'Hogwarts' Dragon Unveiled

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

May 23, 2006 — A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter's alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque.

The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived about 66 million years ago in South Dakota, just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs. But its flat, almost storybook-style dragon head has overturned everything paleontologists thought they knew about the dome-head dinos called pachycephalosaurs.

"What you knew about pachycephalosaurs -- you can chuck it," said Spencer Lucas, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.

"Dracorex hogwartsia is a rather fantastic new dinosaur," affirmed paleontologist Robert Sullivan of the State Museum of Pennsylvania.

s for how it got its name? A group of children at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis drew the connection to the fanciful school of witchcraft that the famous fictional wizard Harry Potter attends and came up with the name hogwartsia..

"It's a very dragon-like looking dinosaur," said Sullivan.

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has been notified and apparently rather likes the new name.

"I am absolutely thrilled to think that Hogwarts has made a small claw mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs," said Rowling, according to a museum press release. "I happen to know more on the subject of paleontology than many might credit, because my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed and I am now living with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three.

Bar tables to mess with the drunks :-)

Cool tables... Go watch the videos. I'm not sure how these tables are made, bu they are very cool. My favorites are the fire and spin tables which have moving fire or a spin effect like watching a toy spin around when hands, feet or beer bottles are placed over or on it. I would NOT drink in the bar that has these, but I would love to be the designated driver :-)

http://www.freeset.ca/hldemo_nightclub/

Robots will rule the world someday!

From http://techdirt.com

Robot Performs Heart Surgery, Will Surgeons' Union Go On Strike?
from the scalpel-please dept
Score one for medical technology. The first heart surgery performed solely by a robot took place in Italy this week, while doctors in the US monitored its progress. The robot already had experience from 10,000 human-guided surgeries, data from which it can now reference on its own. In this way, the machine is like an advanced chess computer, onto which trainers can load millions of games for it to reference in game situations. Though doctors are among the biggest costs in healthcare, and technology like this could certainly help save money, we can expect surgeons to fight tooth and nail from letting robots encroach on their territory. They'll claim, much like top chess players do, that surgery is part art and that a robot could never match the performance of a human. Of course, robots don't get tired after a long day, stressed out, lose concentration, or have any of the other human traits that affect the quality of surgery. And while doctors make mistakes all the time, robots will be held to a higher standard; after one mistake, there will be calls to curtail their use in medicine. With all due respect, many surgeons are like plumbers who work on an extremely complicated system of pumps and valves -- in both cases, technology is reducing the value of their labor.

It's not over until the disgraced president sings

By Michael Conlon
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A dozen years after his death and more than three decades after he left the White House in disgrace, Richard Nixon is alive as never before in the grand opera world, which can't seem to get enough of the him.
"Nixon in China," the John Adams' opera first staged in 1987, is in the midst of a new wave of popularity and performances, the latest being a triumphal turn on the stage of the Chicago Opera Theater where it opened May 19.

This is kinda cool. I have always been facinated by Nixon and would love to see there take on his very rocky presidency. Maybe they will tour the US soon... lol, yeah right :-)

The Prisoner is coming back!!!!

Wow!!!! This is one of my fovorite shows of all time! It's very campy, but had some wild concepts in it too. Even today the island resort where the show was filmed is a major tourist attraction. To make this better... I read @ http://sliceofscifi.com that the new Doctor Who is going to be in the lead! This news just keeps getting better and better for me. Now hopefully SciFi cannel picks it up when first out and I won't have to fly to the UK to tape it ;-)