Monday, October 28, 2013

Watch: Britney Spears Recites The Monologue From ‘Thriller’ On BBC Radio 1



Happy Halloween-ny!





Folks … I am about to share with you THE greatest Hallowe’en video of all time, possibly the greatest video of any kind of all time. Our dear Britney Spears paid a visit to BBC Radio 1 when she was in London, England a couple of weeks ago and she teamed up with Nick Grimshaw to produce the absolutely BEST thing you’ll see all day (or all LIFE). In grand dramatic fashion, Britney recites the spoken monologue from Michael Jackson‘s Thriller as a Hallowe’en gift to mankind. Epic doesn’t even come close to describing how life-changing this video is … from beginning to end. It’s Britney, Witch! Click the embed above to have your life altered forever for the better by watching this flawless Hallowe’en video from Britney to you!





Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pinkisthenewblog/~3/sJ9Sh2duoTk/watch-britney-spears-recites-the-monologue-from-thriller-on-bbc-radio-1
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10 Novels to a Better You

Illustration by Charlie Powell.

Illustration by Charlie Powell








Does reading fiction make you a better, less self-absorbed person? You read because you are interested in the broad sweep of human experience, and because you want to gain access into the narrow sanctum of specific otherness—to feel Anna Karenina’s recklessness and desperation, or know the shape and weight of Ahab’s obsession, and thereby something of humanity itself. But in order to make any headway with a novel, you need to grant yourself a leave of absence from human affairs, to sequester yourself in a place where you are sheltered from the demanding presence of other people. Opening a novel might be a kind of exposure to the world beyond the self, but it’s one that necessarily involves a foreclosure against it too. A life spent reading is, among other things, a life spent alone.














The idea that reading is an ethically salutary pursuit gets more appealing the more time you spend doing it. There’s something basically reassuring about the notion that you might be a better person—not just intellectually, but morally—for having read a lot of literature. I’ve just recently moved house, a large part of which undertaking involved the handling and sorting and packing and schlepping of books. As I took the books off the shelves and put them into cardboard boxes—and again as I took them out of those boxes and put them back on shelves in a different house—I found myself thinking about what all the time spent reading them added up to. A lot of these books I’ve forgotten almost everything about; all that is left to me of Oblomov, say, is a chubby Russian aristocrat in a dressing gown (was he even actually chubby?), and basically all I remember of Don DeLillo’s Libra is that it was about Lee Harvey Oswald and that it was brilliant. I found myself trying to quantify the residue of all this reading; what was it that it left behind, and how had it changed me, if at all? There was, surely, some cumulative effect, some way in which I could be said to be a better or wiser person for it. But all I could think, really, was: Christ, if all this reading has made me a better or wiser person, I’d hate to think what kind of monster I’d be without it.










Earlier this month, a research paper was published in the journal Science which put forward evidence that social skills are improved by the reading of fiction—and specifically the high-end stuff: the 19th-century Russians, the European modernists, the contemporary prestige names. The experiment, conducted by psychologists Emanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd, found that the subjects who read extracts from literary novels, and then immediately afterward took tests measuring empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence (looking at photos of people’s eyes and guessing what emotions they might be going through), performed significantly better on the tests than other subjects who read serious nonfiction or genre fiction. Their basic finding was that reading literary fiction, and literary fiction alone, temporarily enhances what’s known as Theory of Mind—the ability to imagine and understand the mental states of others.












The reaction to this was widespread and, as you’d expect, overwhelmingly pleased. Louise Erdrich, whose novel The Round House was used as an example of literary fiction in the experiment, was quoted in the New York Times’ report on the research. “This is why I love science,” she said; the psychologists had “found a way to prove true the intangible benefits of literary fiction.” Finally, science has given its approval to one of the literary world’s most cherished ideas about the value of literature. Even though the study only measured extremely short-term benefits of exposure to small amounts of literary fiction, it was largely taken to stand for a wider truth about the morally improving effects of the stuff, the notion that it makes you a better, more empathic person.










