Groonk's Newsmine 2.0

Such a trail was blazed in 2004 by another animated series, Family Guy. Fuelled by DVD sales and high-rating reruns, it spawned a direct-to-DVD film and two seasons of television episodes.

The move caught the television industry by surprise, and left several lost properties, including Futurama, ripe with possibility.

"Three months ago, I would have said we were going to start tomorrow," says writer David X. Cohen, who collaborated with Groening on Futurama. "And one month ago I would also have said we were going to start tomorrow. So ..." He pauses. "My current estimate is that we're starting tomorrow."

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

[...]

Mr Ivanov was highly regarded. He had established his reputation under the Tsar when in 1901 he established the world's first centre for the artificial insemination of racehorses.

Mr Ivanov's ideas were music to the ears of Soviet planners and in 1926 he was dispatched to West Africa with $200,000 to conduct his first experiment in impregnating chimpanzees.

Meanwhile, a centre for the experiments was set up in Georgia - Stalin's birthplace - for the apes to be raised.

Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail.

A final attempt to persuade a Cuban heiress to lend some of her monkeys for further experiments reached American ears, with the New York Times reporting on the story, and she dropped the idea amid the uproar.

"We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," Jones writes in his 139-page opinion posted on the court's Web site. (Opinion, pdf)

"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions," Jones writes.

Intelligent design claims the complexity of some systems of nature cannot be explained by evolution but must be attributed to a designer or supernatural being.

The Dover Area School District, about 25 miles from the state capital, sought to become the first in the nation to require high school science teachers to teach the concept of intelligent design as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution.

Jones described the school board's decision as "breathtaking inanity."

"Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact," said the statement that the old school board approved in a 6-3 vote in October 2004. "With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind."

Disposable Heroes
Nina Berman's book, Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq has a strength, a force that delivers a punch to your emotional solar plexus when you read it.
by Peter Howe

* Production overhead. Studios, on average, calculate production overhead by using a figure around 15 percent of total production costs.
* Distribution overhead. Studios typically use around 30 percent of their gross rentals.
* Marketing overhead. To determine this number, studios usually determine about 10 percent of all advertising costs.

All of the above means of calculating overhead are highly controversial, even within the accounting industry. Namely, these percentages are assigned without much regard to how, in reality, these estimates relate to actual overhead costs. In short, this method does not, by any rational standard, attempt to adequately trace overhead costs.

Due to Hollywood accounting, it has been estimated that only about 5 percent of movies officially show a net profit, and the "losers" include such films as Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Batman.

All of which shows why so many big-name actors insist on gross rather than net profit participation. The bottom line saying in Hollywood is "A percentage of the net is a percentage of nothing."

In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights.

Strangely enough, the web took off very much as a publishing medium, in which people edited offline. Bizarely, they were prepared to edit the funny angle brackets of HTML source, and didn't demand a what you see is what you get editor. WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discource through communal authorship.

Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space. In the mean time, I have had the luxury of having a web site which I have write access, and I've used tools like Amaya and Nvu which allow direct editing of web pages. With these, I haven't felt the urge to blog with blogging tools. Effectively my blog has been the Design Issues series of technical articles.

That said, it is nice to have a machine to the administrative work of handling the navigation bars and comment buttons and so on, and it is nice to edit in a mode in which you can to limited damage to the site. So I am going to try this blog thing using blog tools. So this is for all the people who have been saying I ought to have a blog.

Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not.

In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just how small a biological difference is reflected by skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human being.

"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work. "Almost all the differences used to differentiate populations from around the world really are skin deep."

Vicki Croke’s book is an exciting, warm, and intriguing volume about Ruth Harkness’ personal journey to be the initial Westerner to catch and return with the first live giant pandas. This is a book I’ve wanted to write myself for years, and I’m glad to finally see someone, appropriately a seasoned woman writer, do a great job with this subject. The Lady and the Panda also gives due credit to Harkness’ Chinese guide and eventual lover Quentin Young, who showed her how to find the giant pandas.

