Rihanna May Have A Role In 'The Apocalypse,' Says James Franco

"The Apocalypse" is likely to have plenty of celebrity cameos, but there's one in particular who James Franco has his sights set on: Rihanna. During an interview at CinemaCon, Franco let it slip that there might be a role for her in the upcoming post apocalyptic flick. (Based on what we know of the planned [...]

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Backpacker Travel Insurance- Cover For Everyone | Brown Folk ...

There are few steps which must be taken care in order to buy travel insurance. Some people want to make sure that cost of their trip is covered if they need to cancel their trip, where as some travelers want to make sure that their medical and health are covered in the travel insurance. Finding appropriate travel insurance is a tougher job as compared to buying travel insurance. Travel Insurance is purchased in order to prevent any type uncertainties in the trip that you must be planning from the time you don?t remember. Package plans are perfect for vacation travelers, if you are travelling with family or with friends or it?s a senior traveling trip.

There are different reasons behind buying a Travel Insurance.

  1. Many travelers? wants surety that if by any reason their trip is cancelled they will be reimbursed with the amount that they have spent in planning the trip.
  2. Many travelers are concerned about their luggage and personal belongings so the opt for travel insurance.

Though you have done much of research for the place where you are going but many a times every effort you make cannot take you to the destination as problems are not always invited. So to be in a situation where there is no way to move further Backpacker Travel Insurance takes the responsibility to take you out of that situation so that you can enjoy your trip without any hindrance.

Compare Backpacker Travel Insurance is a way of travel that has embrace many with their planning plans and the travelling services that they provide for different types of travelers. This attracts travelers to go for the travel insurance as it safeguards their interest and proves very beneficial at time of uncertainties. The most attractive thing in opting for travel Insurance is that it will cover you for the whole trip along with the year of traveling. If you are traveling for some adventure there is a facility for this also as Backpacker Travel Insurance to provide coverage for your sporting equipments. There are offers for all over the world this adds to the options as it?s proves perfect for the people who moves to different

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Samsung announces the Exynos 4 Quad, coming to the 'next Galaxy'

Android Central

Samsung couldn't contain the excitement, and just had to let us know the details about the chip powering the "Next Galaxy" that's coming on May 3.  It's called the Exynos 4 Quad, and it looks impressive. What, exactly, makes it so special?  It's built on a 32nm HKMG process, which is geek talk for high-performance with low power consumption. How good is the performance? Samsung claims it's twice as fast as it's predecessor, the 45nm Exynos 4 Dual, while consuming 20 percent less power. To further help power consumption, each core can be turned off when it's not needed, and the ones that are running can adjust their clock speed to match the demands of what you're doing.

Each core will be running at 1.4 HGHz, and are based on the Cortex A9 architecture. It has the other essentials as well, with support for 1080p/30fps recording, boasts an embedded image signal processor, and has support for HDMI 1.4 output. They didn't give any specifics as to what GPU they are pairing it with, though, but it's sure to be impressive. Excited yet? I know some of you are.

Discuss it in the Android Hardware forum!

Source: Samsung

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These bedrooms are the stuff of nerds' dreams

19 hrs.

?When I was a kid, my room was adorned with Star Wars posters and action figures. I also had some pretty awesome Transformers sheets if I do say so myself. Not bad, but some people choose to go the extra mile and make more elaborate-themed rooms and beds. Just imagine the kinds of dreams you would have sleeping in places like these.

Narnia bedroom
Redditor kelseypolo knows a couple that used some extra space that was adjacent to their 9-year-old daughter?s bedroom to create a full-on Narnia wardrobe. Clearly these parents are awesome, but my guess is they will come to regret their decision. Having a place to hide is a valuable asset for a teenager. Reddit via Nerd Approved

Split bedroom
Mark Rodriguez has twin daughters with very different tastes ? one is into flowers and butterflies while the other is a Superman fanatic. So how do you cater to both of their tastes when they share a room? Fortunately, Mark is an artist, and was able to create this fantastic split design. When I was a kid I shared a bedroom with my brother and we had a similar but less elegant set up. There was an invisible line running down the middle of the room and crossing it was considered an act of aggression. My action figures and his toy airplanes fought many battles. Mark Rodriguez via Nerd Approved