And this, obviously, is nothing new. Although the novel has, throughout its history, often been subject to a kind of self-reflexively ironic anxiety about the dangers of excessive investment in fiction (see Don Quixote, Northanger Abbey, and poor old Emma Bovary for further details), the consensus among writers has generally been that imagining ourselves into fictional minds and lives is something that increases our moral faculties—a practice that grows our capacity for empathic engagement with the minds and lives of actually existing other humans. Our modern concept of empathy comes from the German term einfühlung, which means “feeling into,” and it makes sense that we would associate this quality with the literary capacities of affective projection.


















Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/10/does_reading_fiction_make_you_a_more_empathic_better_person.html
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The Chemistry of Fear: A new video from the American Chemical Society

The Chemistry of Fear: A new video from the American Chemical Society


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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

28-Oct-2013



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Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society





With Halloween just a few days away, millions are flocking to horror films and haunted houses for their annual dose of terror. The latest video from the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Bytesize Science series uncovers the chemistry behind the spine-tingling sense of fear. The episode is available now at http://www.BytesizeScience.com.


"Fear is the expectation or the anticipation of possible harm We know that the body is highly sensitive to the possibility of threat, so there are multiple pathways that bring that fear information into the brain," explains Abigail Marsh, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Georgetown University. Marsh's research focuses on the neuroscience of fear and empathy in psychopaths, among other topics. In the video, she highlights the key brain chemicals and hormones involved in fear and the accompanying fight or flight response.


Marsh explains that the amygdala, an evolutionarily ancient part of the human brain, is the most important structure in the fear response. In a bonus video also available at http://www.BytesizeScience.com, Marsh tells the story of "SM," a woman without a functional amygdala who is quite literally fearless.


###

Subscribe to Bytesize Science on YouTube for more videos that uncover the chemistry in everyday life.


The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.


To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.



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The Chemistry of Fear: A new video from the American Chemical Society


[ Back to EurekAlert! ]

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

28-Oct-2013



[


| E-mail

]


Share Share

Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042
American Chemical Society





With Halloween just a few days away, millions are flocking to horror films and haunted houses for their annual dose of terror. The latest video from the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Bytesize Science series uncovers the chemistry behind the spine-tingling sense of fear. The episode is available now at http://www.BytesizeScience.com.


"Fear is the expectation or the anticipation of possible harm We know that the body is highly sensitive to the possibility of threat, so there are multiple pathways that bring that fear information into the brain," explains Abigail Marsh, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Georgetown University. Marsh's research focuses on the neuroscience of fear and empathy in psychopaths, among other topics. In the video, she highlights the key brain chemicals and hormones involved in fear and the accompanying fight or flight response.


Marsh explains that the amygdala, an evolutionarily ancient part of the human brain, is the most important structure in the fear response. In a bonus video also available at http://www.BytesizeScience.com, Marsh tells the story of "SM," a woman without a functional amygdala who is quite literally fearless.


###

Subscribe to Bytesize Science on YouTube for more videos that uncover the chemistry in everyday life.


The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.


To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.



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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/acs-tco102813.php
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Why USB Ports Could Be the Power Outlets of the (Very Near) Future

Why USB Ports Could Be the Power Outlets of the (Very Near) Future

There's a lot to love about USB. The plugs are small and convenient. The cable can carry both power and data. Plus, USB is, well, universal. This is why USB is considered by some to be the future of electricity. Smart grids, more convenient storage, solar power—according to a new Economist report it's all easier with USB.

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/SpPOGg2ZVqo/why-usb-ports-could-be-the-power-outlets-of-the-very-n-1450713482
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Death Becomes Whimsical On Dia De Los Muertos

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Mexican Day of the Dead holiday is a time to remember the dead and prepare for their visit. It's also a time for food and friends. With Dia de los Muertos just around the corner, learn how to make a pumpkin and ancho chile mole and the traditional dessert bread, pan de muerto.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NprProgramsATC/~3/EjDLuwsYHDs/death-becomes-whimsical-on-dia-de-los-muertos
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Last Vegas: Film Review


Star power counts for a helluva lot in Last Vegas, an amiable geezers comedy with an affecting emotional anchor. To call this the geriatric Hangover is both accurate and misleading, as the main fun here is not so much the broad humor as it is to watch five great old pros — Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and an entirely captivating Mary Steenburgen — imparting pleasure while obviously having it themselves. Although formulaic in design and programmed to meet its quota of laughs, the film makes a point of going beyond basic expectations into some legitimate aspects of mature friendships without getting soggy about it. CBS Films looks to make this visit to Vegas a profitable one.