Breaking Up At Christmas-Mother May I (Eye)
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas-Tori Amos
Little Drummer Boy-Tori Amos
Joy To The World-Bad Religion
Silent Night-Bad Religion
Do They Know It's Christmas-Band Aid
Green Christmas-Barenaked Ladies
Do They Know It's Christmas-Barenaked Ladis/Dido/Guster
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-Barenaked Ladies/Sarah Mcalachlin
Merry Crhsitmas Eve-Better Than Ezra
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-Black Watch
What I want For Christmas-Nicole Blackmon
I Won't Be Home For Christmas-Blink 182

Peace On Earth/Little Drummer-Davie Bowie/Bing Crosby
Jingle Bells-The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Have Yourself A Merry Christmas-Bright Eyes
December Will Be Magic-Kate Bush
Christmas-The Buzz Of Delight/Matthew Sw
The Cat Carol-Meryn Cadell
One Christmas Catalouge-Captiain Sensible
O Holy Night-Tracy Chapman
Frosty The Snowman-Cocteau Twins
Winter Wonderland-Cocteau Twins
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas-Coldplay
Merry Christmas Emily-Cracker
Happy Christmas-Cranes
The First Noel-Crash Test Dummies
I Did It For The Toys-Dance Hall Crashers
Christmas Time-The Darkness
Christmas Song-Dave Matthews Band
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)-Death Cab For Cutie
Christmas Day-Dido
Angels We Have Heard On High-Duvall
Everythings's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas-Eel
Little Drummer Boy-Engine Kid
Winter Wonderland-Eurythmics
Santa Baby-Everclea
25th December-Everything But The Girl
Merry Christmas-Face To Face
Yule Shoot Your Eye Out-Fall Out Boy
Snowball-Jimmy Fallon
Feed The World-Far/Chino Moreno
Does It have To Be Christmas Time-Bibi Farber
Christmas-Dillon Fence
Christmas At The Zoo-The Flaming Lips
White Christmas-The Flaming Lips
Bizarre Christmas Incident-Ben Folds
Lonely Christmas Eve-Ben Folds
Twin Falls-Ben Folds
Holly Jolly Christmas-The Format
I Want An Alien For Christmas-Fountains Of Wayne
The Man In The Santa Suit-Fountains Of Wayne
Father Christmas-Gigolo Aunts
White Christmas-Goldfinger
Alan Parsons In A Winter Wonderland-Grandaddy
Fairytale Of New York-Grover/Kevin Salem
You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch-Albert Hauge
Make It Home-Juliana Hatfield
Jesus Christ-Kristin Hersh
Little Drummer Boy-Jars Of Clay
12/23/95-Jimmy Eat World
Last Christmas-Jimmy Eath World
Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer-Jack Johnson
Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer-Daniel Johnston
Have Yourself A Merry Christmas-Freddy Johnston
(Not Just Until) The Season En-Mary Karlzen
Do You Hear What I Hear?-Sean Kelly/Tom Askin
New Heart for Christmas-Kill Hanna
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas-Local H
Taking Down The Tree-Low
Let It Snow-Luscious Jackson
Queen Of Bliss-Luscious Jackson
The Christmas Song-Aimee Mann
December Is For Cynics-The matches
Merry Christmas Will Do-Material Issue
Wonderful Christmas-Tom McRae
Christmas In The Stars-Meco
What Can You Get A Wookie For Christmas-Meco
Children Go Where I Send Thee-Natalie Merchant
This Time Of year-The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Huge On A Luge-Moxy Fruvous
The Coventry Carol-Alison Moyet
Christmas Day-MXPX
Christmas Night Of Zombies-MXPX
You're The One I Miss-MXPX
Christmas-Leona Naess
Ex Miss-New Found Glory
Oi to The World-No Doubt
Silent Night-October Project
Holly Jolly Christmas-Old 97's
Christmas In Cali-P.O.D.
Winter Wonderland-Phantom Planet
Fairytale Of New York-The Pogues/Kirsty McColl
Christmas-The Posies
2000 Miles-Pretenders
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas-Prentenders
Ten Tubas-Professor & Maryann
Thank God It's Christmas-Queen
Deck The Halls-R.E.M.
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)-Joey Ramone
Merry Christmas-Joey Ramone
Merry Christmas-The Ramones
Christmas Star-Ike Reilly
'Twas the Night Before Christmas-Henry Rollins
Christmas With Jesus-Josh Rouse
Hey Santa-Riyal Crown Revue
Christmas In Hollis-Run-D.M.C.
It's Not Christmas-Kelley Ryan
Little Drummer Boy-Matthew Ryan
I was Born On Christmas Day-Saint Etienne
Christmas Wrapping-Save Ferris
Candy Fisted Christmas-Stephanie Sayers
Happy Christmas-Sense field
Maybe This Christmas-Ron Sexsmith
This Christmas-Shoes
Are Your Burning, Little Candle-Jane Siberry
My Christmas List-Simple Plan
Christmas Time-The Smashing Pumpkins
Waking Up On Christmas Morning-the Smithereens
Mery Christmas From The Family-Jill Sobule
Forget December-Something Corporate
Suzy Snowflake-Soul Coughing
The Sddest Time Of The Year-Spooner
Christmas Day-Squeeze
Carolina Christmas-Squirrel Nut Zippers
Sleigh Ride-Squirrel Nut Zippers
Gabriel's Message-Sting
Blue Christmas-Sumack
All I wanted Was A Skateboard-Super Deluxe
Johnny's Gone Sledding Wih Qu-Super Deluxe
Christmas Piglet-The Presidents Of The United States
Santa's beard-They Might Be Giants
Santa Claus-Throwing Muses
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)-U2
Alone This Holiday-The Used
Feliz Navidad-Voodoo Glow Skulls
Christmas wrapping-The Waitresses
Silent Night-Ween
Christmas Celebration-Weezer
The Christmas Song-Weezer
Winter Kills-Whirling Dervishes
You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch-Whirling Devishes
The Christians And The Pagans-Dar Williams
Thanks For Christmas-XTC
What Christmas Means To Me-Paul Young
Deck the Halls-Zebrahead

