Very strange mass deaths of stingrays ... they said there were no signs that a zoo visitor affected the rays in the touchpool but that seems like the most likely thing if indeed there were no problems with filtration or temperature.

Quoted: Officials at the Calgary Zoo remained baffled on Tuesday as they tried to puzzle out just why 34 of their stingrays suddenly died.

The juvenile cownose stingrays, about the size of a dinner plate, were kept in a "petting" tank where visitors were able to touch them, a common feature in a number of North American zoos and aquariums, according to the zoo officials in the Western Canadian city.

I can't wait to hear the new album. I think T was playing Machine Gun the other night and I liked it. We saw Portishead play at the Paramount (I think) many years back.

Quoted: As Portishead finished its meticulously sparse evening performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the typically reticent Beth Gibbons suddenly leapt off the stage and ran a 100-yard dash along the fenced-in crowd, exuberantly shaking their hands. ...

After a ten-year hiatus, Portishead is back. This is not a reunion bow, though, but rather an energized reboot of a band that ten years ago found itself burnt out from a rock 'n' roll life and creatively kaput after the success of their enormously popular 1994 trip-hop debut "Dummy" and their 1997 self-titled follow-up.

This sounds like crap. Determining genetic mutations from stone carvings and statues? Why don't we consider that there was some artistic license taken? Or should we next determine that the anubis carvings were real people that had the mexican wolf boy mutation? Crap.

Quoted: Akhenaten wasn't the most manly pharaoh, even though he fathered at least a half-dozen children. In fact, his form was quite feminine. And he was a bit of an egghead.

Nothing like rubbing salt in a widow's wounds ... and I think that "coupled with the state's current budget difficulties" should actually read "coupled with the multi-millionaire status of the missing man".

Quoted: CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Gov. Jim Gibbons plans to bill the widow of adventurer Steve Fossett for the unsuccessful recovery search.

Last year, the state spent $687,000 over a month looking for the multimillionaire adventurer after his plane disappeared in northern Nevada. During a month-long search, ground crews, the Nevada National Guard and the Civil Air Patrol scoured a 20,000 square-mile area, but turned up no sign of Fossett or his plane.

"We believe that while this is not a common practice, the extraordinary costs of the search, coupled with the state’s current budget difficulties, warrant the request. The exact process the state will go through to make this request is still to be determined," said Gibbon's press secretary, Ben Kieckhefer.

It's kind of sad to have this historical mystery solved once and for all. It was more fun to imagine a secret royal blood line out there. I guess I'll just have to stick to reading historical fiction.

Quoted: DNA tests carried out by a U.S. laboratory prove that remains exhumed last year belong to two children of Czar Nicholas II, putting to rest questions about what happened to Russia's last royal family, a regional governor said Wednesday.

This is good news not only because Ian McKellen was a perfect Gandalf but because it seems to imply that Guillermo del Toro is going to keep a similar feel in the Hobbit movies as there was in the first trilogy.

Quoted: British actor Ian McKellen will reprise the role of the wizard Gandalf in the upcoming movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" he told a film magazine.

This was one of my favorite movies as a kid but I'm not sure that it will have the same intensity with The Rock in the remake.

Quoted: Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann, the original kid stars of Disney's 1970s "Witch Mountain" movies, are coming back for the studio's re-imagining of the adventure tales.

This could be awesome or it could be really, really bad ...

Quoted: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Saturday Night Live veteran Jimmy Fallon will take Conan O'Brien's place on NBC next year when O'Brien succeeds Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, a person familiar with the deal said on Thursday.

Haha! Down with Pinkberry! (not that I've ever had it but they just seem annoying to me.)

Quoted: The Pinkberry chain reveals what exactly is in its yogurt.