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Box Office history
made this weekend Audiences poured into North American multiplexes sending grosses sky high as for the first time in box office history, four new releases simultaneously opened north of $20M each over a non-holiday frame. Plus, existing films managed relatively good holds despite the new competition. In fact, overall business even beat out the levels seen recently over the busy Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's weekends. Leading the busy frame was the spectacular debut of the romantic drama The Vow which bowed to an estimated $41.7M as the Channing Tatum-Rachel McAdams love story connected with its target audience of young women. Inspired by a true story, the PG-13 film about a man who must make his newlywed wife fall in love with him again after she loses her memory in an accident soared above expectations and was successfully made into an event film for the female audience by Sony's marketing. Starpower was a major factor as Tatum scored with this audience two years ago with Dear John which debuted to $30.5M over Super Bowl weekend. McAdams has had her own share of romance hits with The Notebook and The Time Traveler's Wife giving Vow a one-two punch of big names for both lead roles. Though he didn't take control of first place, Denzel Washington did score the second largest opening of his career with his latest action offering Safe House which collected an estimated $39.3M from 3,119 locations for a muscular $12,610 average. Universal's $85M CIA thriller co-starring Ryan Reynolds also beat out industry expectations, as so many films this year have been doing. Reviews were mixed but Washington's reliable fan base came out in full force thanks in part to a strong marketing push by the studio. The only film in the Oscar-winning actor's career to open better was 2007's American Gangster with $43.6M. Safe House, Gangster, and Training Day all featured Denzel Washington in "bad guy" roles. The bankable actor is one of those very rare stars in Hollywood who can consistently draw paying audiences in both good and bad roles. Fans love to root for his anti-hero characters. With Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson replacing Brendan Fraser as the anchor, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island enjoyed a strong debut in third place with an estimated $27.6M from 3,470 locations for a superb $7,939 average. The 3D follow-up to 2008's summer pic Journey to the Center of the Earth was high on adventure and special effects and played well to the family crowd as evidenced by the astounding 94% surge on Saturday over the opening day. Island earned mixed reviews from critics but fared better with paying audiences who gave the PG-rated actioner a good A- CinemaScore. With the Presidents Day holiday coming up next week, many schools having week-long winter breaks in February, and no major kidpics coming until March's The Lorax, the road ahead looks promising for the Warner Bros. sequel. Yet another new release followed in fourth place as the 3D upgrade of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened to an estimated $23M from 2,655 theaters for a solid $8,663 average. The latest franchise re-release for George Lucas upped the lifetime domestic haul for Menace to $454.1M allowing the Jar Jar Binks pic to rise two spots to number five on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters. The director's intention is to bring 3D versions of all six Star Wars films to the big screen, one year at a time. Fifteen years ago, Lucas and Fox collected a hefty $251.1M from the re-releases of the original trilogy, dubbed Special Editions, which were spaced about a month apart. Menace had a frontloaded weekend as fans rushed out on opening day as Friday saw $8.7M while Saturday dipped by 1%. All other new releases saw jumps on Saturday...
   
Cloud tsunami The residents of Panama City would have been forgiven for feeling slightly panicked when they saw this 'tsunami' coming. But, thankfully, the scene was actually created by a group of wave clouds that had formed over the Florida coastline. The stunning pictures were taken by helicopter pilot JR Hott, from Panhandle Helicopters, who posted the images on Facebook. According to the Daily Mail. Mr Hott told KATU: "Oh my God, we've got thousands of shares and thousands of likes. It's amazing to me how this thing has gone nuts." Dr Greg Forbes, of Weather.com said the natural phenomenon occured as a result of "warm, moist air forming 'just right' as it blew into the coastline, forming a low-lying fog that dissipates as the air cools with altitude"...
Wilderness food Few American chefs take foraging wild foods quite as seriously as Daniel Patterson, of Coi restaurant in San Francisco. At any given day, he might be cooking with clams, lichens, coastal spinach, Monterey Cypress, angelica root, and forest mushrooms, all native California foods from the beaches and forests a few dozen miles from his restaurant. "There are things that have natural harmonies, so we use them together, but in pursuit of something delicious, something meaningful, and resonant," Patterson said. His attention to the craft of foraging has earned him two highly coveted Michelin stars from some of the world's toughest food critics. "We live on the coast and that's very important, because it's a place where water and earth meet," says Patterson. "I'm inspired by this place; it's something worth capturing and fixing on the plate and serving to customers. (pictured below: Steamed new harvest potatoes, cucumber, borage, and ice plant flower) ...