Los Angeles County health officials launched www.inspotla.org this week in a bid to reduce the rapidly rising spread of STDs by encouraging sexually active men and women to get tested.

"This is another opportunity for people to disclose STD exposure to partners because sometimes people don't always have that face-to-face opportunity, or that level of relationship," Karen Mall, director of prevention and testing at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said on Thursday.

"Partner disclosure is where we really have the opportunity to break the chain of HIV infection," Mall said.

[...]

Spencer played Leo McGarry, the savvy and powerful chief of staff to President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet (Martin Sheen). In a sad parallel to life, Spencer's character suffered a heart attack that forced him to give up his White House job.

[...]

The actor, whose world-weary countenance was perfect for the role of McGarry, mirrored his character in several ways: Both were recovering alcoholics and both, Spencer once said, were driven.

"Like Leo, I've always been a workaholic, too," he told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview. "Through good times and bad, acting has been my escape, my joy, my nourishment. The drug for me, even better than alcohol, was acting."

[...]

"We can come together to give the government the tools it needs to fight terrorism and protect the rights and freedoms of innocent citizens," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., arguing that provisions permitting government access to confidential personal data lacked safeguards to protect the innocent.

[...]

Much of the controversy involved powers granted to law enforcement agencies to gain access to a wealth of personal data, including library and medical records, in secret, as part of investigations into suspected terrorist activity.

The bill also includes a four-year extension of the government's ability to conduct roving wiretaps — which may involve multiple phones — and continues the authority to wiretap "lone wolf" terrorists who may operate on their own, without control from a foreign agent or power.

Yet another provision, which applies to all criminal cases, gives the government 30 days to provide notice that it has carried out a search warrant.

During debate, several Democrats pointed to a New York Times report that Bush had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on individuals inside the United States without first securing permission from the courts.

The engineers behind the project hope the robots will eventually be used to construct colossal solar panels for satellites that will transmit solar energy back to Earth. The satellites could reflect and concentrate the Sun's rays to a receiving station on Earth or perhaps beam energy down in the form of microwaves.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency will launch a satellite called Furoshiki on 18 January 2006, which will conduct three experiments to test the idea. The satellite will be deployed from a rocket on a sub-orbital trajectory. This means scientists will have only 10 minutes of microgravity in which to perform their tests before the craft starts its descent back to Earth and eventually burns up in the atmosphere.

The first experiment will see three small satellites detach from the mother ship and stretch out to form two corners of a triangular net with their mother craft forming the other. Onboard cameras will be used to verify that the net, which measures 40 metres on each side, remains as steady as possible and that the daughter satellites do not get tangled in the web.

In less than two years, Siemens says, the technology could transform consumer-goods packaging from the fixed, ink-printed images of today to a digital medium of flashing graphics and text that displays prices, special offers or alluring photos, all blinking on miniature flat screens.

"When kids see flashing pictures on cereal boxes we don't expect them to just ask for the product, but to say, 'I want it,'" said Axel Gerlt, an engineer at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement the technology.

Canada’s London, Ontario-based firm PlanetSpace unveiled designs for its Silver Dart spacecraft, an eight-person vehicle derived from experimental aircraft studies in the 1970s, Thursday with hopes of carrying fare-paying passengers into orbit and resupplying the International Space Station (ISS).

“The Silver Dart is the DC-3 of the space industry,” said Geoff Sheerin, PlanetSpace president and CEO, in a telephone interview. “It has so many things going for it in terms of performance.”

