- All movies old are new again, at least these days in Hollywood. To Disney’s credit, at least it didn’t remake or crank out a cheesy, forced sequel to The Lion King. Instead, it merely brought Simba and friends to the world of 3-D and it paid off with a $29.3 million payday good enough for the top spot at the box office for the weekend. That total nearly doubled up the efforts of the nearest competitor, returning box office champ Contagion. The star-studded sci-fi/pandemic thriller made $14.5 million in its second weekend of release and has scared up $44.1 million in domestic earnings thus far. Action flick Drive, led by Ryan Gosling in an action role for a change of pace, finished third in its opening weekend by earning $11 million domestically. That bumped former top earner The Help to fourth place with a $6.4 million haul, good enough for a six-week tally of $147.4 million and counting. Newcomer Straw Dogs finished off the top five by making an appropriate $5 million that netted a fifth-place finish. One of the weekend’s biggest flops kicked off the latter half of the top 10 as audiences didn’t seem to care how Sarah Jessica Parker does it and turned out in small numbers to see I Don’t Know How She Does It (No. 6 with $4.5 million), with the rest of the top 10 filled out by The Debt (No. 7 with $2.9 million and just $26.5 million in domestic earnings after three weeks), MMA-themed Warrior (No. 8 with $2.7 million on the domestic side and $9.9 million after two weeks in theaters), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (No. 9 and STILL keeping the summer of the crappy monkey movie alive by making $2.6 million for a seven-week total of $171.6 million) and Colombiana (No. 10 and plummeting once again by making a mere $2.3 million for a cumulative bank roll of $33.4 million through four weeks). The final four movies from last weekend’s top 10 all dropped out this time around, with Shark Night (No. 11), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (No. 13), Our Idiot Brother (No. 14) and Apollo 18 (No. 17) all experiencing significant declines for the weekend………
- After some outside pressure from Congress, the NFL and NFLPA have finally figured out how to implement HGH testing. Although the testing isn't exactly the full-scale, comprehensive plan the league and others would have liked, having any HGH testing at all is a step in the right direction. After several politicians, including Sen. John McCain, urged the league and players’ union to begin testing, the NFL is expected to implement blood testing for human growth hormone within five to 10 days on a marginal level. Although no agreement has been reached yet between the two sides, sources say that an agreement for limited testing is all but done. The NFLPA has idiotically balked at an aggressive program that would include game-day testing, claiming agencies such as the World Anti-Doping Agency have not provided ample information to specific questions the NFLPA has on the scientific evidence it wants for a more comprehensive testing program. To fans and anyone outside the league, it looks very much like the union fighting for players’ right to cheat. The union would argue that a false positive on a faulty test would harm a player’s reputation, but they are the only ones reaching for such a flimsy excuse in this case. One demand the NFLPA says still has not been met is for population studies that provide data on the normal ranges of human growth hormone naturally produced by the body. The NFL has maintained all along that scientists believe the testing procedures are reliable and even if many fans could not care less if players are ‘roiding up or HGH-ing up or not as long as they are 6’3, 250-pound behemoths who can run 4.3 40-yard dashes and bench press small cars, having testing is important for the NFL. Yet even with a tacit agreement near, the two sides are still bickering over the details. The union has expressed a desire for testing on a marginal level, with NFL spokesman Greg Aiello countering that the league does not know what "marginal testing" means. Don’t make anything easy, fellas…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Yemen is still getting it done and for any haters who thought it was not possible for a nation to sustain its rage for this long, take a good look at the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and think again. Instead of holding its first day of classes, the university instead hosted a lesson of a different sort, a lesson in what to do if you have a fascist dictator leading your country who you wish to oust from power. Rather than students filling the halls of the campus, it was thousands of anti-government protesters who stormed the university and tore down pictures of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The riots prevented classes from beginning and underscored the high level of outrage that remains among anti-Saleh groups. Demonstrations have occurred regularly since February and Saleh cowering in neighboring Syria the past three months recovering from wounds sustained in an attack on his compound has done nothing to abate the rage of those trying to end his reign of terror. Sanaa may have been the most visible of the uprisings on the weekend, but other schools scross the country were kept closed to students Saturday because many of the buildings are housing government-linked gunmen and soldiers who defected to the opposition. Taken together, these developments are further proof that no part of daily life in Yemen is exempt from the uprising. Saleh and his regime cannot continue to pretend as if it is merely a matter of time before they regain total control and life returns to normal because eight-plus months of unrest that continues to grow by the day are no longer an aberration, but a daily reality………..
