Much Ado About Frodo

Hobbit or Human?

from Sploid

Spoilsport scientists have challenged the theory that the tiny skeleton from Indonesia dubbed the "Hobbit" is a new human species. Instead, they say that it may have been a modern human with a brain disorder.

The creature is believed to have stood just 3 feet tall, and had a brain the size of a chimp. Skeptical scientists say that's too small to give the brain power needed to create the tools found at the site.

"There is a fundamental problem of the tiny brain size combined with the sophisticated stone tools," according to biologist Professor Robert Martin.

Martin and his associates are claiming that the skull is not that of a newly-discovered but extinct species. Instead, they think it is a modern human afflicted with microcephaly, a genetic disorder which causes a smaller than normal brain and head size.

Meanwhile, the Aussie co-discoverer of the Hobbit has dismissed the criticism. Dr Peter Brown says the debunking scientists are making a big mistake in looking at just the one skeleton. As he points out, there are actually skeletal remains of multiple Hobbits from a range of different times, which would seem to rule out the brain disorder theory.

Martin's answer is that the other remains do not include a skull. "It's perfectly plausible that these were pygmy people," he says. "But there's only one skull, and that is human and microcephalic."

However, Brown claims there is other supporting evidence to back his claim which is being ignored, and says the reason why the Hobbit theory is coming under attack is simple - it challenges ingrained beliefs. "Some people see exactly what they want to see, for a variety of reasons," he explains.

The Hobbit has been a controversial discovery because scientists think the remains are from as little as 12,000 years ago, a time when Neanderthals and our other cousins had all died out. Its discoverers believe it may have lived in a miniature 'lost world', inhabited not only by Hobbit-sized people but also dwarf elephants. They also believe they may have been the first Australians.

Cryptozoologists and scientists alike have also suggested that the discovery of the creature may be a boost to the search for Bigfoot. Locals in the area have myths about short, furry people living in the jungle, much like modern America has myths about very tall, furry people.

"You pick a country and there's either large Bigfoot and Yetis, or small leprechauns and Yowies, depending on which part of the world you're in," says Brown. "On Flores there is a mythical human-like animal called Ebu Gogo, known for small body size, inarticulate speech and an unusual bipedal gait."

Even the editor of the prestigious journal Nature, Henry Gee agrees. "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth," he says. "Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."

Star Wars TV? Don't Hold Your Breath...

Star Wars Television Series Light Years Away

from Cinescape

In an interview with If Magazine, producer Rick McCallum mentioned that a Star Wars live action TV series appears to still be a ways away. The show will be set in between Episode III and Episode IV and contain all new characters.

"We're interviewing writers, and seeing a lot of people, but I would say it wouldn't be happening for about eighteen months," McCallum said. "Don't believe a single thing [you've heard]. It happens between Episode III and Episode IV. It will be all new characters. It will be the missing twenty-year period during Luke growing up. Think about bounty hunter, that's all I can tell you. It's no one else that you will know. It's really early stages, and we haven't sat down to decide what direction to go."

McCallum also mentioned that the animated Star Wars TV show was about a year away and would follow on from where Star Wars: Clone Wars left off.

Those Seven Minutes...

Sounds Like Brundlefly Syndrome...If Their Genitals Drop Off, Be Afraid - Very Afraid

Docs Won't Treat Horrible Illness

from Sploid

A horrific disease is eating its way across the South. It causes black beads of sweat, painful black hairs and tiny bugs to come out of your skin. If you're lucky you only suffer from open sores. It makes a staph infection seem like a picnic.

"It really has the makings of a horror movie in every way," says Ginger Savely, a nurse practitioner in Austin, Texas. She's one of the few people trying to help.

Morgellons Disease has been spreading across Texas, California and Florida of late. Nothing can stop it. More than 1,000 people report having the disease, despite skepticism from the medical community.

Leitao got the name from "A Letter to a Friend" by Sir Thomas Browne. In it Browne tells of "endemial distemper of children in Languedoc, called the morgellons, wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs."
The illness was named by Mary Leitao, a trained biologist and chemist, whose son was stricken in 2002.