Sheerin’s Silver Dart program is separate from his Canadian Arrow effort to use a proven V2 rocket design to build a three-person rocket ship for suborbital flights. Plans for the Silver Dart date back about four years as Sheerin was researching the Canadian Arrow rocket to compete in the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition for suborbital spaceflight.

Clicking on the link will take you to a Google Music page with links to artist information, album information, artist websites, photos, along with online discussions. There are also the inevitable "buy this album" links to places like the iTunes Music Store, Amazon, Wal-Mart, and other online merchants.

“We’re going where no one has gone before. There’s no model to follow, nothing to copy. That is what makes this so exciting,” Branson explained. “We might even be able to allow those aliens who landed at Roswell 50 years ago in a UFO a chance to go home.”

At today’s ceremonies, Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said that his company believes the future of space doesn’t lie in just ground-based rocketry. Rather, air-launched spaceships are the way to establish safe, affordable, mass transportation into space.

Whitehorn said that it has taken governments four decades to get 500 people to space. “We hope to do that in year one…and eventually be carrying up to 10,000 people a year by the later years of the project,” he said.

Prior to commercial space treks from New Mexico, Whitehorn said that Mojave, California is the site for an extensive test program of some 50 to 60 flights of SpaceShipTwo. That craft is now under development by aerospace designer, Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites based in Mojave, California.

Current conceptual views of the spaceport, Whitehorn said, are tied to making it “the most environmentally-friendly spaceport/airport type structure that’s been built.” Largely to be fabricated underground, the New Mexico spaceport, for example, would use solar energy and an advanced water collection system.

Spotlighting the natural beauty of New Mexico, Whitehorn said that spaceport facilities will be underground as much as possible, “actually hidden from the ground, but visible when you’re in space and coming back to the Earth.”

On hand at the spaceport announcement today was movie actress Victoria Principal. She has already purchased a $200,000 Virgin Galactic ticket.

“I am thrilled about the first Virgin Galactic civilian flight scheduled for 2008 and I look forward to being on it,” Principal told the audience. “We’re on an era of a new form of transportation and a way of life that we’ve never known before,” she said.

The idea comes from Ramesh Sharda, an information scientist at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, who has trained an artificial neural network to recognise what makes a successful movie.

Using data on 834 movies released between 1998 and 2002, Sharda found that the neural network can judge a film based on seven key parameters: the "star value" of the cast, the movie's age rating, the time of release against that of competitive movies, the film's genre, the degree of special effects used, whether it is a sequel or not, and the number of screens it is expected to open in. This allowed it to place a movie in one of nine categories, ranging from "flop" (total takings less than $1 million) to "blockbuster" (over $200 million).

The system cannot take into account the intricacies of the plot, but Sharda says it can nonetheless get the revenue category spot-on 37 per cent of the time, and correct to within one category either side 75 per cent of the time. This is enough to make the system a "powerful decision aid", Sharda says.

He is now working on the software with a "major Hollywood studio". He is expanding the system to include DVD sales, and is building a website where users can enter movie parameters and the software will generate a forecast.

Mayor Roberto Pereira da Silva's proposal to the Town Council asks residents to "take good care of your health in order not to die" and warns that "infractors will be held responsible for their acts."

The bill, which sets no penalty for passing away, is meant to protest a federal law that has barred a new or expanded cemetery in Biritiba Mirim, a town of 28,000 people 45 miles east of Sao Paulo.

"Of course the bill is laughable, unconstitutional, and will never be approved," said Gilson Soares de Campos, an aide to the mayor. "But can you think of a better marketing strategy?"

Written by Steven T. Seagle, art by Becky Cloonan, cover by Frank Quitely.

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR FIRST TIME...

Adam Chamberlain is a 20-year-old youth minister, a best-selling author, and most important, the head of a rabid national virginity movement. But practicing virgin or not...Adam is about to lose it.

Just a few weeks shy of marrying the girl of his dreams -- the only woman God has said he can ever know sexually -- Adam's fate, future and sex life are cast in direct opposition with God's Word.

Like Y: The Last man, the series follows one man's dark quest into unknown territories -- geographically and emotionally. A shocking terrorist act casts Adam adrift in exotic locales not so easily managed by a slick image, a clever comeback or the Good Book. Adam is forced to confront head-on the very rifts we all feel between our carnal desires and whatever higher power we answer to.

Will Adam's first time be his last?

32 pages, $2.99, in stores on March 8.

