It’s tough work raising teenagers. As if worrying about their studies, drinking, partying, driving, and raging hormones wasn’t all-consuming enough, parents have recently had to fret about their Facebook usage. But one mom in Arkansas may have taken her parental concern too far.

A 16-year-old boy in the town of Arkadelphia is suing his mom, claiming that she hacked into his Facebook account and posted slanderous stuff about him on his page. The teen, Lane New, also alleges that his mom changed his email and Facebook passwords to lock him out of his accounts.

The mom, Denise New, is flabbergasted by the harrassment lawsuit. She says that like any other parent, she was just looking out for her son, and adds that her actions weren’t driven by any malicious intent. She told local TV station KATV:

“I read things on his Facebook about how he had gone to Hot Springs one night and was driving 95 m.p.h. home because he was upset with a girl and it was his friend that called me and told me about all this that prompted me to even actually start really going through his Facebook to see what was going on.”

Denise says she was so upset at what she read on Lane’s profile that she had to post some response on his page–though the specifics of the posts she left haven’t been revealed. Denise New told Associated Press:

“The things he was posting in Facebook would make any decent parent’s eyes pop out and his jaw drop…. He had been warned before about things he had been posting.”

Like any teenager, when Lane found out his mom was snooping around his profile, he wasn’t pleased. But instead of storming off to his bedroom to sulk, Lane slapped mom with a lawsuit. The suit alleges that Denise’s posts contained untrue material, and that they damaged his reputation.

PC World reports that Denise admits to changing the passwords on Lane’s accounts, but denies hacking into his Facebook page; she says the page was left open on her computer.

She also admits to making “maybe three, maybe four actual postings,” but says the rest of it was a “conversation” between her, her son, and his friends.

The teenager has been living with his grandmother over the last five years and Denise says, despite the current suit, she and Lane share a “great relationship.” Denise also issued a warning to parents worldwide via the Associated Press: “If I’m found guilty on this it is going to be open season on parents.”

Related Content:
Discoblog: Bulgarian Politician Punished for Playing Farmville During Budget Meetings
Discoblog: Are Happy Facebook Pics Proof That You Aren’t Depressed?
Discoblog: Desperate For Facebook Friends? Buy Some!
Discoblog: Computer Program Can “Out” Gay Facebook Users
DISCOVER: Your Digital Privacy? It May Already Be an Illusion

Image:Facebook

Duke's celebrating more than just the return of this season's NCAA champions... While we're on the subject of bonobos, it's worth mentioning that readers in Durham, NC are in for a treat from April 14-17 as the Blue Devils host 'Primate Palooza'--an initiative to raise awareness for primates. Internationally renowned conservationist Claudine André will be speaking at the university. From the press release: André founded and runs the world’s only sanctuary and release program for orphaned bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bonobos, like chimpanzees, are our closest living relative and are highly endangered. However, unlike chimpanzees and humans, bonobos are the only ape that has found a way to maintain peace in their groups. -- "Having Claudine here at Duke is a wonderful opportunity to share with students and the general public the difference a single individual can make," says Duke researcher Brian Hare. "Claudine has done more for bonobo conservation than anyone else in the world. If you want to meet a conservation heroine this is your chance."
These events are open to the public:
Primate Symposium: Why you need to know you are a primate
5-8 p.m., Wednesday, April 14 Duke faculty studying primates will discuss how knowing you’re ...

When you see a flock of birds flying in formation, it might seem like their group dynamics are fairly simple: The one out front leads the way. But does the same birds always take the lead in a group? And do the birds in the back follow the overall leader, or rather the middle managers in front of them?

To find out, Tamás Vicsek and colleagues strapped backpacks equipped with GPS sensors to pigeons for a study out this week in Nature. The lightweight trackers recorded the birds on both solo flights and group flight and measured their positions five times per second. Indeed, Vicsek found, birds fly according to the group pecking order, with the leader out front. When it changed direction, its direct followers would do the same in less than a second, and then the more junior members of the group would respond to the direction of those middle managers.

But there were surprises, too. Sometimes the lead bird wouldn’t fly out front; it may have been tired from leading the pack and needed some time off. So perhaps birds are like cycling teams, occasionally trading off who carries the taxing burden of leading the group.

For more details about the study—including why it’s not as obvious as you might think that the leading bird flies in the front of the group, and why left and right matter so much to pigeons—check out DISCOVER blogger Ed Yong’s post at Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Related Content:
Not Exactly Rocket Science: GPS Backpacks Identify Leaders Among Flocking Pigeons
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Light-detecting backpacks record the complete migration routes of songbirds
80beats: “State of the Birds” Report, and is Climate Change Shrinking Avians?
80beats: To Read the Brain of a Pigeon, Scientists Outfit It with a “Neurologger”
80beats: Tiny Bird Backpacks Reveal the Secrets of Songbird Migration

Image: Zsuzsa Ákos