To make matters worse, most doctors refuse to treat the mysterious ailment.

"They (doctors) told me I was just doing this to myself, that I was nuts. So basically I stopped going to doctors because I was afraid they were going to lock me up," sufferer Stephanie Bailey said.

Savely says she understands why.

"Believe me, if I just randomly saw one of these patients in my office, I would think they were crazy too," Savely said. "But after you've heard the story of over 100 (patients) and they're all -- down to the most minute detail -- saying the exact same thing, that becomes quite impressive."

Dr. Adelaide Hebert maintains that these folks are nuts.

"Many of these patients do have delusion of parasitosis," Dr. Hebert said. "It is actually not uncommon to have patients come in and describe the sensation that something is crawling on their skin."

But this arrogant dismissal doesn't address the sores or hairs or worms.

"I was so humiliated from the three doctors that I went to, that I just refused to go back," said on patient.

When You Alone Know What's Best, It's Hard Not To Be Smug. Take Goerge...

George Lucas Says Indiana's Next Crack Of The Whip Will Be Tamer

from MTV

NEW YORK — George Lucas is looking for a lot more than just fortune and glory these days.

Contrary to how Hollywood usually hypes its blockbusters, the writer/producer says Indiana Jones' next adventure actually won't be any louder, bigger or faster than his last one. In fact, if Lucas gets his way (hint: he usually does), the Jones sequel will prize dialogue over decibels.

"I think Tom Cruise proved that people are getting bored with that kind of stuff," Lucas said Monday at a Jazz at Lincoln Center dinner celebrating Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people. "What they want to see is something different. And Indiana Jones, if nothing else, is always different."

And Lucas is, if nothing else, reliably vague. He's not yet ready to give up the treasure trove of what lurks in the plot for the first Indiana Jones movie since 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, except to say the script is finally done and the flick will "probably" start shooting next year.

"We're working on it, we're working on it," Lucas said. "We've been working on it for 10 years. I think it'll be a great film, but it's completely different. It's still got a lot of action, and it's still very funny. I think it works like crazy."

Lucas added that he's still working on his Star Wars 3-D theatrical project as well, but when asked when it might come out, he laughed. "I don't know!" he said. "Eventually. We're working on that technology, seeing if we can get that to work out."

Until then, he says he's curious to see what the reception will be for the upcoming limited-edition DVD release of the three original Star Wars films. "It's just the original versions, as they were," Lucas said. "We didn't do anything to it at all. But we're not sure how many people want that."

You might say quite a few, considering how many fans were angered by the digitized, expanded updates of episodes IV, V and VI. Lucas claims he's not re-releasing the originals to appease fans, but rather to bate them. "Now we'll find out whether they really wanted the original or whether they wanted the improved versions," he said. "It'll all come out in the end."

The Sorcerer/Monk - As Close to X-Man As D&D Gets

Which D&D Class Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

2. You are on your own, feared by friends and misunderstood by family. Yes!
45. Your magic comes from the heart. Yes!
55. Your spiritual path is innerdirected. Yes!

You scored as Sorcerer.

Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice. They have no books, no mentors, no theories - just raw power that they direct at will.

Sorcerer		100%
Monk		90%
Barbarian		60%
Rogue		60%
Bard		60%
Cleric		50%
Fighter		40%
Wizard		40%
Paladin		30%
Druid		30%
Ranger		20%

Austin Powers vs. IG-88

Myers Rises Up for Robot

from Sci-Fi Wire

Paramount Pictures has attached Mike Myers to star in its SF spoof movie How to Survive a Robot Uprising, Variety reported. Myers reteams with his Austin Powers producer Michael De Luca on the movie, which is based on a tongue-in-cheek manual by Daniel H. Wilson, a doctoral candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

Paramount bought the book last year and set Reno 911 creators Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant to write the script. Myers will play the lead character, a technical administrator who has the thankless job of sounding warnings against the growing presence of robots and researching ways to keep those robots from taking over.

X-Bits

Ratner Reveals X3 Moments

from Sci-Fi Wire

Brett Ratner, director of the upcoming SF sequel X-Men: The Last Stand, told SCI FI Wire that the third installment in the hit comic franchise is loaded with both huge set pieces and quieter, more reflective character moments.

"The megamovie moment is in the trailer, and that's ripping the [Golden Gate] Bridge out of the ground and moving it," Ratner said in an interview. "That's a mega-mega-mega-movie moment. Even I'm blown away when I see it. The pieces that it took, that we shot, to get that to work—from the plates to the sky shots to the making of the bridge in miniature to CG enhancements to real elements of people running—it was insane. There must be 20 different elements to make one shot of the bridge look real. So, as far as technology is concerned, that's a major mega-moment in cinema. I'm telling you, my mouth drops when I see the final shots."

As for a quieter moment? Ratner pointed to a spoiler scene between Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and a pre-Dark Phoenix Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). "Wolverine is looking at Jean after she's come back," Ratner said. "They're in the infirmary, and he's looking down at her. It's a great moment, because you see that he loves her. He's staring at her with love, because he doesn't know if she's going to live or die, and all of a sudden she grabs his hand. That's reminiscent of [a similar scene in] the first movie, when he grabbed her after he'd been unconscious, when she was looking at him, in a different way, of course. But that, I thought, was a beautiful moment."

X-Men: The Last Stand opens on May 26.

Avengerpalooza

Favreau Helming Iron Man

from Sci-Fi Wire

Jon Favreau is set to direct Marvel Studios' live-action movie Iron Man, which will now be distributed by Paramount, part of a slate of directing and writing deals Marvel announced, Variety reported. Iron Man is Marvel's top priority and will be written by Arthur Marcum and Matt Hollaway (Convoy).

Marvel is developing the titles, which it will independently finance out of a $525 million fund from Merrill Lynch. All of the films will be distributed by Paramount under an existing service agreement, except for The Incredible Hulk, a sequel to 2003's Hulk.

The second Hulk movie, meanwhile, is proceeding despite the first film's lackluster performance at the box office. Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand) will pen the script. Universal, which handled the first Hulk, would distribute the follow-up.

David Self (Road to Perdition) has been tapped to pen the long-awaited feature version of Captain America.

Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) will direct and co-write with Joe Cornish the feature film Ant Man, with a comedic twist.

Andrew Marlowe (Hollow Man) will write the script for Nick Fury, based on Marvel's military super spy.

Mark Protosevich (Poseidon) will pen Thor.

Marvel hasn't committed to put any of the films into production yet, though it's hoping to release the first one by 2008.

Reservoir Fuckin' Dogs!...with Cute Widdle Bun-Buns!

Pull up a chair and help yourself to a slice of ear...

And for you muthersucking little crybabies with your sensitive pussy-ass ears, the cocksucking "bleeped" version...

Coming Soon: Casablanca (5/16), The Ring, Office Space, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman: The Movie, Caddyshack, and Rocky.

Jar-Jar May Require Three Probes...

Other Ideas for Star Wars Box-Sets

from Boing Boing

To commemorate George Lucas's long-awaited release of the original version of the first Star Wars trilogy, net-funnyguy Lore Sjöberg bats around some ideas for other box-sets that Lucas can mine our pockets with:

The 8-Year-Old Edition
One of the reasons thirtysomethings get so pissy about Lucas' crimes against continuity is that what they really want is the original sense of wonder, joy and possibility that the movie instilled in them before a deadening, crushing world sucked it right back out again. This edition comes with a brain probe that turns you into an 8-year-old again, at least mentally. You'll watch the entire movie with your mouth wide open, then you'll run around the house making lightsaber noises during the credits. As an added bonus, if you apply the probe twice, you'll turn into a 4-year-old, which will allow you to enjoy the jokes in The Phantom Menace.

Special Agent Hammerhead

Pentagon mulling 'stealth sharks' to patrol the seas: New Scientist

from AFP

PARIS - The Pentagon is reportedly funding research into neural implants with the ultimate hope of turning sharks into "stealth spies" capable of gliding undetected through the ocean.

