A new epidemic?

Possible bad news coming from China:

Several Chinese media have recently reported that the Department of Health of Guangdong Province has confirmed that people in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong have fallen ill after being infected with an unknown virus. The patients think they have AIDS, but they test negative for HIV.

[…]

In most of the 30 cases investigated by New Express Daily for its March 24 report, people said their relatives and friends are also infected. Most of the 30 patients were infected through sexual contact. Some experts diagnosed them as having AIDS phobia.

However, the disease seems to be highly contagious and can spread by contact via any bodily fluid—through kissing, shared utensils, sweat, and even protected sex. Once infected, the immune system appears to be attacked, which results in a decrease of white blood cells and the body’s ability to defend against infectious disease and foreign materials.

More here.

The miracle of life

Amazing video:

In Memoriam

Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)

One of the greatest directors the world ever had, Sidney Lumet directed several of the best movies of all time.  He was also nominated for Best Director a total of five times, albeit never winning the prized little statue.  He did receive an Honorary Oscar in 2005, arguably making up for being passed over so many times before.

Among my favorite of his movies I’d list 12 Angry Men (his motion picture directorial debut!!), Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express and Deathtrap.

His talent will be sorely missed.

Animal sweetness

This video is simply adorable:

Mars Needs Moms

We took the kids to see this much maligned movie after reading largely positive reviews and I was ultimately satisfied.

After having watched a couple motion-capture animated movies I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the medium.  Motion-capture attempts to capture the facial expressions of real actors playing animated characters, but honestly the results are hardly worth the trouble.  Given the impressive results that digital animation is able to achieve (like in the recent Toy Story 3 or How to Train Your Dragon), I wonder why bother with this technique?

The fluidity of the characters’ movements isn’t any better than what you get with regular animation, or is arguably worse.  Are the characters’ facial resemblance to their actors actually supposed to make a difference?  If so, I don’t get it.  If I want to see that particular actor, I’ll go see a live action movie with him in it, period.

Anyway, Mars Needs Moms tells the story of a little kid who witnesses his mother’s abduction and embarks on a big adventure on the red planet to free her.  The screenplay is good and the technical aspect, apart from my own personal indifference towards the medium, quite good as well.

There’s actually a moment towards the end when I couldn’t believe they would actually go where I thought they were going, so I’d say the movie is pretty good.

Grade: 7

Episodes

If you’re looking for a smart comedy series, give Showtime’s Episodes a try.

I never watched NBC’s Friends, but from what I gathered Matt LeBlanc’s character, Joey, was the resident fool, a type I hardly like (Seinfeld’s Kramer was my least favorite of the quartet).  Because of that, I approached this new series expecting to get turned off pretty quickly, but I loved it right away.

Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig, who play Sean and Beverly, the British couple at the center of the show, are adorable and hysterical, but LeBlanc was a pleasant discovery as well (he plays himself on the show).

Each episode in the series follows Sean and Beverly’s struggle to adapt their wildly successful British comedy for a radically different American audience.

This show actually reminded me of HBO’s The Comeback, which featured another one of Friends’ alumni, the awesome Lisa Kudrow, and that unfortunately only ran for one season.

I totally recommend this show.

Grade – Season 1: 8

The power of evolution

Articles like these always reinforce my belief in science and the theory of evolution, and they invariably make me wonder how in the world some people can just ignore these scientifically proven facts in favor of two-thousand year old man-made books:

Scientists have identified a clutch of subtle genetic changes that have shaped our minds and bodies into the unique form that sets humans apart from chimpanzees and the rest of the animal kingdom.

The work by researchers in the US represents a landmark in a search that has occupied philosophers and scientists for millennia and one that goes to the heart of understanding what it means to be human.

The findings offer up the humbling conclusion that the secret of human success may owe more to what we lost along the path of evolution, rather than anything we gained.

When the human genome was first deciphered more than a decade ago, some scientists expected to find extra genes that explained why humans had an intellectual edge over their closest living relatives and other species. But since diverging from chimpanzees around seven million years ago, it turns out that our human ancestors lost several hundred snippets of DNA, which together led to traits that are uniquely human, the researchers claim.

In ditching these chunks of DNA, our ancient ancestors lost facial whiskers and short, tactile spines on their penises. The latter development is thought to have paved the way for more intimate sex and monogamous relationships. The loss of other DNA may have been crucial in allowing humans to grow larger brains.

[...]

One missing section of DNA was found to block a gene that, in other animals, stifles the growth of brain cells. Losing that DNA may have been a pivotal moment in human development, as it allowed parts of the human brain to expand into the most complex organ known.

There’s a lot more interesting information in the full article.

Baby Shower!!

A new baby giraffe was born over the weekend at the Cleveland Zoo.  So touching:

Bill Maher Rules!!

I absolutely, wholeheartedly love this man and his reasoning:

Stop the bullies! Stand up for the bullied.

A beautiful video message from Ireland: