Must be catching on...the Come Correct show...

Review 4/10/08: so i have no idea what about the show was coming correct...i mean the art was kinda mindless, small, a lot of it was tired or else pastel and cartoony...It was a lot of hot young girls and then some out of place old school people in a crowded room...I think most of the art was a collaboration on part of Cope...No offense to Cope but he is pigeonholed by his type of canvasses...The Skateboard Graffiti show at Brooklyn Tea Lounge on Saturday April 5th was much better...Got to see Ink and hang with Dil in a cafe atmosphere...My Yerba Mate Latte was excellent...I know that's corny, but I've never been a wine sipping gallery person...

The End of a Vision...

Writer Clarke to be buried Saturday

From Yahoo.com By KRISHAN FRANCIS, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 28 minutes ago

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke will be buried Saturday in his adopted country of Sri Lanka in a secular funeral according to his wishes, a spokesman said Thursday.

"It will be a secular, simple funeral and there will be no speeches," said Clarke's aide Nalaka Gunawardena.

Clarke who died at the age of 90 on Wednesday had left written instructions that no religious rites of any faith should be associated with his funeral.

He will be buried at Colombo's general cemetery in a plot owned by his friend and diving company partner with whom the writer lived for decades, Gunawardena said.

Fred Clarke, his brother, had arrived in the island to participate in the funeral, the aide added.

The visionary author won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future.

The 1968 story "2001: A Space Odyssey" — written simultaneously as a novel and screenplay with director Stanley Kubrick — was a frightening prophecy of artificial intelligence run amok.

Born in Minehead, England, on Dec. 16, 1917, the son of a farmer, Clarke was also credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality.

He moved to Sri Lanka in 1956.

Da...The First South Korean to go to space has two X Chromosomes and no penis...

Woman to be first S. Korean in space

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

From SpaceDaily.com by Staff Writers
Seoul (UPI) Mar 11, 2008
A woman has been chosen to be the first South Korean in space after a male astronaut was dismissed for security violations.

Ko San was replaced by Russian space authorities for taking sensitive training materials outside the Russian space center, The Korea Times reported Monday.

Ko was replaced by Yi So-yeon, a 29-year-old mechanical engineer. She will fly on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station as a payload specialist with two Russian cosmonauts for a seven- or eight-day mission. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch April 8.

The head of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said Yi has trained side-by-side with Ko for a year.

6 "Making It" Native...

Indian DNA links to 6 'founding mothers'

From Yahoo.com By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Thu Mar 13, 6:14 PM ET

NEW YORK - Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.

Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.

The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.

The women lived between 18,000 and 21,000 years ago, though not necessarily at exactly the same time, he said.

The work was published this week by the journal PLoS One. Perego is from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City and the University of Pavia in Italy.

The work confirms previous indications of the six maternal lineages, he said. But an expert unconnected with the study said the findings left some questions unanswered.

Perego and his colleagues traced the history of a particular kind of DNA that represents just a tiny fraction of the human genetic material, and reflects only a piece of a person's ancestry.

This DNA is found in the mitochondria, the power plants of cells. Unlike the DNA found in the nucleus, mitochondrial DNA is passed along only by the mother. So it follows a lineage that connects a person to his or her mother, then the mother's mother, and so on.

The researchers created a "family tree" that traces the different mitochondrial DNA lineages found in today's Native Americans. By noting mutations in each branch and applying a formula for how often such mutations arise, they calculated how old each branch was. That indicated when each branch arose in a single woman.

The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there, Perego said. They probably lived in Beringia, the now-submerged land bridge that stretched to North America, he said.

Connie Mulligan of the University of Florida, an anthropolgist who studies the colonization of the Americas but didn't participate in the new work, said it's not surprising to trace the mitochondrial DNA to six women. "It's an OK number to start with right now," but further work may change it slightly, she said...

And the US just took China off the Human Rights Violators List?

Chinese security forces swarm Tibet

From Yahoo.com By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 16 minutes ago

BEIJING - Soldiers on foot and in armored carriers swarmed Tibet's capital Saturday, enforcing a strict curfew a day after protesters burned shops and cars to vent their anger against Chinese rule. In another western city, police clashed with hundreds of Buddhist monks leading a sympathy demonstration.