According to the British weekly New Scientist, the research builds on experimental work to control animals by implanting tiny electrodes in their brain, which are then stimulated to induce a behavioral response.

"The Pentagon hopes to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide quietly through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails," says the report, carried in next Saturday's New Scientist.

"By remotely guiding the sharks' movements they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted."

The unusual project is being funded by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which pioneered the Internet as a platform for robust communications.

Scientists involved in the scheme presented their work last week at a meeting on Ocean Sciences in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to the report.

A team at Boston University have implanted electrodes into the brain of a spiny dogfish in a shallow tank.

The implants, controlled by a small radio transmitter, stimulate either the right or left side of a brain area dedicated to smell, causing the fish to flick around in that direction in response to the signal.

The next step will be to take this device outside the laboratory. Blue sharks implanted with the gadget are to be released off the coast of Florida.

As radio signals will not penetrate the sea, communications with the fish will be made through US Navy acoustic towers capable of sending sonar signals to a shark up to 300 kilometers (187 miles) away.

Other DARPA-funded researchers are working on using implants to record brain activity in sharks in order to understand which neurons are fired by scents, electrical or magnetic fields.

These signals help the fish to navigate and offer the reward of food, and could thus in theory be manipulated for surveillance work.

New Scientist says the DARPA work is controversial, but also points out that work with animal implants also has a potential benefit for medicine.

Understanding more about the brain's electrical signals could one day result in implants to control a prosthetic limb to overcome paralysis.

What, No Radar? No Telepathy?! No Spidey-Sense?!? Any 'Religion' That Doesn't Offer Precognition at a Reasonable Price Is Simply a 'Cult'

Scientology Nearly Ready To Unveil Super Power

from St. Petersburg Times

CLEARWATER, Florida - Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry.

He heightened his powers of perception in 1995 when he went to Los Angeles and became the first and so far only "public" Scientologist to take a highly classified Scientology program called Super Power.

Where in L.A. did he do this?

"Just in Los Angeles," is all Feshbach will say. Super Power is that secret.

Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being prepped for its eventual rollout in Scientology's massive building in downtown Clearwater. That will be the only place worldwide where the program, much anticipated by Scientologists, will be offered.

A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one's perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard taught that people have 57 "perceptics." They include an ability to discern relative sizes, blood circulation, balance, compass direction, temperature, gravity and an "awareness of importance, unimportance."

Church officials won't discuss specifics of Super Power. But Feshbach and another prominent Clearwater Scientologist who, like Feshbach, is a major donor to Super Power's building fund, provided some details in interviews with the St. Petersburg Times. A group of former Scientologists who worked for the church on a campus in California where the program was in development also described elements of it.

Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person's so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction, said the former Scientologists.

A video screen that moves forward and backward while flashing images is used to hone a viewer's ability to identify subliminal messages, they said.

Hubbard promised Super Power would improve perceptions and "put the person into a new realm of ability." He believed it would unlock abilities needed to spread Scientology across the planet.

For Feshbach it's like nothing he has ever done in Scientology.

"I got it. I loved it," he gushed.

Feshbach, 52, and his two brothers became famous in investment circles during the 1980s as the kings of short selling stocks - essentially betting which stocks will tank. At one point, the California-based Feshbach Bros. managed $1-billion for clients.

Feshbach now lives in Belleair, where his wife, Kathy, runs a Scientology mission. Because he donated millions to the Super Power building fund, he was invited to undergo the program.

It's geared toward creating a "more competent spiritual being," he said. "I'm not dependant on my physical body to perceive things."

He offered this anecdote:

He had just finished his perceptics training and was at the Los Angeles airport, preparing to fly home to the Tampa Bay area. He stood at a crosswalk with perhaps 20 others, including a woman and her son, an antsy boy 6 or 7 years old.

As the light turned green, the boy bolted into the street, ahead of his mother. Feshbach perceived a pickup bearing down on the boy, driven by a young woman.