Apple to radically
redesign the MacBook Pro While most of its rivals are struggling to match innovations Apple pioneered with its first MacBook Airs over three years ago, the Mac maker this year is hoping to further distance itself from the competition with a pair of radically redesigned professional offerings that will set the tone for the next wave of notebook computing. In particular, people familiar with Apple's roadmap say the Cupertino-based company currently plans to exit 2012 having completed a top-to-bottom revamp of its notebooks lineup that will see new MacBook Pros adopt the same design traits that have made its MacBook Airs an increasingly popular choice among mobile consumers. This will include new, ultra-thin unibody enclosures that jettison yesteryear technologies like optical disk drives and traditional hard drives in favor of models with lightweight chassis that employ flash-memory based solid-state drives, instant-on capabilities, extended battery life, and rely on digital distribution for software and media. Much in the same way that Apple initiated its last MacBook Pro overhaul by first revamping the higher-volume 15-inch models, and only then following up a few months later with a redesigned 17-inch counterpart, the company is again said to be giving priority to its new 15-inch model. A 17-inch model is expected to follow shortly thereafter. As such, AppleInsider believes that based on its information, leaks out the Far East regarding an ultra-thin 15-inch Apple notebook slated to hit the market this spring indeed pertain to Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro makeover, regardless of what marketing name the company ultimately chooses to stamp on its bezel. It's to rely heavily on Thunderbolt and be built around Intel's forthcoming Ivy Bridge microarchitecture and mobile components currently slated to start shipping in April...
Skier Jill Kinmont,
dead at 75 Jill Kinmont Boothe, a champion ski racer whose struggle to recuperate from a paralyzing fall on an icy slope became the subject of the popular 1975 film "The Other Side of the Mountain," died February 9 in Carson City, Nev. She was 75. The cause of death has yet to be determined. The cover of the Jan. 31, 1955, Sports Illustrated featured a photograph of Jill Kinmont, as she was then known, carrying her skis over one shoulder against a backdrop of snowy mountains. Then 18, she had won the national women's slalom championship and was deemed a sure bet to represent the United States at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Italy. But days after that issue landed on newsstands, she slid off an icy bump at high speed during a giant slalom race in Alta, Utah, severely damaging her spinal cord. The accident left her largely paralyzed from the neck down. "The Other Side of the Mountain," a lightly fictionalized and highly sentimental account of her accident, triumphant rehabilitation and discovery of a new life as a teacher, starred Marilyn Hassett in the lead role and Beau Bridges as her handsome, daredevil fiancé, who is killed in a plane crash. Ms. Hassett's performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination as best actress in a drama and a Golden Globe for "best acting debut in a motion picture, female." "The Other Side of the Mountain" drew attention to the plight of paraplegics and quadriplegics, and for a time Boothe, she married John G. Boothe, who survives her, in 1976, was a frequent guest on television talk shows. A sequel, "The Other Side of the Mountain, Part II," which told of their courtship and marriage, appeared in 1978...
New Jersey town to
charge the disabled for handicapped parking spaces The city of Passaic, New Jersey sent letters last week to almost 240 disabled residents saying their free handicapped parking spots will now cost $50 a year. "That's terrible," reacted 80-year-old Wanda Walis, who is disabled with leg and lung problems. She doesn't know how she'll afford it. "I get $18,000 a year," she told a reporter. She says she draws over $7,000 from a pension and over $10,000 in Social Security. "I can't work. Why are you hitting me? They make $70,000 / $80,000. That hurts. That hurts," she said Friday. "They don't care. They have no heart for the residents." The city council blames budget strains. The new ordinance still needs final approval...