All wearing their years quite well, thank you — Freeman is the oldest at 76, Kline the youngest at 66, while De Niro is 70 and Douglas 69 — the actors play friends who have known each other for nearly six decades, as glimpsed in a Brooklyn childhood prologue. Nowadays, Archie (Freeman) is a veteran of one stroke whose obsessively protective son holds him health hostage in his New Jersey home, Sam (Kline) is bored in early Florida retirement with his longtime spouse and Paddy (De Niro) no longer leaves his New York apartment after his beloved wife's death.


PHOTOS: 19 Action Stars Kicking Butt Past 50


By extreme contrast, ladies' man and successful Malibu attorney Billy (Douglas) willfully ignores the calendar but finally decides it's time to settle down — with a bride about a third his age. Despite reluctance on the part of Paddy, who says he hates Billy, the guys agree to meet in Vegas for a bachelor party on the Saturday night before Billy's Sunday wedding.


Screenwriter Dan Fogelman (Crazy, Stupid, Love.) delivers the requisite amount of old-age shtick (Sam's wife thoughtfully slips him an envelope containing a Viagra pill and a condom in the hope that some action will revitalize her husband), but quickly takes the story in a refreshingly unexpected direction with the introduction of Diana (Steenburgen), a wise and sassy lounge singer who's very frank about her availability as well as about the hope that Vegas will provide her with a satisfying next act to her life. She teases and engages with the guys, her sultry singing style is wonderful and develops a quick rapport with both Paddy and Billy that inadvertently revives the secret grudge that drove a wedge between them.


For his part, Sam attracts the attention of a drag queen (Roger Bart), while Archie's big winnings at blackjack occasion an upgrade into the hotel's most lavish suite, available now that 50 Cent has canceled for the weekend. Events naturally conspire for the boys to to use the enormous space to throw a wild party, in the course of which Archie shows off some smooth dance moves, Sam is forced to decide whether or not to use his wife's presents, and 50 Cent, in a cameo, shows up after all to demand that the music be turned down.


Director Jon Turteltaub's signal accomplishment here is to have created a congenial environment in which the actors could bond and have fun within proper boundaries. The foursome's approach to these uncomplicated characters is at once relaxed and alert, loose and quick on their toes; they're just darn good company for a couple of hours, both when they're rejecting the usual expectations to act their age but especially when they're working through emotional issues for which even decades of experience provide inadequate preparation.


In every instance, the long-buried feelings that fire the dynamics of the men's character arcs cut rewardingly across the sitcommy ways the guys are initially presented: Cranky stay-at-home Paddy evolves into a man afflicted with profound romantic angst; Archie's life-loving bonhomie asserts itself once he escapes his son's overbearing surveillance; Sam reverses course from premature calcification to libidinous reawakening, while Billy risks renewed conflict with Paddy to at long last look beyond a woman's surface charms and probe the potential of a mature romantic relationship. These may be obvious trajectories but they serve to invest a farcical context with plausible facsimiles of real people.


VIDEO: 'Last Vegas' Trailer: Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro Plan Their Own 'Hangover'


The actors are all great to watch. It may be that Freeman's work stands out simply because, since he's now most often cast in solemn, grave, not to say God-like roles, he hasn't cut loose like this in a long time; like his character, he should do it more often. At first it seems that Douglas as an L.A. playboy is just too obvious, but the sensitivity and soul that Diana ushers to the surface as Billy spends more time with her elicits many grace notes from the actor. While Kline's role could have benefited from more meat in the script, his impeccable timing makes you pine for more mature serio-comic roles for this acting wizard. De Niro morphs his stubborn Archie Bunker-like complainer into a hurt man with a couple of exceptional grievances.


And then there's Steenburgen's Diana. Her musical gifts draw you in first but her self-deprecating humor, wisdom of the ways of the world and fundamental optimism make her a keeper and deserving of heated competition among men. In her best film role in years, the actress delivers a fully realized character from the outset and deepens it into someone you really care about even in an essentially comic context.


Opens: Nov. 1 (CBS Films)
Production: Laurence Mark Productions
Cast: Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline, Mary Steenburgen, Jerry Ferrara, Romany Malco, Roger Bart
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Screenwriter: Dan Fogelman
Producers: Laurence Mark, Amy Baer
Executive producers: Nathan Kahane, Jeremiah Samuels, Lawrence Gray
Director of photography: David Hennings
Production designer: David J. Bomba
Costume designer: Dayna Pink
Editor: David Rennie
Music: Mark Mothersbaugh
PG-13 rating, 104 minutes


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/NM40bsdE48c/651139
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INSIGHT: Water, wealth and whites - S.Africa's potent anti-fracking mix


By Ed Cropley


NIEU-BETHESDA, South Africa (Reuters) - Stretching across the heart of South Africa, the Karoo has stirred emotions for centuries, a stunning semi-desert wilderness that draws artists, hunters and the toughest of farmers.


It is now rousing less romantic passions.


If energy companies and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) get their way, it will soon be home to scientists and geologists mapping out shale gas fields touted as game-changers for Africa's biggest economy, and working out whether fracking will work here.


As with other prospective sites around the world, especially in Europe, the process is meeting significant opposition, some of it thrown up by Mother Nature, some not. The result is likely to be a lengthy delay before any exploration starts.


Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves digging wells up to 4 kilometres (km) deep, then pumping in large amounts of water mixed with chemicals under high pressure to crack the shale rock and release the gas.


Not only does the Karoo have very little water - the mighty Kalahari desert lies just to its north - but the oil companies are up against a well-organised grass-roots lobby opposed to anything that could upset its fragile environment.


Amid the usual array of greens and "not in my back yard" campaigners sits South Africa's richest man, Cartier billionaire Johann Rupert, who is promising to take a legal fight up to the highest court if Pretoria rushes into granting exploration licences.


A lack of proper consultation with landowners over exploration, he and his legal team argue, has already violated property rights enshrined in the constitution.


They also say that a number of "significant unknowns" about fracking and the geology of the Karoo must be answered before any green light can be considered legally sound.


"We do need electricity. I'm not a troglodyte," Rupert, who is worth an estimated $6.6 billion, told Reuters this month after mining minister Susan Shabangu made clear she was keen to give the go-ahead.


"We just want to know that they are doing it in a safe way," he said. "If they do not abide by the law and by the constitution then we'll have to remind them that we do have a constitution."


Pro-fracking activists concede that a lengthy legal fight is inevitable.


"After the licence has been granted, there is going to be legal battle after legal battle after legal battle," said Vuyisile Booysen, chairman of the Karoo Shale Gas Community Forum.


GAS HUNT


The first formal interest in shale gas in the Karoo began in 2008, with an application for exploration rights - as yet ungranted - by Bundu Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Australia's Challenger Energy.


Shale really made the headlines three years later, when Shell applied for an exploration licence covering more than 95,000 square kilometres, almost a quarter of the Karoo.


An outcry from farmers and landowners including Rupert ensued, prompting the government to freeze all new and existing applications while it assessed the risks and rewards of allowing exploration and ultimately production to go ahead.


During that time, the pro-fracking lobby, led by Shell, has laid out its stall.


Its key argument is that technically recoverable gas reserves, estimated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration at 390 trillion cubic feet (tcf), could transform an economy that has always been a big oil and gas importer.


The estimate gives South Africa the world's eighth biggest shale reserves, with nearly two-thirds the deposits estimated in the United States.