He yelled and saved the boy's life by a quarter of an inch, he said.

Coincidence? Feshbach doesn't think so. No one else saw the pickup, he says. He believes that, through the Super Power program, he elevated his perceptive abilities beyond those of the others at that crosswalk. His enhanced perceptions have played out numerous times since, he said.

Super Power takes "weeks, not months" to complete, said Feshbach. He would not discuss the specific machines and drills that former Scientologists said are used to enhance perceptions.

The perceptics portion of Super Power is one of 12 "rundowns" in the full program, Feshbach said. But it clearly is a key aspect.

Details of Super Power training have been kept secret even from church members. Like much of Scientology training, details aren't revealed until one pays to take the course.

Asked about Super Power, church spokesman Ben Shaw provided a written statement: "Super Power is a series of spiritual counseling processes designed to give a person back his own viewpoint, increase his perception, exercise his power of choice, and greatly enhance other spiritual abilities."

Shaw would not say how much the program will cost. Upper levels of Scientology training can run tens of thousands of dollars.

He declined to provide further insight into Super Power. "It's not something I'm willing to provide to you in any manner," Shaw said.

Scientologist Ron Pollack, who donated $5-million to the Super Power fund after making millions in hedge funds in the 1990s, said he got a sneak peek. The head of fundraising for the project showed him a photo of "some high-tech thing" developed by engineers in Southern California that offers different aromas on demand. It's for a drill to enhance one's sense of smell, he said.

Pollack said he has no idea how Super Power will be set up, but is excited about the parts on ethics and perceptics, which he likened to a "trip to Disney."

Former Scientologists Bruce Hines and Chuck Beatty, once staffers at the church's international base in Hemet, Calif., said that while on punishment detail, they made chairs of various sizes - ones big enough for a giant, others too small even for a child - that were set up in a room designed to hone one's sense of relative sizes.

Hines also said the Super Power program, which Hubbard wanted rolled out in 1978, met with delays during the 20-plus years that it was being piloted on church staffers.

One setback occurred when the church checked back on the staffers who had been through Super Power. It turned out, Hines said, many had left the church - hardly the expected outcome.

"The fact that it was around in 1978 and it's still not worked out 28 years later, that's pretty significant," Hines said.

Hines, who said he once performed Scientology's core practice of auditing on celebrity Scientologists Kirstie Allie, Anne Archer and Nicole Kidman (she no longer is a Scientologist), worked at the California facility until 1993 and left the church staff in 2003. He and other ex-Scientology staffers are convinced that church brass delayed completion of the big building in Clearwater because the Super Power program was not finished. The exterior was completed three years ago, then construction stopped.

"The building was getting done faster than the tech program itself," said Karen Pressley, a former church staffer at the same California campus, who left the church in 1998.

"This is a flap of magnitude in Scientology management," Pressley said.

Shaw said those ex-members are just wrong.

"These people know absolutely nothing" about the Super Power pilot, he said.

Scientology processes are technical and cannot be understood out of context, Shaw said. "If someone is interested in Scientology, they should read a book and find out for themselves what Scientology is and thus begin their own spiritual journey," Shaw said.

Super Power is ready, he said, and 300 staff members are being trained to deliver it.

Construction delays in Clearwater, Shaw said, are due to a recent explosion of church expansion worldwide. The church has spent hundreds of millions to purchase and renovate properties. Last year, it purchased nearly 1-million square feet of buildings in 18 cities around the world.

That expansion, by far the largest in church history, diverted the church's attention, he said. Plus, he said, Scientology leaders have been compelled to redesign the building's interior repeatedly to make it a crown jewel.

The Super Power program will be ready to go the moment the new building is completed, he said. Scientology officials promise that will be 2007.