Rumor .. iPad 3 out in
March Apple will unveil the iPad 3 at a high-profile March event in San Francisco, reported AllThingsD. "No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming that's what it's called)," noted the Feb. 9 report, which relied on the ever-popular unnamed sources. Those sources apparently confirmed that the next-generation tablet will boast a similar look to the iPad 2, "but running a much faster chip, sporting an improved graphics processing unit, and featuring a 2048x1536 Retina Display, or something close to it." Rumors of those features have circulated for some weeks. In a Feb. 1 posting, the Boy Genius Report also suggested the iPad 3 will feature an A6 processor. That information likewise came from an unnamed source, who provided the blog with screenshots of "output from an iPad 3 using a development and debug tool called iBoot." Based on those screens, the iPad 3 will come in two versions: "one with Wi-Fi only and one with Wi-Fi and embedded GSM/CDMA/LTE for all carriers." ...
Welcome to Amasia Booking a trip to Asia? If you wait long enough, you can save big on travel costs by driving there. Well, patience, and remarkable longevity, will be especially essential to cash in on this travel deal. You'll have to wait anywhere between 50 million and 200 million years, by which time, a team of Yale geologists predicts, the Americas will have merged, the Caribbean Sea will disappear, and this new land mass will fuse with Asia and Europe, forming a supercontinent around the North Pole called Amasia. The research, published Thursday (Feb. 9) in the journal Nature, is a vivid reminder that the plates of the Earth's crust are always moving, as earthquakes constantly remind us, and that one very far-off day, the world will be a very different place...
It gets quite cold in
Switzerland Why yes, officer, that is a wood-burning stove in my glove box. It's hard to imagine what led Pascal Prokop to install a wood-burning stove in his 1990 Volvo 240 station wagon. Prokob built and installed the wood-fired stove himself and got an operating permit from the Swiss technical inspection authority. And you thought old Volvo station wagons weren't hot...
 
Spiders and their
brain size Smithsonian researchers report that the brains of tiny spiders are so large that they fill their body cavities and overflow into their legs. As part of ongoing research to understand how miniaturization affects brain size and behavior, researchers measured the central nervous systems of nine species of spiders, from rainforest giants to spiders smaller than the head of a pin. As the spiders get smaller, their brains get proportionally bigger, filling up more and more of their body cavities. "The smaller the animal, the more it has to invest in its brain, which means even very tiny spiders are able to weave a web and perform other fairly complex behaviors," said William Wcislo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. "We discovered that the central nervous systems of the smallest spiders fill up almost 80 percent of their total body cavity, including about 25 percent of their legs." ...
What's the skinny on
Macaulay Culkin? When Macaulay Culkin is home alone, there's apparently not much in the fridge. New photos of a gaunt and goateed Culkin walking through Manhattan led to concerns about the former child star's health, although his camp says any worries are completely unfounded. "Macaulay Culkin is in perfectly good health," a spokesman told Us Weekly magazine after the thin-as-a-rail shots surfaced this week. Any other speculation, the publicist said, was "reckless, thoughtless and irresponsible." Culkin, 31, disappeared from the gossip pages after his eight-year relationship with Hollywood hottie Mila Kunis ended in 2010. He became a huge child star after appearing in the 1990 box-office smash "Home Alone" and its 1992 sequel, "Home Alone II." But he announced his retirement from movies at age 14, feuded with his father and eventually returned to the big screen in 2003 in the movie "Party Monster." The former wunderkind was busted in 2004 for possession of marijuana and illegal prescription drugs...
You can now inhale
your caffeine Sipping on coffee and downing energy drinks could soon be a thing of the past. A new product called AeroShot is an inhalable form of caffeine. Sound futuristic? It's not. AeroShot is already on the shelves in New York and Massachusetts, plus you can purchase it online. AeroShot comes in the form of an inhaler, about the size of a lipstick tube. Each plastic canister contains 100 milligrams of caffeine, about the same amount that's in a large cup of coffee. The makers claim AeroShot will give you a quick pick-me-up without filling you up, and the product even boasts zero calories. However, critics say the product doesn't come without some health risks. There's fear it could be abused since it's a quick hit of energy...
"House" foreclosed Fox's medical drama "House" is ending its eight-year run this season. The show's producers, including Emmy-nominated star Hugh Laurie, said it was a "painful" decision but that the time had come to bring "House" to a close. The drama stars Laurie as Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant but troubled physician with a gift for unraveling medical mysteries. Omar Epps, Robert Sean Leonard and Charlyne Yi are part of the ensemble cast. In a statement Wednesday, Laurie and his fellow producers said they imagined Dr. House as an "enigmatic creature," and that it was best for him to vanish while there was still mystery in the air. The season finale date for "House," which airs 9 p.m. EST Monday, was not announced...
