way Facebook handles personal data," he told Reuters.

Europe-v-facebook said it believed its Irish battle had the potential to become a test case for data protection law and had a good chance of landing up in the European Court of Justice.

Schrems said the case could cost the group around 100,000 euros ($130,000), which it hoped to raise via crowd-funding - money provided by a collection of individuals - on the Internet.

Read More..