The violence erupted just two weeks before China's Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling that its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on China "to exercise restraint in dealing with these protests," while the State Department issued a travel alert for Americans in the region. Her statement also called for China to release monks and others jailed for protesting.

The latest unrest began Monday on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.

Initially, the protests were led by Buddhist monks demanding the release of other detained monks. Their demands spiraled to include cries for Tibet's independence and turned violent Friday when police tried to stop a group of protesting monks. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.

It was the fiercest challenge to Beijing's authority in nearly two decades.

China's official Xinhua News Agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetans and possibly as many as 100. The figures could not be independently verified...

>>It's not exactly going to be a show of goodwill games with the Chinese lighting humans on fire...Do they deserve to light the torch for the Olympics? I think I've watched too many kungfu movies because I can almost picture these ridiculous scenes in my head, on the other side of the world, it just sounds brutal, monk against cop...

For more info, go to www.savetibet.org...

Inside North Korea review...

National Geographic's Inside North Korea is a pretty good insight into the state of the North Korea's health care and also the goodwill of a Nepalese eye surgeon, Dr. Ruit, who travels with reporter Lisa Ling and crew. My one major criticism with Lisa Ling is her butchering of the capital's pronunciation. I know in the West it is common to mispronounce other countries' locales, but she said "Pyongyang" incorrectly so many times and it was like nails on a blackboard for me each and every time. I think as a reporter you should try to get little major things like that right.
What occurred to me during the viewing of the doc was that it was like watching a nation of Stockholm Syndrome afflicted hostages. When the surgery patients actually got their bandages off, they all cried "Mansai" (We praise you) to the "Great Leader" instead of giving their thanks to the good doctor. And it was shocking to learn about 22, the concentration "brainwashing" camp where most never leave from, the place that keeps fear alive in order for their way of life to continue. Also, I didn't realize the largest land mine field in the world is in the DMZ.

First Blind and Black Governor...

10 Things You Didn't Know About David Paterson
From USNews.com By Stephanie Salmon
Posted March 11, 2008

1. David Alexander Paterson was born on May 20, 1954, in Brooklyn, N.Y., to labor law attorney Basil Paterson and his wife, Portia. His father was the second black politician nominated for statewide office in New York and served as a state senator. The first of two sons, David was legally blind from birth, with only partial sight in his right eye.

2. When their son was denied the opportunity to attend classes with sighted students in his hometown, Paterson's family moved to Hempstead, N.Y., so that he could participate in a mainstream classroom. An excellent student, Paterson graduated from high school in three years.

3. He attended Columbia University, receiving a bachelor's degree in history in 1977. He worked at various jobs for a few years and then earned a law degree from Hofstra Law School in 1983.

4. In 1985, Paterson was elected to the New York State Senate, representing the 30th State Senate District, which encompasses Harlem, East Harlem, and the Upper West Side neighborhoods of Manhattan. It is the same district his father had represented.

5. Paterson gained national attention in the 1990s because of his efforts to preserve an African-American burial ground that was discovered at the excavation site for construction of a new federal building in New York City. He worked to secure federal funding for the project and said in 1997 that "through the discovery of the African-American Burial Grounds, our history has at last come to the surface for all of us to know and respect."

6. In 2002, David Paterson was elected Democratic leader of the New York State Senate, the first nonwhite legislative leader in New York's history.

7. In 2004, he became the first visually impaired person to address a Democratic National Convention and, in 2006, he was elected New York's first African-American lieutenant governor.

8. David Paterson lives in Harlem with his wife, Michelle, and their two children, Ashley and Alex.

9. Paterson is a board member of the Achilles Track Club, an international track club for athletes with disabilities. He completed the New York City Marathon in 1999. He is also on the President's Council of the American Foundation for the Blind.

10. When asked by the New York Amsterdam News about life lessons he had learned, Paterson replied, "You never get to any level of leadership where your race is not a factor." He continued, "You don't want to be the first; you want to be the first of many."

Maybe I should consider moving to Vermont...?

Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney

From Yahoo.com Wed Mar 5, 3:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them."