Lana Del Rey laughing
all the way to the bank Much talked-about singer/songwriter Lana Del Rey makes her expected arrival at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with "Born To Die," selling 77,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's the highest entry for a female artist's full-length major label debut since Jackie Evancho's "Dream With Me" bowed at No. 2 on July 2, 2011. Meanwhile, Adele's "21" sits tight at No. 1 for a 19th nonconsecutive week. Next week it could yield the top slot to the new Van Halen album "A Different Kind of Truth," which was released yesterday (Feb. 7). At No. 3 this week is Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Leonard Cohen with the debut of "Old Ideas" (41,000). It's the icon's highest charting album ever and best sales week since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. The beloved artist's new album is his first studio effort since 2004's "Dear Heather," which debuted and peaked at No. 131. 35% of Cohen's new album's sales came from physical albums sold via Internet retailers. To compare, only 1% of Del Rey's first-week came from Internet sellers. On the other hand, 74% of Del Rey's sales were downloads, while digital sales represented 30% for Cohen. One more debut arrives in the top 10, from Fred Hammond, who starts at No. 8 with "God, Love & Romance". It's the gospel artist's first top 10 on the Billboard 200, though he's notched seven No. 1s on the Gospel Albums chart (including this new set). As for the rest of the top 10, the "2012 Grammy Nominees" album holds at No. 4 (down 35%), the "Kidz Bop 21" set moves 6-5 (down 9%), Drake's "Take Care" rises 9-6 (up 13%) and Tim McGraw's "Emotional Traffic" slides 2-7 (down 58%). LMFAO's "Sorry for Party Rocking" returns to the top 10, jumping 18-9 (up 32%). The album was sale priced at Walmart and iTunes last week, and the act also performed on the Super Bowl halftime show (Feb. 5). Lastly, Rihanna's "Talk That Talk" comes back to the top 10 as well, zipping 16-10 (up 17%), a gain helped by a discount sale tag at Target. Outside the top 10, Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" surges 20-13 (up 26%) while Gotye's "Making Mirrors" moves 45-20 (up 99%). The former act sang the National Anthem before the Super Bowl, while the latter album earned its physical CD release last week. Until now, it had only been available digitally. A bit farther down the list, Madonna's "Celebration" greatest hits album re-enters at No. 24 with 16,000 sold (up 1,341%). The Super Bowl halftime headliner's album was sale priced at iTunes last week for $6.99, while AmazonMP3 discounted it to $3.99 on Feb. 5. Speaking of Madonna, on the Digital Songs chart, her new single "Give Me All Your Luvin'," featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., debuts at No. 7 with 115,000 downloads sold. As the tracking week ended on Sunday, Feb. 5, this debut represents only the song's first three days of release (it bowed on Friday, Feb. 3). Comparably, Madonna's last lead single from a studio album, 2008's "4 Minutes," started with 217,000 downloads in its first week of availability (it was released on a Monday). Or, a little less than double what "Luvin'" sold in three days...
 
Google's 252 "mystery"
devices placed in employees' homes Google is testing 252 "mystery" devices in its employees' homes, but what the device is, nobody outside of Google knows. Google recently applied for an experimental license with the Federal Communications Commission for an unnamed entertainment device. The device is still early in development as testing is set to see if the device works properly and to "reveal real world engineering issues and reliability of networks." One possibility that was suggested was the device is related to the Android@home framework, where Google promises to allow users to control appliances such as lights and alarm clocks through an Android device. Another possibility is that it could be another version of Google TV. Google TV was released in 2010 and received mediocre reviews. The product was considered a failure. However, with the rumor of the Apple TV coming, and the media capabilities of Microsoft's Xbox 360 being expanded recently, Google might want to throw its hat in the ring for another round...
