Phil Spector Found Guilty of Murder

— Phil Spector, the rock music impresario behind such hits such as “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” and “Be My Baby,” was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of an actress at his mansion in 2003, after a night of drinking.

Mr. Spector, 69, faces a possible 18 years to life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for May 29.The jury reached its decision after deliberating whether one of the recording industry’s best-known producers shot the woman in a fit of anger or, as his lawyers argued, merely witnessed the woman’s suicide.

Mr. Spector, who was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, is famous for his “Wall of Sound” lush orchestrations heard on an array of hits in the 1960s and 1970s with groups like the Ronettes. He has worked with the Beatles, Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones and others but had receded from the public stage in recent years and was known as much for eccentric behavior — he has been often photographed wearing a large fright wig — as his talent.

The verdict came more than six years after the actress, Lana Clarkson, 40, was found shot to death in the foyer of Mr. Spector’s mansion in suburban Alhambra on Feb. 3, 2003.

via Phil Spector Found Guilty of Murder – NYTimes.com.

What’s with the ghost woman behind him in this photo?

A 64-year-old Swiss woman has reported the presence of a pale, milky-white and translucent third arm. – swissinfo

A 64-year-old woman has reported to doctors at Geneva University Hospital the presence of a pale, milky-white and translucent third arm.

After examining the case, the woman’s neurologist, Asaid Khateb of the hospital’s experimental neurophysiology laboratory, called the rare phenomenon credible.

The arm appeared to the woman a few days after suffering a stroke, doctors said.

But this case of what is known as a supernumerary phantom limb (SPL) is a genuine head-scratcher.

The upshot is that the woman can use the apparitional extremity to relieve very real itches on the cheek. It cannot penetrate solid objects.

She does not always perceive the arm but “retrieves” it when needed, doctors told the Swiss news agency.

It is nevertheless the first case known to doctors of a person being able to feel, see and deliberately move a limb that doesn’t exist. The findings are published in the Annals of Neurology.

Khateb and his colleagues examined the patient’s brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a tool that allows doctors to see whether the brain is truly stimulated, and to pinpoint where. In this case, the investigations revealed that the woman actually experienced what she described.

Researchers instructed the woman to move her right hand. As expected, the motor cortex and visual processing areas in the left side of her brain became mobilised.

The same effects were observed to a lesser extent when the woman simply imagined moving her right hand. Imaginary movements of the woman’s paralysed left hand prompted the same activity in the brain, but on the right side.

But when doctors asked her to move her phantom arm, her brain reacted as though the arm really existed and could be moved. In addition, the patient’s visual cortex was also activated, indicating the she actually saw the imaginary limb.

And when she was instructed to scratch her cheek, regions of the brain relating to touch were activated.

… Khateb said the exact cause of the imaginary arm remains a mystery. Supernumerary limbs are rare. There are only nine known cases of a patient both feeling and seeing an arm.

via A 64-year-old Swiss woman has reported the presence of a pale, milky-white and translucent third arm. – swissinfo.

Science unlocks secrets of our deepest love

THE secrets of unconditional love, one of the most mysterious emotions, are being uncovered by scientists tracing the unique brain activity it creates.

They have found that the emotion, experienced as a desire to care for another person without any thought of reward, emerges from a complex interplay between seven separate areas of the brain.

Such brain activity has only limited overlap with the cerebral impulses seen in romantic or sexual love, suggesting it should be seen as an entirely separate emotion.

Professor Mario Beauregard, of Montreal University’s centre for research into neurophysiology and cognition, who led the study, said: “Unconditional love, extended to others without exception, is considered to be one of the highest expressions of spirituality. “ However, nothing has been known regarding its neural underpinnings until now.”

Scientists are interested in unconditional love as evolutionary theory suggests we should feel such emotions only for people who help us pass our genes to future generations, such as spouses and children.

… In the real world, however, unconditional love is often experienced towards people with whom there is no connection. The question is: why? To carry out the study, Beauregard recruited subjects with a proven ability to feel strong unconditional love: low-paid assistants looking after people with learning difficulties. Beauregard asked them to evoke feelings of unconditional love and hold them in their minds while they had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.

Of the seven brain areas that became active, three were similar to those of romantic love. The others were different, suggesting a separate kind of love.

Beauregard’s discoveries showed that some of the areas activated when experiencing unconditional love were also involved in releasing dopamine. This chemical is deeply involved in sensing pleasure, with rising levels strongly linked to feelings of reward and even euphoria.

In a research paper in an academic journal, he said: “The rewarding nature of unconditional love facilitates the creation of strong emotional links. Such robust bonds may critically contribute to the survival of the human species.”

via Science unlocks secrets of our deepest love – Times Online.

Diseases ‘hurting chocolate crop’

Some of the world’s largest chocolate-producing countries, such as the Ivory Coast, could lose a third of their crop this year, because of the problem.