The StealthText service from UK company Staellium is only available in the UK. Users must download and install a small software application and must also have a phone capable of accessing WAP internet content.

Cellphone users can purchase a bundle of 10 self-destructing messages for £5 by signing up and sending the word STEALTH to the number 80880. A "time-bomb" message can then be sent using the StealthText application.

The recipient does not need to download any software as they will receive a normal text containing a link to the real message. Once the link has been activated and the message has been viewed, it will disappear after 40 seconds.

Researchers led by Lynne Allen at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, first spotted the object in observations made with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in December 2004. Since October 2005, they have made follow-up observations that have revealed the object's perplexing path.

Tentatively named 2004 XR190, the object appears to have a diameter of between 500 and 1000 kilometres, making it somewhere between a fifth and nearly half as wide as Pluto. It lies in a vast ring of icy bodies beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt, most of which orbit in nearly the same plane as Earth.

[...]

2004 XR190, however, follows a nearly circular path. And it is too distant to have come into direct contact with Neptune, travelling between 52 and 62 AU from the Sun. Its orbit is also too circular - and too small - to have been tilted by a passing star, says Allen.

These traits make the object, nicknamed "Buffy" after the US television series about a vampire slayer, hard to explain. "Maybe Buffy is going to be a bit of a theory slayer," Allen told New Scientist.

The prototype, unveiled in Tokyo, can guide guests to a meeting room, serve coffee on a tray and push a cart with a load of up to 10 kilograms, says Honda.

[...]

"The level of Asimo's capability was just good enough to entertain people on the stage in the past, but the new Asimo can work at places closer to us," says Satoshi Shigemi, the Honda official in charge of the robot's development.

"The new Asimo can perform the task of a receptionist or information guide automatically," Shigemi told a news conference. "Honda is aiming to create a humanoid robot that can help people and live together with people."

Born in northern California on June 28, 1932, the son of migrant fruit pickers, Morita spent most of his early years in the hospital with spinal tuberculosis. He later recovered only to be sent to a Japanese-American internment camp in Arizona during World War II.

"One day I was an invalid," he recalled in a 1989 AP interview. "The next day I was public enemy No. 1 being escorted to an internment camp by an FBI agent wearing a piece."

After the war, Morita's family tried to repair their finances by operating a Sacramento restaurant. It was there that Morita first tried his comedy on patrons.

Because prospects for a Japanese-American standup comic seemed poor, Morita found steady work in computers at Aerojet General. But at age 30 he entered show business full time.

"Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did," he commented. "If I tried it in Japan before the war, it would have been considered blasphemy, and I would have ended in leg irons. "

The findings toss new uncertainty into a long-studied question that some scientists considered largely settled, the researchers say: how humans themselves recognize faces.

The results also may help lead to better face-recognition software, developed through study of the insect brain, the scientists added.

Many researchers traditionally believed facial recognition required a large brain, and possibly a specialized area of that organ dedicated to processing face information. The bee finding casts doubt on that, said Adrian G. Dyer, the lead researcher in the study.

He recalls that when he made the discovery, it startled him so much that he called out to a colleague, telling her to come quickly because “no one’s going to believe it—and bring a camera!”

[...]

Dyer said that if bees can learn to recognize humans in photos, then they reasonably might also be able to recognize real-life faces. On the other hand, he remarked, this probably isn’t the explanation for an adage popular in some parts of the world—that you shouldn’t kill a bee because its nestmates will remember and come after you.

Francis Ratnieks of Sheffield University in Sheffield, U.K., says that apparent bee revenge attacks of this sort actually occur because a torn-off stinger releases chemicals that signal alarm to nearby hivemates. Says Dyer, “bees don’t normally go around looking at faces.”

Norwegian scientists have found that killer whales - or orcas, as they are sometimes known - have overtaken polar bears at the head of the toxic table.

No other arctic mammals have ingested such a high concentration of hazardous man-made chemicals.

His Web site, www.trafficdocumentary.com, is now scouting the region for the film's "stars": those who can tell about the best traffic shortcuts, the worst traffic nightmares and the most dramatic traffic encounters.

Is the 405 Freeway ready for its close-up?

"(Traffic) governs so much of our life: who we date, where we go, who we socialize with. Something that impacts our lives to such an extent - I would like to know more about it," said Valenti, who came to L.A. six years ago from his native Australia.

"By hearing these people and their stories and weaving them together, it's not just sitting in traffic. It's bigger than that."

[...]

"It surprised me. It didn't matter who you are, where you went. Everybody talked about it," Valenti said. "And emotional - people would be really upset.