Oldest living thing on
Earth Ancient patches of a giant seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea are now considered the oldest living organism on Earth after scientists dated them as up to 200,000 years old. Australian scientists sequenced the DNA of samples of the giant seagrass, Posidonia oceanic, from 40 underwater meadows in an area spanning more than 2,000 miles, from Spain to Cyprus. The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old. Prof Carlos Duarte, from the University of Western Australia, said the seagrass has been able to reach such old age because it can reproduce asexually and generate clones of itself. Organisms that can only reproduce sexually are inevitably lost at each generation, he added. The separate patches of seagrass in the Mediterranean span almost 10 miles and weigh more than 6,000 tons...
All the garage door
openers in an entire block in St. Louis, stop working at the
same time It's a puzzling phenomenon: On one street in St. Charles County, garage door openers have stopped working. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that no one knows what exactly is going on at Westhampton View Court. The garage door openers at all five homes on the court stopped working shortly after Christmas. "It's a weird, weird thing," Joe Sullivan told the Post-Dispatch. "And the timing for it all to go haywire for everybody at the same time can't be coincidence, right?" Garage door companies say interference problems are common at individual homes, they blame what is known as "frequency pollution." But experts say having the issue extend to multiple homes is just plain weird. "There is so much radio frequency pollution now," Butch Martin, owner of Martin Door Co., told the paper. "Everything is wireless, and the more wireless stuff we get, the bigger the problem is going to get." Westhampton View Court residents filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission over the issue. There is no word on how long it will take the FCC to conduct an investigation...
Zombie Bill Hinzman,
dead at 75 He wasn't the first-ever movie zombie, but he was the first to appear in George A. Romero's 1968 classic, "Night of the Living Dead." Actor Bill Hinzman died of cancer on February 5. He was 75. His character, dubbed the Graveyard Zombie, makes an appearance early in the film, staggering towards brother and sister Barbara and Johnny in a cemetery, and killing Johnny. The line, "They're coming to get you, Barbara" is famously delivered by Johnny just before Hinzman comes after the siblings. Other creatures called zombies had been depicted in film, but it was Romero who introduced the slow-walking, flesh-eating undead that we now think of when we hear the term. Hinzman later acted in other horror films, and wrote, produced, edited, directed and starred in 1988's "Flesh Eater," in which he appears to play the same zombie from "Night of the Living Dead." He continued to represent the film that made him famous, even answering questions at a Chicago production of "The Musical of the Living Dead." ...
Most watched TV show
in history With the time-adjusted ratings in, last night's (February 5) Super Bowl XLVI squeaked past last year's game to rank as the most watched U.S. TV program in history. The tight New York Giants-New England Patriots contest, won by the Giants, averaged 111.3 million viewers vs. 111 million who tuned in last January for the Green Bay-Pittsburgh face-off. The big game has been holding the record for most watched TV broadcast since 2010 when the Super Bowl (106.5 million) edged the series finale of M*A*S*H* in 1983 (106 million). The record, which had been untouched for 27 years, was broken again by last year's Super Bowl (111 million) and then again last night. Super Bowl viewership has now gone up for seven consecutive years...
You think your boss is
bad? Employees at Norwegian insurance company DNB are protesting a new surveillance system that alerts managers if they spend too much time away from their desk, including time spent in the restroom, the Telegraph reports. The computer system was implemented to monitor customer service employees at DNB Liv, the life insurance arm of DNB, Norway's largest financial services group, Norwegian newspaper The Local reports. Managers are alerted by flashing lights if an employee spends more than eight total minutes per day engaging in personal activities away from their desk. Both unions and watchdog agencies have condemned the policy as a major violation of workers' rights. "Surveying staff to limit lavatory visits, cigarette breaks, personal phone calls and other personal needs to a total of eight minutes per day is highly restrictive and intrusive and must be stopped," a spokesman for the Finance Sector Union of Norway told the Telegraph...
Old Tjikko The world's oldest known living tree, Old Tjikko, sprouted sometime during the last Ice Age, roughly 9,550 years ago. This 16-foot spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden may look more like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, but don't be fooled: this little guy's root system got started back when the British Isles were still connected to Europe by an ice bridge. According to Wired, geologist Leif Kullman, who discovered the tree, named it after his dead dog...