Super Mario bedroom
Had this crazy dream last night where I was a tiny plumber with a thick, luxurious mustache that was trying to save a princess, but I was constantly being attacked by turtles and mushrooms. I should've known better than to eat pizza with cheeseburgers for crust before bedtime. Pixfans via Nerd Approved

Star Wars bedroom with AT-AT loft bed
In the video above, you'll learn how Instructables user BykManDan managed to build an AT-AT loft bed for his son. Of course, if you had a bed like this it would be smart to watch out for whoever had the bottom bunk. At night, they could secretly be plotting against you by tying a rope around the AT-ATs legs. Instructables

Pirate ship bedroom
Steve Kuhl's son is lucky enough to have a father who's handy with tools and possesses the imagination of a 9-year-old. In the boy's bedroom he created a floating pirate ship complete with a rope bridge, jail cell and a spiral slide that descends two floors of the house where the Kracken awaits (otherwise known as the family dog). Kuhl Design Build?

More craziness from Nerd Approved:

Calvin and Hobbes bedroom
Kudos to Reddit user KosherHam for creating this beautiful Calvin and Hobbes mural for his son Ryan. I was a fanatical Calvin and Hobbes fan growing up, but whenever I drew the characters on my bedroom wall with a Sharpie my parents would get angry for some reason. Reddit?

Portal bedroom
As you'll see in the video above, Vector is very proud of his Portal-themed room. He has a Companion Cube pillow, circle shaped rugs and even a GLaDOS. All in all, it's the perfect prison?... uh, bedroom for this little test subject. Nerd Approved

MST3K bedroom
The last thing anyone needs is the crew of the Satellite of Love critiquing their dreams or, worse still, their performance. Funniest episode ever. Doorman Ideas via Nerd Approved

Hobbit house bedroom
Tolkien superfans Steve Michaels and his wife Christine built a real-life Hobbit house in the hillsides of northwest Montana. There's tons of Hobbit-themed detail, but visitors can also enjoy modern touches like a king-size bedroom, designer kitchen with customized granite counters, HD Blu-ray television set, XM Radio, and Wi-Fi. Plus, this unique experience runs a fairly reasonable $245 a night. Hobbit House via Nerd Approved

Cockpit?bedroom
Not much is known about this crazy cockpit-themed bedroom, but my guess is the owner built it solely for the amusing pick-up line possibilities. Nerd Approved

More craziness from Nerd Approved:

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Cowgirls playing to keep NCAA hopes alive

Published:?Friday, April 27, 2012

Updated:?Thursday, April 26, 2012 19:04

Jackie Dobson/O'Collegian

Chelsea Garcia is one of five seniors who will be honored this weekend during the final home series of the season.

As OSU plays its last home series of the season against Baylor, emotions will be present as five Cowgirls will play their final games at Cowgirl Stadium.
?It?s been a ride,? senior shortstop Chelsea Garcia said.
But before these Cowgirls say goodbye, there is an important series to be played. The Cowgirls need a strong finish to have any chance of making the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year.
The Lady Bears (28-17, 5-11 Big 12) are just behind the Cowgirls in the Big 12 standings and are also in desperate need of wins. BU has been on the edge of the top 25 national ranking this whole year. It is a balanced team that wins games with solid pitching and timely hitting.
Coach Rich Wieligman knows that around this time of year, there is only one thing that matters ? winning.
?We are still fighting for post season possibilities, but we have to get some wins first,? Wieligman said.
The Cowgirls (23-19, 6-9), despite recent losses, are playing as well as they have all season. They nearly won two out of three games against Texas in Austin and had several opportunities to upset OU in Norman on Wednesday before the game got out of hand.
Wieligman said he believes the Cowgirl players shouldn?t be discouraged by the recent losses.
?We have not been playing bad,? Wieligman said. ?We just have to figure out a way to win.?
OSU needs to figure out a way to win sooner than later. The Cowgirls have nine games remaining, including the final six on the road against two teams that are ahead of them in the standings, Texas Tech and Missouri.
Garcia said wins against Baylor in the home finale could give the Cowgirls some momentum that can carry over to the rest of the season.
?It is very important that we leave it all on the field,? Garcia said. ?This being the last time the seniors play at home only adds to the impotence.?
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Jordan's Bobcats could become NBA's worst ever

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest NBA player ever, is poised to become the owner of the worst team in league history.

His embarrassingly bad Charlotte Bobcats have one last shot to avoid the title.