Scientology's 57 Senses
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's list of 57 perceptics. Words in parentheses are his:

Time
Sight
Taste
Color
Depth
Solidity (barriers)
Relative sizes (external)
Sound
Pitch
Tone
Volume
Rhythm
Smell
Touch (pressure, friction, heat or cold and oiliness)
Personal emotion
Endocrine states
Awareness of awareness
Personal size
Organic sensation (including hunger)
Heartbeat
Blood circulation
Cellular and bacterial position
Gravitic (self and other weights)
Motion of self
Motion (exterior)
Body position
Joint position
Internal temperature
External temperature
Balance
Muscular tension
Saline content of self (body)
Fields/magnetic
Time track motion
Physical energy (personal weariness, etc.)
Self-determinism
Moisture (self)
Sound direction
Emotional state of other organs
Personal position on the tone scale*
Affinity (self and others)
Communication (self and others)
Reality (self and others)
Emotional state of groups
Compass direction
Level of consciousness
Pain
Perception of conclusions (past and present)
Perception of computation (past and present)
Perception of imagination (past and present)
Perception of having perceived (past and present)
Awareness of not knowing
Awareness of importance, unimportance
Awareness of others
Awareness of location and placement (masses, spaces and location itself)
Kinesthesia
Perception of appetite

Can the Trek XI Concept Get Any Worse? Answer in Four Words: BenAffleckAsKirk

'Fascinating! To answer your question, Captain: No, they are not shitting you.'

More News On Star Trek XI

from Cinescape

A few days ago Cinescape was sent an interesting tidbit regarding the possible casting for Star Trek XI:

...some others had heard that Ben [Affleck] has also been talking to Paramount about possibly playing a lead role in a new Star Trek film from J.J Abrams. Apparently Abrams is coming down to visit the set in a few weeks, to visit Michelle Monaghan, whom he directed in Mission: Impossible 3, so that might add some more fuel to the fire. If it comes off, he's apparently playing the hero. Don't know if that's Captain Kirk or some other nameless male protagonist...but that's the gist of it. So possible that Affleck's going to go onto doing a new Jack Ryan, and possibly a Trek, after he finishes with this film.

Today it seems a little more information has come out, this time a bit more concrete and much less sketchy.

The folks over at IESB recently caught up with Greg Gunberg. Gunberg has shown up in various projects helmed by Star Trek's possible director J.J. Abrams and he had a few interesting comments regarding the upcoming film (Abrams is writing the script and has an option to direct).

He was first asked if he was interested in playing a role in Star Trek XI, to which he responded, "I have to see...check my schedule. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?! I'd love to be in that movie."

Later on IESB asked Gunberg about the possibility of re-casting Kirk and Spock. Gunberg's reply, "Well, they have to - we're going back in time. I think it's like the beginnings, it's when they were young, so they're going to have to. I just think it's interesting: J.J., you know, here he is, he took the Mission Impossible franchise and humanized it - and I think he's going to do the same thing, you know, for Star Trek, certainly. And he's writing with Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci], I mean, they all wrote Mission together. It's going to be incredible. You know it's going to be great. I think that's what's going to reinvigorate - you know, the Star Trek fans are gonna go see it; half of them are going to hate the fact that they're bringing them back, and half are going to love it. But, J.J.'s just going to bring in a whole new audience, you know, to it."

Back in time eh?

The interview is in video format, and you can watch it here.

Warcraft: The Movie

World of Warcraft Becomes Cinematic

from Dark Horizons

On the eve of the E3 convention, Warners-based Legendary Pictures has acquired movie rights to Blizzard's award-winning World of Warcraft video game series and plans to produce a live-action film based on the hugely popular property reports the trades.

The Warcraft game series, of which there are four titles, began in 1994. The current incarnation, a multi-player online universe, has over six million subscribers participating. In terms of popularity, only the Grand Theft Auto and Halo franchises rival that scale.

The movie would not follow one of the games but rather be set in the epic fantasy universe, which includes orcs, trolls, elves and the undead.

Headless Horseman Surfaces Near Greece

Greek Fisherman Nets Ancient Statue

from The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece - A Greek fisherman has handed over to authorities a large section of an ancient bronze statue brought up in his nets in the Aegean Sea, officials said on Monday.

The male torso was located last week near the eastern Aegean island of Kalymnos, the Culture Ministry said in an announcement.