Researchers are trying to map the DNA of the cacao tree to find genes which could be resistant to the two diseases, reports New Scientist magazine.

One, the cacao swollen shoot virus (CSSV), which can kill the trees, is affecting crops in west Africa.

In Brazil, another major producer of chocolate, crops are being affected by a fungus called witches’ broom.

Made by fermenting and then roasting the seeds of the cacao tree, around 70 per cent of the world’s chocolate comes from west Africa.

In recent years greater number of trees have been planted closer together as farmers try to keep up with increased demand and struggle to afford expensive fertilisers.

In practice, this has meant that other types of trees, which would normally have grown between the cacao trees, have been cut down.

This has encouraged the spread of disease, as has the trend to grow the plants in dry countries far from their native Amazon rainforest, where a lack of water makes them less able to stave off attack.

via Diseases ‘hurting chocolate crop’ – Telegraph.

Tiny Flower Turns Pig Waste into Fuel

The tiniest flowering plant could prove well-suited to two very big jobs: cleaning industrial animal pollution and providing clean biofuel.

Able to thrive on nutrients in animal waste, duckweed produces far more starch per acre than corn, say researchers. It could be an alternative to corn-based ethanol biofuel, which is disfavored by environmentalists because of waste generated in farming it.

“Based on our laboratory studies, we can produce five to six times more starch per unit of footage,” said Jay Cheng, a biological engineer at North Carolina State University.

More than a decade ago, Cheng and fellow NC State forestry professor Anne-Marie Stomp wondered whether fast-growing duckweed, commonly seen in shallow ponds, might remediate animal waste. Excrement from the billions of animals raised every year in America’s factory farms has fouled watersheds, especially in the South, and fed oxygen-gobbling algae blooms responsible for rapidly-spreading coastal dead zones.

Duckweed, they discovered, has an appetite for animal waste, quickly converting it to leafy starch that can then be converted into ethanol. The current source for most U.S. ethanol is industrial-scale corn farming, which requires large amounts of toxic pesticides and dead zone-feeding, fuel-intensive fertilizers. When the costs are added up, corn-based ethanol may prove little cleaner than gasoline.

Duckweed could help solve both problems at once.

“We did small-scale tests in the laboratory to convert duckweed starch to ethanol using the same technologies as the fuel industry currently uses in corn,” said Cheng. “With the same technology, we can easily convert it.”

Duckweed consumes nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium and iron, making it a potential source of remediation not only for the lagoons in which farm waste accumulates, but any type of wastewater. Because duckweed is found in all but the coldest climates, there’s little chance of it causing problems as an invasive species, said Cheng. The researchers have moved from the laboratory to a pilot-scale operation on a commercial farm.

via Tiny Flower Turns Pig Poop into Fuel | Wired Science from Wired.com.

Taxes revolting? You can get an extension, you know…

No tax credit for my Prius?! That bites. On I slog through the numbers…

This quote from WRH is interesting to me. If we voted with our tax dollars, we would have a real democracy, not a representative democracy. The problem is, people are too uninformed to make good decisions (supposedly) and that is why we have a representative democracy. I’d like to see what happens in a real democracy for 10 years or so. How bad could it get?

Let us repeal all taxes across the board and offer a shopping list. The list has everything the government might want to do a place to check a box and the cost to the individual tax payer for that program. Items would include schools, hospitals, roads, space exploration, new jobs development, bombs, pay raises for Congress, money for Israel, bailouts for Wall Street, etc.

A taxpayer would simply check off those things he agrees we should all have and is taxed accordingly. I would agree to pay for schools, hospitals, good roads and job development.

The taxpayers would pay for those things we think we need, and NOT pay for nonsense and frills that have no place in our society.

Is that not Democracy in action?

Meanwhile, the revolt has not happened and we still have to file.

This year, anyone, regardless of income, can e-file their extensions at no cost from a home computer using IRS traditional FreeFile or FreeFile Fillable Forms. E-filing a request for an extension using either form of FreeFile is convenient, safe and secure, and taxpayers receive confirmation to keep with their records.

Here are some statistics. Are you getting above or below the average refund?

2009 FILING SEASON STATISTICS
Cumulative through the weeks ending 3/28/08 and 3/27/09
Individual Income Tax Returns	2008		2009		% Change
Total Receipts	86,817,000		84,586,000		-2.6%
Total Processed	81,644,000		81,970,000		0.4%
E-filing Receipts:
TOTAL	62,237,000		65,932,000		5.9%
Tax Professionals	43,366,000		43,329,000		-0.1%
Self-prepared	18,870,000		22,603,000		19.8%
Web Usage:
Visits to IRS.gov	120,604,000		147,478,000		22.3%
Total Refunds:
Number	69,823,000		72,290,000		3.5%
Amount	$172.017	Billion	$196.563	Billion	14.3%
Average refund	$2,464		$2,719		10.4%
Direct Deposit Refunds:
Number	50,788,000		55,202,000		8.7%
Amount	$140.216	Billion	$164.657	Billion	17.4%
Average refund	$2,761		$2,983		8.0%

New rare orangutan find in Borneo

A hitherto unknown population of orangutans numbering perhaps 1-2,000 has been found on the island of Borneo, conservation researchers say. Members of the reclusive endangered species were found by scientists acting on tip-offs from local people. Much of the orangutan’s tropical forest habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia has been cut down for timber extraction and to create palm oil plantations.