Heading into Thursday night's regular-season finale, the Bobcats are teetering on the verge of the worst winning percentage (.106) ever and could clinch the dubious distinction with a loss at home to the New York Knicks in the lockout-shortened season.

Charlotte is a woeful 7-58 and its record-setting futility would eclipse the 39-year-old mark held by the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers. That team finished 9-73 (.110) in a full regular season.

Jordan led Chicago to six NBA championships, but his Bobcats get no respect ? Charlotte has become the butt of jokes.

"It has been tough, but we are just trying to move forward," guard D.J. Augustin said. "Many people are laughing at us and making (the streak) as a joke, but we take it very seriously. We are just trying to stay positive and play hard until the end."

With a loss to the Knicks the Bobcats would finish the season with a 23-game losing streak ? ironically the same number Jordan wore with the Bulls. The streak is a franchise record, topping the 16-game skid from earlier in the season.

The NBA record is 26 straight losses set last season by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Coach Paul Silas certainly would like to avoid the embarrassment of being known as the coach of the worst team ever.

"If we get a win it will be the best thing that has happened to us all season," Silas said.

While Jordan was known as an intense competitor on the court, his team hasn't been very competitive this season.

The Bobcats have lost 21 games by 20 or more points and nine by 30 points or more. Staggering numbers but not surprising considering Charlotte is last in the league in scoring and shooting percentage.

Jordan told the Charlotte Observer on Wednesday that he knew this was going to be a trying year, but didn't expect it would be this bad.

"But did we want to chase the most pingpong balls (in the May 30 draft lottery)? No way," Jordan told the newspaper. "Ever since I've owned the team I think we've made some very positive moves on the business side. We had to make a difficult decision to turn over the talent. This year the talent we had didn't respond, but that doesn't cause me to turn my back on the plan."

The top six players from the Bobcats' lone playoff team two season ago ? Stephen Jackson (San Antonio), Gerald Wallace (New Jersey), Raymond Felton (Portland), Boris Diaw (Sacramento), Nazr Mohammed (Oklahoma City) and Tyson Chandler (New York) ? all are gone, having either been traded or waived under Jordan's watch.

The Bobcats' current roster is full of inexperienced players.

"I keep reminding myself it's a young team," Silas said.

Jordan has asked fans to be patient. The Bobcats should be more than $20 million under the salary cap, which means they could make some noise in free agency.

They also have a 25 percent chance of landing the No. 1 pick in the draft, likely to be Kentucky's Anthony Davis.

Still, that means little to this group of players who are focused on avoiding being tagged as the worst team in NBA history.

Swingman Gerald Henderson called this year a learning process.

"Nobody in here is used to losing like we have lost this year," he said. "It just kind of humbles you and teaches you a lot about what it takes to be successful in this game. It also teaches you what it takes to have a good team in the NBA.

"Hopefully we will come out with a win" against New York.

The Knicks have already clinched a playoff spot and cannot enhance their seeding, so it's possible they may rest several starters against the Bobcats.

"If we play like we played (against Orlando in Wednesday night's 102-95 loss) I think we'll have a chance," Silas said.

Jordan doesn't seem to be taking the losing too hard.

He attended a Chicago Blackhawks playoff game on Monday night rather than watching his Bobcats play on the road at Washington.

Perhaps one of the NBA's greatest winners is tired of losing.

___

AP Sports Writer Kyle Hightower in Orlando contributed to this report.

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Occam s Razor, Flying Monkeys and Musings on Lager Beer

I thought I was done with this miniseries on alcohol, yeast and civilization, but several people have written me asking about one particular mystery of great relevance to their lives, lager beer. And so here you have it, the seventh? (see the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth here)?in my miniseries on civilization, fungus, and alcohol.

If you have had a beer lately, especially if it was in a can and cost less than two dollars, it was probably a lager. Lager has become almost synonymous with ?beer,? yet the story of lager is among the most enigmatic of all the stories of the foods and drinks we ferment. It is just one of the mysteries I have been thinking about lately, the other involves a monkey.

The first mystery?As we moved around the world from where yeast was first relied upon for the production of alcohol, we took particular strains of yeast with us, accidentally, on our fruits, grains and vessels. We did not know we were carrying them and yet we depended on them for our golden drinks and rising foods. These strains evolved so as to be able to better take advantage of the conditions and foods we provided in different regions. In the light of evolution, many of the specific histories of many drinks make sense1. Then there is lager, beer.