A Shell-commissioned study by Cape Town-based consultancy Econometrix suggests extracting 50 tcf, or 12.8 percent of potential reserves, would add $20 billion or 0.5 percent of GDP to the economy every year for 25 years and create 700,000 jobs.


With an election in six months, that argument has gained traction, especially as the ruling ANC is struggling to come up with answers for the millions of impoverished black citizens for whom life has changed little in the two decades since apartheid.


"By embarking on this process presented by hydraulic fracturing for the production of shale gas, we bring the country a step closer to the achievement of our objectives," Shabangu said this month as revised minerals laws were submitted to parliament.


Shell and its effervescent South African chairman, Bonang Mohale, are convinced their charm offensive will work. He insists Shell will frack safely and with minimum intrusion.


"We will get the licence. You can see the frenetic work the government is doing," Mohale told Reuters. "Why would they go to so much work if the intent is not to properly regulate hydraulic fracturing?"


WHAT ABOUT THE WATER?


However, the fact remains that the Karoo's environment - particularly its water supply - is very fragile, and local suspicion runs high.


In Nieu-Bethesda, a village of 1,500 people some 750 km (470 miles) south of Johannesburg, the only permanent water supply since it was founded by frontiersmen in the mid-1800s has been a spring that wells up from deep within the surrounding mountains.


Any interruption to that spring's flow or quality and the town of Nieu-Bethesda risks dying out, making it an extreme example of the threat to water safety that has sparked concern at fracking sites around the world.


"Shell must stay away from here," said 59-year-old Molly Nikelo, an unemployed grandmother who supplements her meagre monthly state hand-out by cultivating a small plot of rare purple garlic for sale in expensive eateries in Durban.


"What about the water? It supplies everybody and only comes from one place. People drink it, wash in it and grow vegetables with it. I've drunk this water every day of my life and I've never been to hospital."


Emotions are also being stirred by the legacy of white-minority rule that has left a handful of wealthy whites in control of most of South Africa's land, and blacks in dead-end townships waiting for jobs that never arrive.


"It has become a very nasty racial issue," said Samuel Zakay, a church minister who came down against fracking after "considerable thought and prayer".


"People have accused us black ministers of siding with these rich white people," he told Reuters in Graaff-Reinet, a typical Karoo town of quaint, white-washed cottages and Cape Dutch-style buildings with their distinctive rounded gables.


The pro-fracking lobby are adamant that whites are going to have to give some ground for the greater good, but insist they have nothing to fear.


The people against this project are a few wealthy white residents "who fear losing out", according to Booysen, the pro-fracking activist. "But this is not Zimbabwe where you take farms without compensation. And we are also concerned about the environment. I live here as well, you know."


HIGH STAKES


For Shell too, the stakes are high.


Having missed out on the U.S. shale gas revolution, South Africa offers a catch-up play and if it can pull off the technology in the Karoo, the firm will be well-placed to tackle the shale gas lodestone - China.


The world's most populous nation has the biggest estimated reserves, at 1,115 tcf, most of it thought to sit beneath remote, semi-desert regions similar to the Karoo.


Analysts say Shell will likely be able to conquer the technological challenge of fracking in the Karoo, but some are less certain that it can make money out of it.


To minimise the visual impact and its physical footprint, Mohale says Shell is looking to build 32 wells on each 100-metre-by-100 metre fracking "pad", compared to the six wells per pad widely used in North Dakota in the United States.


It is also adamant it will not compete with people in the Karoo for water, but can avoid trucking it in - often several thousand trips are needed per well - by drilling down to brackish aquifers as much as 4 kilometres underground, sucking up the water, cleaning it, and then using it to frack.


However, all this pumping and purifying imposes significant costs, and the 10-year outlook for global gas prices is not in Shell's favour, analysts say.


"One of the things about shale is that it is a manufacturing process. It's not an exploration and production process," said Philip Verleger, an independent U.S. energy analyst.


"It doesn't work if you have to spend huge sums of money finding water, sand or other material."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-water-wealth-whites-africas-potent-anti-fracking-101350173.html
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