- With all of the medical and scientific knowledge accrued in the world and the massive quantities of both that are acquired on a daily basis, is it a good thing or a bad thing when gamers are the ones who solve a molecular puzzle that stumped scientists for years? Good or bad, the discovery was accomplished using a collaborative online game called Foldit. Gamers playing Foldit did what an international team of scientists had failed to do for more than a decade, figuring out the detailed molecular structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus found in rhesus monkeys. These enzymes, known as retroviral proteases, play a key role in the virus' spread and understanding how they work could allow researchers to design drugs to stop the virus. How did gamers outsmart scientists? "People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at," explained Seth Cooper, a University of Washington computer scientist who is Foldit's lead designer and developer, in a news release. "Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans." Fellow UW employee Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the school, wrote a research paper on the project, published today by Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Oddly enough, the so-called field of citizen science - which enlists gamers and Internet users to search for new planets, decode ancient texts and do other scientific tasks that sheer computer power can't accomplish on its own - is growing and becoming a key part of the scientific community. That made citizen science an ideal means for tackling this particular enzyme, picking apart the millions of possible combinations the atoms in the enzyme's molecules could turn and veer in when they bond. Finding the right chemical key means identifying the most-efficient, lowest-energy configuration for the molecule. Foldit, which isn't exactly a World of Warcraft/Call of Duty-type gaming experience, is designed so that players can manipulate virtual molecular structures that look like a children’s toy on steroids. The faux molecules are subjected to the same chemical rules that are obeyed by real molecules and when a player comes up with a more elegant structure that reflects a lower energy state for the molecule, his or her score goes up. A structure requiring more energy to maintain results in a lower score. For some reason, more than 236,000 players have registered for the game since its debut in 2008. These dweebs are combining the loser-dom of being a gamer with the nerdiness of being a science-loving dork, creating a special dweeb hybrid never before seen. Giving the enzyme puzzle to Foldit players was actually something of a last resort, according to Khatib. "This was really kind of a last-ditch effort," he admitted. "Can the Foldit players really solve it? They actually did it in less than 10 days." It obviously begs the question: What the frak are we paying scientists and researchers millions of dollars for again…………
- When in need of a bridge that has been closed for weeks on end and may not be repaired and open again any time soon, what’s a community to do? Residents of Louisville, Ky. are facing that question and local business leaders have had just about enough of the Sherman Minton bridge closure. The closure is causing major delays for drivers and appears destined to continue for several weeks, if not months. Crews are working to evaluate the bridge and determine what repairs need to be made before it can reopen. In the meantime, local business leaders like David Jones are leading the charge for a completely new bridge. Jones, founder of Humana, is lobbying for a new bridge to be built on the city’s east side. "This is something that's needed to be done, but now we all understand the urgency of having it done because this community is suffering," Jones said. His idea isn't exactly new, as a potential bridge on the east side of the city has been discussed for years and is part of the proposed Ohio River Bridges project. As designed, the proposed 6-lane bridge would carry traffic from I-265 over the Ohio River to Indiana, just north of Utica. How committed is Jones to the project? He’s willing to pitch in $10 million of his own money to get the project started. "I said in my plan that I would lend $10 million because I believe in these bridges, I believe in our community, and I believe in action," Jones explained. So, will the powers that be accept Jones’ offer of assistance and green-light the bridge project? "David Jones and I discussed general ideas about accelerating construction of the East End bridge. I applaud Mr. Jones' interest in getting the Ohio River Bridges project moving. The entire project has come a long way in the last 18 months because of the cooperation between Gov. Daniels, Mayor Fischer and myself. I hope to discuss a number of issues with the President next week while he is in the area, and the Ohio River Bridges project will be one of those issues," Gov. Steve Beshear said in a written statement. So in other words……expect no real answer and the typical bureaucratic red tape on this one. Jones also has ideas on how to make up for any gap in costs between what his money, along federal and state funds, cannot cover: tolls. No, not trolls for the bridge (which could actually be helpful in their own special way), but tolls. Also standing in the way of the bridge is approval from the Federal Highway Administration and Congress before work can begin, so don’t expect concrete to be poured and foundations laid any time soon…………
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