The very first beer would have been distinct from modern beers, but relied on yeasts similar to those found in ales and wines, not lagers. Eventually, Germanic and Celtic tribes took it north and west in the first century AD. Some tribes pillaged gold. Leave it to the Germans and Celts to pillage beer and, although they did not know it, yeast. Historically, most beer was made when conditions were relatively warm. The yeast found in most foods and drinks, Saccharomyces cerevisae, likes to live at temperatures between 15? and 24? C2. But while warm brewing conditions are good for beer-making yeasts, they are also good for other less beneficial species of yeasts and bacteria. Many vats of beer were lost to bad yeasts, bacteria, and chance?acts of microbes.

Beginning in the 1400s, Bavarians appear to have taken some of the chance out of the equation through a bit of ecological subterfuge. They carried their fermenting beer to caves in the Bavarian mountains, where beer could be brewed at cooler temperatures and then aged for several weeks. The same caves that once gave shelter to Neanderthals came to protect the yeasts dividing on the bottom of vessels, slowly, in the cold, yeasts producing lagers.

With time, brewing what we now call lagers in cold conditions became the definition of good Bavarian brewing. In 1516 the Bavarian government, troubled by the preponderance of bad beer, instituted the Beer Purity Law, which specified that beer could not be brewed in the summer (and must be brewed only using barley, hops and water). They all but enforced the production of beer under cool conditions.

Storing beer under cool conditions during fermentation is part of what makes a lager a lager rather than an ale, but why do cooler conditions produce a different beer? The magic is in the yeast. When yeast biologists began to consider the story of lagers, they hypothesized that fermentation in caves and other cold realms had favored varieties of S. cerevisae, humanity?s yeast, with greater tolerance to the cold (which in turn produced different flavors, etc?)4.

The yeasts used in lager beers are indeed more tolerant of cold than those involved in making nearly all other yeast-dependent foods and drinks. But lager yeast is not just a strain of S. cerevisae, it is an entirely different species. Breads, sake, wine, warm weather beer, even palm, they all rely on one species, Saccharomyces cerevisae. Not lager.

A new species is discovered in (and making) lager beer?Early genetic studies revealed lager yeast (now called Saccharomyces pastorianus) to be a hybrid between ?humanity?s yeast,? Saccharomyces cerevisae, and another species. Lager yeast has two versions of most genes, one like those found in S. cerevisae and one from another species. But what is the other species?

One would be forgiven for imagining such a yeast species would come from Bavaria. The new kink in the narrative is the revelation that the yeast that came together in love and peace with humanity?s yeast to hybridize and produce lager yeast is not from Bavaria or even from Europe, or even for that matter from the Middle East, Africa or Asia. It comes from Patagonia, where it was, until recently, an unnamed species3, 4.

The yeast in lager beer is a hybrid of humanity?s yeast and a newly named species of yeast from cold forests at the bottom of the Earth, now called Saccharomyces eubayanus. This hybridization happened twice. In the first instance, the hybridization gave rise to the yeast now used in Saaz type beers, now produced in the Czech Republic and in Carlsberg breweries in Denmark. In the other, the hybridization gave rise to the Frohberg-type yeast now usually used in the Netherlands and in the other (non-Carlsberg) Danish breweries. Twice, humanities yeast and S. eubayanus came together in the dark of a vat and lager appeared.

The problem with this new Lager beer story, the first mystery, is timing. Lager beer was apparently first brewed in the 1400s. How do you get a yeast from Patagonia into a brewing vat in Bavaria before European ships had gone to Patagonia and back?

The second mystery?The second mystery that has preoccupied me lately is the case of the marsupial monkey. In the same forests in which one of the two ancestors of lager yeast lives, also lives the monito del monte. Monte in Spanish is the untamed woods. A monito is a little mono, a little monkey. But the monito is not a monkey, it is a possum-like marsupial with opposable thumbs and so, where there were no monkeys, it seemed close enough to be called the little monkey, a monito.

The monito of the woods is a very interesting marsupial. Like other marsupials it has a pouch, but in a variety of ways it seems more like the marsupials of Australia than it does like those of the Americas. Even knowing it is a marsupial and not a monkey, in other words, leaves one with questions. Because it seems quite different than all of the other marsupials in South America, the first is where it came from.