Air over "The Moon"
about film score turned full album The first track on French electronic duo Air's new album, "La Voyage Dans la Lune," is 18 seconds long and the perfect sonic accompaniment to reaching the pearly gates. Yet the band's label, Astralwerks/EMI, thinks Air's 10th release will grab the attention of lapsed followers. The duo, Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, came out of the gate strong in 1998 with "Moon Safari," an album that became an electronic classic. But more recent releases, including 2007's "Pocket Symphony" and 2009's "Love 2", have seen diminishing commercial returns. Perhaps it's only fitting, then, that things are now coming full circle with another album inspired by the moon: "La Voyage Dans la Lune" (A Trip to the Moon) arrives Feb. 7. The project, which takes its cues from French director Georges Méliès and his 16-minute silent film of the same name, sprang from another: the score to the restored version of the 1902 movie. ("La Voyage Dans la Lune" plays a storied role in film history; it also serves as a central plot point in this year's Academy Award-nominated "Hugo.") Only one hand-painted color print of Méliès' film was ever produced, long gone until its rediscovery in 1993. French organizations Fondation Groupama Gan and Fondation Technicolor later took on the restoration of the film's color version, and a few months before it was set to premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, the foundations approached Air about scoring the film. The band, which was already in the studio at the time and has a slate of soundtrack work to its credit, including "The Virgin Suicides," "Lost in Translation" and just recently, a short film for jeweler Cartier ("Painted Love"), shifted its attention to the 16-minute score, a theme upon which a 31-minute, 11-track album would grow. Air chose to channel the druggy psychedelia of Paris in the early 20th century, as well as incorporate inspiration from the sound effects and scores of "Planet of the Apes" and "Rosemary's Baby." Animal noises are used to represent the deafening chatter of village idiots in one scene, quickly shifting gears to more celestial sounds. "It was just so unexpected, the best we could have ever dreamed of," Dunckel says of being asked to score Méliès' film. "Plus," he adds with a laugh, "now we don't have to make any videos for this album." ...
The Milky Way's
twin The Earth is not the only space body with lookalikes floating around the universe. The Milky Way itself has a doppelganger, scientists monitoring the Hubble Telescope reported on February 3. Its hallmark is its configuration as a barred spiral, which is akin to the Milky Way's. Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, like most spiral galaxies in the universe, has a bar structure in its center. "Galaxies' star-filled bars are thought to emerge as gravitational density waves funnel gas toward the galactic centre, supplying the material to create new stars," Hubble said in a release. "The transport of gas can also feed the supermassive black holes that lurk in the centres of almost every galaxy." The central bar-like structure may constitute a spiral galaxy's coming-of-age as it moves from intense star-formation into adulthood, surmised the Hubble folks. Another twin, this one 30 million miles from us, was photographed in June of last year, but that one is twice as big as the Milky Way, Discovery News reported. The new twin is our galaxy's virtual mirror image, the Hubble scientists said. (Below is an artist rendering)...
Can the cinnamon
challenge kill you? If someone can explain the appeal of the cinnamon challenge, can they clue in the rest of us? The dastardly dare that has the Internet aflutter involves the task of eating a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, without water, in under a minute. What could be so tough about consuming a mouthful of this innocuous-seeming spice? If cinnamon inspires thoughts of comforting apple pie and cozy cinnamon rolls, switch gears and consider Atomic Fireballs, Lava Hot Cinnamon Balls, and Hot Tamales. Cinnamon is potent, as evidenced by the reactions recorded in many a cinnamon-challenge YouTube video. But all the panicked retching aside, can swallowing a mouthful of cinnamon be dangerous, or even deadly? To understand the potency of cinnamon, ponder this: Cinnamaldehyde, the organic compound that gives the spice its distinctive flavor, is used as a pesticide and fungicide. It's strong enough to kill little things, for heaven's sake. The EPA warns of: acute dermal toxicity; acute oral toxicity; eye irritation; dermal irritation and dermal sensitization. Granted, this is just a component of cinnamon used in concentration, but still, this demure seasoning clearly has a wicked side. There are two species used in the ground cinnamon found in the spice aisle, Ceylon cinnamon and Cassia cinnamon. Cassia is interesting in that it contains substantial amounts of coumarin. Coumarin is the parent compound of warfarin (known by its trademarked name, Coumadin), a medication used to keep blood from clotting. Coumarin is mighty powerful and can affect blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. In people who are sensitive, coumarin might cause or worsen liver disease. Due to concerns about the possible effects of coumarin, several years ago the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment warned against consuming large amounts of Cassia cinnamon. And then there's the burn. Parenting experts recommend keeping spices out of reach from children. One of the threats to children who play in the spice cabinet is cinnamon, which when ingested can cause severe burning of the mouth and throat, requiring immediate medical attention. The burning may be so severe that the child can suffer from swelling of the mouth or throat, blocking access to air and potentially leading to death. In many cases, the coughing is so severe that the challengee has difficulty catching his breath. For anyone suffering from asthma or COPD, this can be very serious. And in fact, ground cinnamon can lead to a bronchial constriction, according to the University of Michigan Health System, and that can be life threatening. Cinnamon also contains as essential oil called cinnamal, which can act as an allergen in a fair amount of people. Those who are allergic to cinnamon can suffer from contact dermatitis, and according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, cinnamon can also cause a severe allergic reaction that can lead to anaphylactic shock. So, can the cinnamon challenge kill you? Although no accounts of death by cinnamon have been reported, there are indeed risks, and it seems only a matter of time until the challenge delivers a fatal blow to some unsuspecting teen...