Vermont, home to maple syrup and picture-postcard views, is known for its liberal politics.

State lawmakers have passed nonbinding resolutions to end the war in Iraq and impeach Bush and Cheney, and several towns have also passed resolutions of impeachment. None of them have caught on in Washington.

Bush has never visited the state as president, though he has spent vacations at his family compound in nearby Maine.

Roughly 12,000 people live in Brattleboro, located on the Connecticut River in the state's southeastern corner. Nearby Marlboro has a population of roughly 1,000.

"I make money to dance..."

Heard of self-loathing Jews? Well, I think I've been a bit of a self-loathing Korean all my life. Blame it on the fact that I've been a minority wherever I've been. Blame it on my childhood and how I was raised. Blame it on the media. Blame it directly on the material-loving, sheltered and at times prejudicial/racist society Koreans create for themselves. But maybe, just maybe I found my peoples, my true peoples...Even though I claim I am not just "hiphop", it is always hiphop that saves me...Thanks to those Korean bboys who try so hard to continue to do what they love and who are making public declarations successfully fusing the old world with the old school train of thought.





Here's a video of The Extreme Crew with Korean music group Sorea...

Planet B-Boy Review...

(Revised 10.21.08 Slone shows off his latest work...He's the artist for Planet BBoy)...

Though it is not my job to be a movie critic, it is my friend Steve's job and he got passes to see Planet B-boy...I was glad to see it for a few reasons. Not only did the beginning sequence bring the culture back to its four elements, the bboying was in its purest form, and what has changed (the power moves, the level of difficulty, the choreography) in the decades since its inception, has only given it more validity. I don't think a lot of the youth gets the whole concept of hiphop, only the mainstream spoon-fed marketing ads of it, the MTV drivel, the "American Idol type dance shows"...This movie brought it back to the whole point of hiphop, battling...The other reason this movie really hit home with me was the backgrounds to the crews who were in the finals. The Koreans have really run with bboying and though a Korean crew won first (Last for One) and third place (Defending 2004 champs Gamblerz) at Battle of the Year 2005 in Germany, I really think that the Japanese crew Ichegeki that took second should've been the winners though they won best show. They had the most awesome concept and choreography. Not to be a traitor to my peoples, but I thought the Japanese were better. Anyways, it was nice to see boys from the southern countryside take the title anyway. And man, did I relate to the feeling like a minority within society picture they gave of bboying in Korea. Another thing, Slone did the artwork in it...That was really well done. Big ups to Slone...All in all, this documentary was really nicely done. I leave you with one of the best quotes in the movie. "I don't dance to make money. I make money to dance." Honorable mention goes to Phase T from France.

PBS-TV's "Great Performances" will air the concert on Thursday night in most of the US (check local listings). In New York, it will air Tuesday at 8.

US Musician diplomacy in North Korea

From Yahoo.com By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Feb 25, 3:15 PM ET

PYONGYANG, North Korea - Swirling dancers and musicians beating traditional drums welcomed the New York Philharmonic to North Korea Monday for a historic cultural exchange between countries that have been technically at war for more than a half-century.

In a burst of musical diplomacy notably devoid of propaganda glorifying leader Kim Jong Il or attacks on U.S. policy, North Korean dancers balanced water jars on their heads or twirled pink and green fans to entertain the celebrated American orchestra — which gave them a standing ovation.

The Philharmonic is the first major American cultural group to visit the isolated communist nation and the largest-ever delegation from the U.S. to visit its longtime foe.

As part of its 48-hour trip, the 106-member orchestra was to play a concert Tuesday that will be broadcast on state-run radio and TV, where the U.S. is the target of daily condemnation. The national anthems of both countries will be played, followed by a program featuring Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor — popularly known as the "New World Symphony" and written while the 19th-century Czech composer lived in the United States — and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris."

Orchestra musicians will also give master classes to North Korean students and play chamber music with members of the North's State Symphony Orchestra.

Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel said despite the trip's political overtones, it was the right decision to go.

"It would have been a great mistake not to accept their invitation," he said after arriving at the Pyongyang airport aboard a chartered 747 jet from Beijing. A stern-faced border guard checked his passport upon exiting the plane before North Korean cultural officials greeted the orchestra with handshakes and smiles.