About 50,000 orangutans are thought to remain in the wild.

“The reclusive red-haired primates were found in a rugged, largely inaccessible mountainous region,” Erik Meijaard, of Nature Conservancy Indonesia, said.

The journey to the region took 10 hours by car, another five by boat and then a couple more hours hiking. The team found more than 200 nests crammed into just a few kilometres and spotted three wild orangutans in the canopy above them – a mother and her baby, and a large male who broke off branches to throw at them. It is even possible, the researchers say, that this could be a kind of orangutan refugee camp – with several groups moving into the same area following widespread forest fires.

The team of scientists is now working with local groups to try to protect the area.

via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | New rare orangutan find in Borneo.

Scientists find ‘pleasure nerves’

Scientists say they understand more about how the body responds to pleasurable touch. A team, including scientists from the Unilever company, have identified a class of nerve fibres in the skin which specifically send pleasure messages. And people had to be stroked at a certain speed – 4-5cm per second – to activate the pleasure sensation. They say the study, published in Nature Neuroscience, could help understand how touch sustains human relationships.

… If the stroke was faster or slower than the optimum speed, the touch was not pleasurable and the nerve fibres were not activated. The scientists also discovered that the C-tactile nerve fibres are only present on hairy skin, and are not found on the hand. “Our primary impulse as humans is procreation, but there are some mechanisms in place that are associated with behaviour and reward which are there to ensure relationships continue.”

via BBC NEWS | Health | Scientists find ‘pleasure nerves’.

See my blog entry from Sept 12, 2008 about this same topic. Pleasure:

Climate bill could trigger lawsuit landslide

Self-proclaimed victims of global warming or those who “expect to suffer” from it – from beachfront property owners to asthmatics – for the first time would be able to sue the federal government or private businesses over greenhouse gas emissions under a little-noticed provision slipped into the House climate bill.

Environmentalists say the measure was narrowly crafted to give citizens the unusual standing to sue the U.S. government as a way to force action on curbing emissions. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sees a new cottage industry for lawyers.

“You could be spawning lawsuits at almost any place [climate-change modeling] computers place at harm’s risk,” said Bill Kovacs, energy lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The bill was written by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, and Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat. …

It would allow citizens to seek up to $75,000 in damages from the government each year, but would cap the total amount paid out each year at $1.5 million, committee staff said. It is unclear whether the provision would actually cap damages at $75,000 per person, because the U.S. law referenced does not establish payouts by the government.

The $1.5 million cap reflects a compromise reached with House Republicans in a 2007 version of the measure introduced by Mr. Waxman, committee staff said. Mr. Waxman and Mr. Markey wrote the measure into a broader climate plan introduced last week, although it was left out of a bill summary that committee staff provided at the time.

via EXCLUSIVE: Climate bill could trigger lawsuit landslide – Washington Times.

Beware of fake posts which seem to be from real people but which are actually from advertising firms paid by oil companies. Believe what you want, but meanwhile, back down here on Earth, an ice bridge the size of  Jamaica in the Antarctic has just snapped from melting.

Swedish parishioners unveil Lego statue of Jesus

Parishioners at a church in Sweden celebrated Easter on Sunday by unveiling a 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) statue of Jesus that they had built out of 30,000 Lego blocks.

It took the 40 volunteers about 18 months to put all the tiny plastic blocks together, and their creation shows a standing Jesus facing forward with his arms outstretched.

The Protestant church was filled to capacity with about 400 worshippers on Sunday when the statue went on display behind the altar, and some of the children in the congregation couldn’t help but touch the white art work.

Church spokesman Per Wilder said the statue at the Onsta Gryta church in the central Swedish city of Vasteras is a copy of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen’s “Christus” statue on display in Copenhagen.

He also said that even though the statue is all white on the outside, many of the donated Legos that the church received were of other colors and were placed inside

via Swedish parishioners unveil Lego statue of Jesus – Inside Bay Area.

I couldn’t find a picture of the actual Lego Jesus. There are no pictures of him.. but I’ve found a few imitations. I’m not sure if Lego Jesus really exists, but some people believe in him.

… Oops, never mind. I found the actual Lego Jesus (below). He is real after all. He is deaf, blind and mute, having no ears, eyes or mouth, but he definitely has a very long right foot which proves that .. uh… he would win in a fight against the pathetically small footed Lego Devil.   Happy Easter Sunday.