Zalman King dead at
70 Zalman King, a onetime actor who went on to produce and direct numerous films including "Wild Orchid," died at his home in Santa Monica, California on Friday (February 3), after a lengthy battle with cancer. King was 70. Born Zalman Lefkovitz, King broke into Hollywood in the 1960s as an actor with roles on several TV series including "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," "Bonanza," "Gunsmoke" and "The Young Lawyers," according to the online Internet Movie Database website. He produced several films in the 1980s, including the erotic drama "9 1/2 Weeks" starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. And in 1989, King moved behind the camera to direct "Wild Orchid," written by him and his wife and featuring Rourke and Jacqueline Bisset...
Raising teacher
salaries is against "a biblical principle" Someone alert the unions: raising teacher pay will actually make for worse teachers, according to one GOP lawmaker. Alabama state Sen. Shadrack McGill said that increasing teacher pay is against "a biblical principle" because it might attract people who otherwise wouldn't do the job. "Teachers need to make the money that they need to make," McGill said, according to the Times-Journal. "If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach ... and these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em." McGill's comments came at a prayer breakfast this week in Fort Payne, Ala. State legislators are currently weighing raising teacher pay. One GOP leader proposed raising salaries of newer teachers by 2.5 percent, but critics argue that it isn't fair to longer-serving educators, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. A recent report might justify critics' worries, showing that Alabama is actually leading the nation in starting teacher salaries, while lagging behind in average teacher pay, the Dothan Eagle reports. The national average starting salary for a teacher is $39,000...
It's a boy During her 20 years in obstetrics, Dr. Vicky Griffin has delivered thousands of human babies and one gorilla. The 5-pound male primate was born Jan. 23 in his mother's cage at the Gulf Breeze Zoo. Griffin and zoo veterinarian Natalie Dyson performed a cesarean section on the baby's mother, a western lowland gorilla named Rwanda. "I loved it," said Griffin, who has a practice in Gulf Breeze. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be that close to such beautiful creatures. I was just in awe." The baby, who has not been named yet, may be on display as early as Saturday. Zoo workers are wrapping up renovations to a building near the train station that will serve as his nursery for the next five months. Kayte Wanko, the zoo's director, said the baby will stay in the nursery until he is 5 months old, at which point he can be safely reintroduced to his mom. In the wild, gorillas nurse their babies for the first four or five years. Rwanda was unable to produce milk and showed behavior that was potentially threatening to the infant. Wanko said that at 5 months, the baby will be old enough to get supplemental feedings, but young enough so he and his mother can bond...
Massive archive of
music to be made available soon .. for free If you don't know of Alan Lomax, you should. He single-handedly traveled the world to record traditional music across America, Europe and the Caribbean. He amassed over 5,000 hours of sound recordings, and now a team of archivists are posting it online for anyone to listen to. Long before the Internet was a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eye, Lomax had the idea of creating a "global jukebox". As well as those thousands of hours of sound recordings, he also collected 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, and 5,000 photographs. While snippets of the material have been available for a while, the New York Times reports that about 17,000 tracks are going to be available free for streaming online by the end of February...
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