"All these hours and hours spent on the road. ... It's really this profound thing."

That's what Pryor, who died Saturday of a heart attack at age 65, did for people all across America in the 1970s, his breakthrough decade and a time when the country was hotly divided not only by the Vietnam War but by the civil rights battles of the 1950s and '60s that preceded it.

He did it by bringing black and white audiences together to laugh as one, at least for the length of a concert or a comedy album, at the madness all around them.

"He was a brilliant and incredibly courageous performer," recalled humorist Paul Krassner, whose magazine "The Realist" once published an essay by the comedian commenting on the disproportionate number of black soldiers that seemed to be fighting the Vietnam War. Pryor headlined it, "Uncle Sam Wants You, Nigger."

It was a word he would use frequently in the 1970s, even using it in the name of his second album as he tried to take the sting out of the epithet by repeating it over and over.

After a visit to Africa in 1980, however, he would renounce it and say he no longer wanted to hear the word, either from his "hip white friends" or his fellow blacks. A subsequent recording was titled "That African-American is Still Crazy," with the offending word crossed out.

Such upfront, no-holds-barred, socially conscious commentary won Pryor the admiration of seemingly every black comic who followed him, an admiration perhaps best summed up by Keenen Ivory Wayans, who once said Pryor demonstrated "you can be black and have a black voice and be successful."

Both STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are scheduled to launch aboard the same Delta 2 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on 26 May 2006.

Once in space, they will split up to observe the Sun from different angles, capturing images in 3-D. People gauge depth in the same way, using the slightly different perspective from each eye.

[...]

Buckyballs, or buckminsterfullerenes (C60), are hollow spheres made from 60 carbon atoms. Because of their unique physical properties they are being considered for many applications, from drug delivery to fuel cells.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, both in the US, decided to investigate how buckyballs would react if they came into contact with DNA. They used standard biomolecular simulation software to model two strands of DNA, with 12 base pairs each, interacting with two buckyballs over about 20 nanoseconds.

They found that the buckyballs bind strongly to DNA, with about the same energy that drugs bind to receptors on the surface of cells. When the buckyballs bound, they distorted the strands of DNA. Peter Cummings, a Vanderbilt chemical engineer, says it seems likely the interaction would interfere with the DNA's function, disrupting replication and repair and increasing mutation rates.

At 1001 metres, the enormous tower would be almost twice the height of the world's tallest building today, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which stands at 509 metres. The new building would also dwarf the Burj Dubai, a building under construction in Dubai that is expected to stand 700-800 metres tall once completed in 2008.

Architecture firm Eric Kuhne and Associates, based in London, UK, has drawn up plans for the skyscraper. Although the designs have yet to be made public, the company is reported to be in talks with the Kuwaiti government about construction.

The laser link took place on Friday between two satellites designed to test communications technologies.

One, a Japanese mission called Kirari (Optical Inter-orbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite), flies at an altitude of 610 kilometres, in low-Earth orbit. The other, a European satellite called ARTEMIS (Advanced Relay and Technology Mission), soars 36,000 kilometres above Earth in geostationary orbit.

Pointing and maintaining a laser connection between the two satellites is difficult because they can be as much as 45,000 kilometres apart and are moving at a relative speed of several kilometres per second.

With a "serious disciplined effort" to develop energy-saving technology, he said, "we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets in a way that would strengthen and not weaken our economies."

Clinton, a champion of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing emissions-controls agreement opposed by the Bush administration, spoke in the final hours of a two-week U.N. climate conference at which Washington has come under heavy criticism for its stand.

Most delegations appeared ready Friday to leave an unwilling United States behind and open a new round of negotiations on future cutbacks in the emissions blamed for global warming.

"There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating and caused by human activities," said Clinton, whose address was interrupted repeatedly by enthusiastic applause. "We are uncertain about how deep and the time of arrival of the consequences, but we are quite clear they will not be good."

1. Intro
2. Singers Unlimited - Caroling Caroling
3. DJ Riko featuring Marcie - My Chimney
4. Luscious Jackson - Let it Show
5. The Free Design - Now Sound of Christmas
6. Lou Monte - Dominick the Donkey
7. Louis Armstrong - Cool Yule
8. Mr Hanky - Santa Claus is on His Way
9. The Ventures - Silver Bells
10. George W. Bush - Twas the Night Before Christmas (Jima edit)
11. Kids of Widney High - Christmas is the Time
12. Ringo Starr - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
13. Madn