"I am a musician and not a politician. Music has always traditionally been an arena, an area where people make contact. It's neutral, it's entertainment, it's person-to-person," Maazel said.

He said if the music moves the audience, "we will have made whatever contribution we can make to bringing our peoples just one tiny step closer."

But before the American orchestra was to take the stage, it was the North Koreans' turn.

At the 500-seat Mansudae Art Theater, North Korean performers played traditional instruments such as the kayagum, a type of zither, and sang about their country's natural beauty.

Like all parts of society under the authoritarian North Korean regime, the arts are viewed as a means to instill loyalty and bolster Kim's personality cult.

Still, only the last number was overtly political: A woman dressed as a guerrilla and brandishing a red scarf performed a dance dramatizing Korean resistance to Japan's colonial occupation before World War II, which according to North Korean official history was led by late founding ruler Kim Il Sung, father of current leader Kim Jong Il.

Dancers in flowing white robes swept across the stage, symbolizing the harsh winters suffered by the fighters. At the triumphal end of the performance, the backdrop picturing the Korean peninsula's tallest peak, Mount Paektu, morphed into a stylized Pyongyang skyline where the windows of every building were filled with light.

Even the privileged residents of the North Korean capital suffer regular blackouts, but as the orchestra drove through the city, the streets were illuminated with neon propaganda slogans atop buildings and five-pointed stars dangling from streetlights. One billboard showed a fist crushing an American soldier. However, some anti-American posters were torn down before the U.S. musicians arrived, a diplomat based in the North Korean capital told orchestra members.

After the concert, Maazel presented the lead dancer with a bouquet and later praised the performers for their dedication.

"Through our music, through our art, we will be able to express our friendly feelings to North Korean artists and the North Korean people," he said in a toast at a lavish banquet in the People's Palace of Culture that featured roast salmon, crab au gratin and pheasant ball soup accompanied by an assortment of North Korean alcohol, from beer to ginseng liquor.

Michelle Kim, the South Korean-born assistant concertmaster of the Philharmonic, said the North Koreans' performance featured traditional elements familiar to all Koreans.

"As I was listening to the concert, I didn't think of it as North Korean or South Korean but just Koreans," said Kim, a naturalized American citizen. "That's our traditions, we're the same people."

The North's official news agency — the country's main voice to the outside world — reported briefly Monday on the Philharmonic's arrival. At the same time, the Korean Central News Agency also carried a separate piece highlighting the country's own symphonic works, with titles such as "The Leader Is Always with Us" and "Victory in Great Anti-Japanese War."

The report said such works give "a profound symphonic rendition to the idea that socialist Korea centered on the popular masses is the best in the world."

For the Philharmonic's visit, the North Korean government allowed a delegation of nearly 300 people, including musicians, staff and journalists.

It was not known whether North Korean leader Kim would attend the Philharmonic's concert. Philharmonic spokesman Eric Latzky said the group had not directly invited him.

After landing, buses carried the visitors through the snow-covered streets of Pyongyang, which appeared relatively crowded as people walked or rode bicycles home from work. One person was seen waving, but others seemed to give the motorcade passing or no interest.

Most visitors to Pyongyang are first taken to a large statue of Kim Il Sung, where they are expected to pay respects, but the orchestra was spared that obligation.

The Philharmonic accepted the North's invitation to play last year, with the encouragement of the U.S. government, at a time of rare optimism in the long-running nuclear standoff involving the two countries.

After successfully testing an atomic bomb in October 2006, North Korea shut down its main nuclear reactor in July and has been working to disable it in exchange for aid and removal from U.S. terrorism and sanctions blacklists.

But disarmament has stalled this year because of what Washington says is North Korea's failure to give a full declaration of its atomic programs to be dismantled, as Pyongyang promised to do under an international agreement.

The musicians said they hoped their performance might help overcome difference between the two countries, whose troops face off across the Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

"I think it's important to reach people through something other than politics," said Stanley Drucker, the orchestra's principal clarinet and its longest-serving member, who joined the ensemble in 1948 at the age of 19. "What we do is universal. Music is pure in itself; it's what you make out of what you hear."