The three-foot high find belonged to a statue of a horseback soldier, and would have been part of the cargo of an ancient ship that sank in the area. It was taken to Athens to be cleaned and dated.

Together with the torso, the fisherman brought up two small bronze pieces believed to belong to the statue, and a wine-jar from the ancient city of Knidos — in what is now Turkey — dating from the first century B.C, the ministry said.

The seas around Kalymnos are rich in ancient wrecks and have yielded several impressive finds in recent years, including a large female statue now exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. The fisherman who netted it in 1995 earned a $558,000 reward from the Culture Ministry.

Other scattered pieces of bronze statues found in the area include a head, legs and arms, but it is unclear whether these could match the horseman's torso.

'I Came for Jean'

Dumbot

A large robotic elephant entertains the crowds in central London during an outdoor theatre production called "The Sultan's Elephant," by Royal De Luxe. The show will be performed around central London over the next four days. (AFP/Carl De Souza)

Faster Than a Speeding Mullet...

Comic-Book Superrman Impervious to Copyediting

from The Onion

NEWARK — Executives at DCC Comics have announced the debut of comic-book character Superrman, whose invulnerability to copyediting protects him from nefarious outside forces and intellectual-property lawsuits.

"Thrill to the exploits of Superrman, the only child of a doomed plant! Gasp in awe at his Superr-Strength, X-Roy Vision, and his ability to leap mall buildings in a single bounce!" read a press release issued by DCC. "Superrman's only weakness? His vulnerability to Cryptonight...and his star-crossed love for sassy, sexy, trouble-prone reporter Louis Lane!"

The editors of Superrman say the comic book will be released alongside those of other popular DCC characters such as Wander Woman, the Flush, and Batdan.

A Trail of Orphans...Pirates of the Caribbean 2, The Omen & Superman Returns

Jack...


...Damien...


...and Kal-El

Medusa & Kraken Set for Rematch

Titans Remake No Longer Myth

from Dark Horizons

Warner Bros. Pictures has hired scribe Travis Beacham (Killing on Carnival Row) to pen a remake of the 1981 cult classic Clash of the Titans reports Variety.

Beacham plans a new script that "will be darker and more realistic". The storyline will still revolve around Perseus' journey to save the Princess Andromeda, during which he must complete various tasks set out by Zeus, including capturing Pegasus and slaying Medusa.

The original, the final film on which FX legend Ray Harrhausen worked, featured a stellar cast including Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom, Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress, and Burgess Meredith.

In 2002, the studio previously tapped John Glenn and Travis Adam Wright to pen a script which would cut out much of the 'Gods on Olympus' elements from the original - drawing a lot of ire from fans. Beacham however plans to keep it in.

No Flava Flav As Conan?!

Red Sonja Rides Again

from Sci-Fi Wire

Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films are bringing sword-and-sorcery comic-book heroine Red Sonja back to the big screen, Variety reported.

Avi Lerner and Danny Dimbort's Millennium will finance and produce the movie with Emmett/Furla. The project's budget is north of $25 million

Last year, Dynamite Entertainment launched a new Red Sonja series that has gone on to be one of the best-selling indie comic books on the market.

Red Sonja, created by sword-and-sorcery legend Robert E. Howard, was introduced into Marvel's Conan the Barbarian comics in 1973 and soon was given her own title.

The 1985 Red Sonja pic, starring Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger, was released by MGM to dismal box-office numbers.

...And the Chainsaw Goes To...

Spike To Mount SF&F Awards

from Sci-Fi Wire

Spike TV is set to unveil an awards-show franchise devoted to the booming horror/science fiction genre, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Viacom-owned cable network is working on Scream 2006, which likely will air in October. Scream is scouting Los Angeles locations to shoot the event in September.

Scream will honor the best in film, TV, video games, comic books and music, with a mix of serious awards for outstanding past and present people or programming to such light categories as highest body count in a movie and best bloodcurdling scream.

Scream fits with Spike TV's strategic shift in favor of action-oriented programming, such as the upcoming series adaptation of the Blade movies.