Honore Fragonard

The Musee Fragonard on the outskirts of Paris has the works on the left which are titled “The Man with a Mandible", “Horseman of the Apocalypse” and “Human Foetuses Dancing a Jig.” All were completed between 1766 and 1771. I got interested in Fragonard from watching my newest tv obsession, "World's Strangest Remains"....

Home Sweet Africa...Obama May Have an Edge on Relations with "Homeland"...

DNA study supports African origin of man

From Yahoo.com 1 hour, 11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A new genetic analysis of people from around the world adds further confirmation to the African origin of humans. The study of genetic details from 938 individuals from 51 populations provides evidence of how people are related and different, researchers led by Richard M. Myers of Stanford University report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The team looked at variations in 650,000 sections of each of the DNA samples, providing a view of the similarities and differences between people in greater detail than had been available previously.

Scientists have long believed that modern humans first developed in Africa and spread from there to populate the rest of the world, a theory strongly supported by the new analysis, the researchers said.

In addition, they noted that residents of the Middle East can trace their ancestry to both Africa and Europe, which they said is logical since the region formed a bridge for movement back and forth between the areas.

Also, they noted, they found a close a relationship between the Yakut population of Siberia and native Americans, who are believed to have migrated from Siberia via a land bridge at a time of lower sea levels.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

The Earliest Mural to Date...Recounting deer snared and sacrifice...

New World's Earliest Mural	Volume 61 Number 2, March/April 2008
by Angela M. H. Schuster From Archeology.org

(Courtesy Walter Alva and Ignacio Alva Meneses)


(Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan)

A painted mural and a ritual chimney were recently found atop a 4,000-year-old ceremonial mound in Peru.

The oldest-known polychrome mural in the Americas was recently discovered during rescue excavations at Cerro Ventarrón, a site on Peru's arid north coast. Unearthed last fall by archaeologist Walter Alva of the Royal Tombs of Sípan Museum, the 4,000-year-old painting depicts a deer snared in a net. The mural adorns a wall of what has been identified as a fire temple, a well-known feature of later Andean ceremonial architecture in which people burned offerings to the gods. Adjacent to the mural is a 10-foot-high, semicircular chimney that held the temple's ritual fire--its walls still blackened with soot. The exterior walls of the temple, which was built atop a multi-terraced platform mound, are painted with a red-and-white zigzag pattern.

"The architecture of the fire temple is very, very primitive," says Alva, noting that the adobe used to construct it was devoid of stone and appears to be made up of little more than dried blocks of river sediment. However, the temple is significant because it bears a number of hallmarks that seem to be the most ancient expressions of fundamental ideas in Andean religion. "The stylized rendering of a deer snared in a net," he explains, "runs deep in Andean iconography, being symbolic of the primordial hunt and man's first offerings to the gods." The captured deer image was still being used 2,000 years later by the Moche...

>>On a side note, found a great site called curiousexpeditions.org

We Want You...to Process...

Check out this article on contributing at home, helping find 45 ants on a football field, so to speak...Donate your processor's power in the off time...Here's 14 Best Ways to Volunteer your homegrown results to places that don't have supercomputers...

There's still unknowns...Why does the water in Antarctica make giant spiders?

Mysterious creatures found in Antarctica

From Yahoo.com Tue Feb 19, 6:52 PM ET

SYDNEY, Australia - Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths.

Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before.

Some of the animals far under the sea grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand.

"Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters," Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division scientist who led the expedition, said in a statement. "We have collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of dinner plates."

The specimens were being sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA studies.

"Not all of the creatures that we found could be identified and it is very likely that some new species will be recorded as a result of these voyages," said Graham Hosie, head of the census project.

The expedition is part of an ambitious international effort to map life forms in the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, and to study the impact of forces such as climate change on the undersea environment.

Three ships — Aurora Australis from Australia, France's L'Astrolabe and Japan's Umitaka Maru — returned recently from two months in the region as part of the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census. The work is part of a larger project to map the biodiversity of the world's oceans.

The French and Japanese ships sought specimens from the mid- and upper-level environment, while the Australian ship plumbed deeper waters with remote-controlled cameras.

"In some places every inch of the sea floor is covered in life," Riddle said. "In other places we can see deep scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by."

Among the bizarre-looking creatures the scientists spotted were tunicates, plankton-eating animals that resemble slender glass structures up to a yard tall "standing in fields like poppies," Riddle said.

Other animals were equally baffling.

"They had fins in various places, they had funny dangly bits around their mouths," Riddle told reporters. "They were all bottom dwellers so they were all evolved in different ways to live down on the sea bed in the dark. So many of them had very large eyes — very strange looking fish."

Scientists are planning a follow-up expedition in 10 to 15 years to examine the effects of climate changes on the region's environment.

Blame geography on the devil...

Scientists find ‘Devil Toad’ fossil

Discovery of bowling ball-sized frog raises ancient geography questions

	View related photos

This artist rendering shows a Beelzebufo ampinga facing off against the largest known living Malagasy frog, Mantydactylus ampinga. A full-length pencil provide size perspective.

From Yahoo.com By Lauran Neergaard

updated 5:47 p.m. ET, Mon., Feb. 18, 2008

WASHINGTON - A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago — intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.

But its size — 10 pounds and 16 inches long — isn't the only curiosity. Researchers discovered the creature's bones in Madagascar. Yet it seems to be a close relative of normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America, challenging assumptions about ancient geography...

Krause began finding fragments of abnormally large frog bones in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, in 1993. They dated back to the late Cretaceous period, roughly 70 million years ago, in an area where Krause also was finding dinosaur and crocodile fossils. But only recently did Krause's team assemble enough frog bones to piece together what the creature would have looked like, and weighed.

The largest living frog, the Goliath frog of West Africa, can reach 7 pounds. But Krause teamed with fossil frog experts from University College London to determine that Beelzebufo isn't related to other African frogs.

It seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs, known scientifically as Ceratophrys. Popular as pets, they're sometimes called pacman frogs for their huge mouths.

Like those modern frogs, Beelzebufo had a wide mouth and powerful jaws, plus teeth. Skull bones were extremely thick, with ridges and grooves characteristic of some type of armor or protective shield.

The name comes from the Greek word for devil, Beelzebub, and Latin for toad, bufo (pronounced boo-foe).

The family link raises a paleontology puzzle: Standard theory for how the continents drifted apart show what is now Madagascar would have been long separated by ocean from South America during Beelzebufo's time. And frogs can't survive long in salt water, Krause noted.

He contends the giant frog provides evidence for competing theories that some bridge still connected the land masses that late in time, perhaps via an Antarctica that was much warmer than today.

Who needs to move when you can just think it? The next frontier...brainwaves...

Brain-reading headset to sell for $299

From Yahoo.com By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 25 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Hands cramping up from too many video games?

How about controlling games with your thoughts instead? Later this year, Emotiv Systems Inc. plans to start selling the $299 EPOC neuroheadset to let you do just that.

The headset's sensors are designed to detect conscious thoughts and expressions as well as "non-conscious emotions" by reading electrical signals around the brain, says the company, which demonstrated the wireless gadget at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The company, which unveiled a prototype last year, says the headset can detect emotions such as anger, excitement and tension, as well as facial expressions and cognitive actions like pushing and pulling objects.

The headset will be sold with a game developed by Emotiv, but it can also be made to work with existing PC games, the company said. Users will also be able to access an online portal to play more games, chat or upload their own content such as music or photos.

Emotiv plans to work with IBM Corp. to explore applications beyond video gaming. The "brain computer interface" technology could transform not only gaming, but how humans and computers interact, said Paul Ledak, vice president of IBM's Digital Convergence business.

Move over Schwarzenegger, there might be a new foreigner in Hollywood...

Michael Moore: Bring Fidel to the Oscars

From Yahoo.com By MARCELA ISAZA, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 50 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - "Sicko" director Michael Moore jokes that Fidel Castro would be a "ratings grabber" at Sunday night's Academy Awards show.

Moore's Oscar-nominated documentary on the health-care industry concludes with a trip to Cuba, where he seeks care for a group of 9/11 responders who have experienced health problems. They are greeted with open arms at a Havana hospital and given what appears to be top-notch care that they could not get in the United States.

Castro, who is 81 and in poor health, announced his retirement as president of Cuba this week, ending a half-century of autocratic rule.

"I got some great news today because I was trying to figure out how I was going to get Castro into the Oscars and for me he resigns today so he can come to L.A. and go as my guest and perhaps give the acceptance speech," Moore told AP Television on Tuesday night.

"As long as he keeps it under five hours. I'm telling you, that's got to be a ratings grabber. Can you imagine him? Showing up? If I could talk to (Oscar producer) Gil Cates and maybe get Castro in a dance number at the beginning of the show? Great."

Anachronistic Analog...A year from now, it's all digital TV

The federally mandated change from analog is puzzling to some consumers, and profitable to some business interests

From ContraCostaTimes.com By Seth Sutel

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Article Launched: 02/19/2008 03:03:37 AM PST

NEW YORK -- TV's big switch from analog to digital broadcasts will be complete in one year, Feb. 17, 2009, and many consumers are puzzled about how the shift will affect them: Do they need to get a new converter box, a new TV or a better antenna?

But it's pretty clear which business interests stand to gain.

Cable and satellite TV companies could see a wave of new subscribers as people with older TVs pass on hooking up converter boxes to older televisions or buying new sets. Local stations are already using some of the extra capacity digital broadcasting frees up by launching auxiliary TV channels with weather and traffic reports, and they're looking for ways to bring programming to portable devices.

The Federal Communications Commission began the switch many years ago to free up a large chunk of U.S. airwaves, which the government is in the process of auctioning off, a process that will net billions of dollars for public coffers. Making all UHF broadcast spectrum above channel 52 available will allow for powerful new wireless services, and possibly for a new network for public safety officials to use during disasters.

Most U.S. TV stations already broadcast digital signals as well as analog. What's happening a year from Sunday is they'll switch off the analog signals. No one with cable or satellite service will be affected, nor will anyone who gets stations over the air with a newer TV with a digital tuner.

Those who will be affected are the 13 million or so households that get TV broadcasts exclusively over the air and have a TV more than a few years old -- or even a newer TV that's relatively small. Also affected are TVs not connected to cable, even if a home has cable.

A Nielsen Co. study released Friday found that 16.8 percent of all U.S. households have at least one analog television set that would not work following the switch. And Latinos are nearly twice as likely as whites to be without TV reception.

Affected households can get a digital converter box, buy a new television or sign up for cable or satellite service or one of the newer cable-like services being offered by phone companies.

A government program said Friday that it will begin sending coupons today worth $40 to any U.S. household that requests them to subsidize buying a box. Each household is entitled to two coupons for the boxes, which are just coming into stores now. They start at $40 or $50, making this option easy and practically free. The government says it has funds for 33 million coupons. To get one, go to http://www.dtv2009.gov. or call 888-DTV-2009 (888-388-2009).

All TVs being sold today have digital tuners, which are sometimes called ATSC tuners, after the technical standard used to make them. (The analog standard was known as NTSC.) If your current TV is less than a year old, the initials "DTV" appear somewhere on its front, or its screen is rectangular, you're probably OK. If you still have the owner's manual, check whether the tuner is digital.

The new signal could mean the picture on some televisions will improve, but it doesn't guarantee high-definition visuals. That depends on whether a particular TV is set up to receive high-definition programming and whether a program is broadcast that way.

The switch could give an economic boost to retailers and manufacturers, who would benefit from selling the boxes and new TVs. And cable providers could get a boost in the next year or two from consumers who sign up for new service rather than deal with the other options.

...The cost to broadcasters of new digital equipment is relatively small. Tim Thorsteinson, president of the broadcast division of Harris Corp., a major manufacturer of broadcasting equipment, says it costs about $500,000 to upgrade a typical TV station.

The transition comes at a tough point for local TV stations, however, because they are seeing live viewership erode amid a proliferation of ways to watch video -- on the Internet, iPods and DVDs.

...Next week, a preliminary field trial for three competing technologies for portable TV viewing is getting under way in San Francisco, Aitken said. The industry could have a candidate for the a new mobile TV standard in place by the third or fourth quarter of this year...