Recently, two separate evolutionary studies have found the monito to be most closely related to Australian marsupials (in one case the wild and crazy marsupial mole). How could the monito, a tree-dwelling mammal the size of a large rat, have made it to Patagonia5?

Occam?s whimsical resolution??So now we have the two mysteries, how a yeast species got from Patagonia to Bavaria and how marsupial got from Australia to Patagonia. Ironically, these stories are connected, at least superficially, and maybe ecologically. The monito consumes fruit on which yeast is likely to grow, perhaps the same yeast that helped to produce lager beer. Assuming that these fruits are sometimes a little fermented, these monitos may have been the first to sample some hint of the taste of what lager beer might become.

Unfortunately, drunk monitos, however adorable, do not explain anything.

Let?s come back to the question of how the monito got to Patagonia, and how a Patagonian yeast got to Bavaria. For the yeast, one possibility is it was actually floating around many places but was outcompeted each time it landed by other yeasts and only in the moment when brewers in Bavaria started putting out their vats in caves did it find a source of food of which it could easily take advantage.

This is more plausible than it seems. Many single-celled species seem to have the ability to ride around the world in the wind and clouds and, in doing so, to be nearly everywhere at least some of the time, even if they do not find success everywhere.

Alternatively, the Patagonian yeast might have been brought back from Patagonia by early explorers, perhaps even in their old beer containers which would have been common on the ships. The problem is the first explorers to Patagonia arrived hundreds of years after the first lagers appear to have been brewed, though maybe those very first lagers were different than the modern ones.

The most plausible explanation for the monito?s modern distribution appears to include a mix of geology and magic. When Antarctica and Australia were still connected, before they broke along their geologic seams and went very different ways, a lineage of marsupials diversified. Most members of the lineage stayed in Australia, but one or more made their way to South America and diversified a little more, with one species, the monito, surviving until today in Patagonia. It all makes sense, I guess. But how did it make its way to the new world? Via some as yet unknown bridge? Floating?

All of these ideas are reasonable starting points for more study of each of these independent mysteries. But conversations with my friend Pajaro Morales offered another possibility. Pajaro studies the monitos, lives in Patagonia, has an office down the hall from the authors of the Patagonian yeast paper, and is a font of ideas. Talking with him led to a single explanation for both mysteries.? Maybe the monitos can fly and, when they do, they carry the yeast with them. I wish we could say we were under the influence of lager when we came up with this idea, but alas we were under the influence of nothing more than Occam?s razor.

William Occam?who was exiled to Bavaria, though before the advent of lager?argued that the solution requiring the fewest assumptions tends to be the right one. In fields where general principles hold strong sway Occam?s argument?often called his razor?is both sharp and reasonable. The elegant explanation often wins in population ecology or physiology.

But biogeography?the field charged with telling the stories of the distributions of creatures like yeast and monitos?is a historical science. Occam?s razor, in confronting the strange histories of the monito and the lager, would unite them. It favors the flying monito hypothesis which assumes monitos can and do secretly fly, but nothing else.

This time then, Occam is almost certainly wrong. The beauty of biogeography, like the beauty of history itself rests not in the general stories, but instead in the specific narratives of individual species as they move around the Earth encountering and resolving (or failing to resolve) problems. So, when, in a few weeks, Pajaro and I meet up for the first time in quite a few years in Scotland to enjoy some of the consequences of yeast?s specific history, we will have to come up with some new ideas 6. Though it seems equally fun to keep our eyes on the sky, on the off chance that monitos covered in yeast really know how to fly.

====

1-Sicard, D., Legras, J.-L. (2011). Bread, beer and wine: Yeast domestication in the Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex. C. R. Biologies 334 (2011) 229?236. This is a great article. The evolutionary tree in this article could spawn a dozen other essays. Note, for example, that lab strains of yeast seem to be most closely related to palm wine strains.

2-This is why you put yeast into warm water when making bread. Bread yeasts are the descendents of wine yeasts in most of the world, though just which wine your bread?s yeast descends from depends on where you live.

3-Libkind, D. et al. (2011). Microbe domestication and the identification of the wild genetic stock of lager-brewing yeast. PNAS 108: 14539?14544

4-The word for this yeast?s product, lager, in turn, comes from the German for storehouse, the process of making the beer embedded in its name.

5-Palma, R. E., Spotorno, A. E. (2009). Molecular Systematics of Marsupials Based on the rRNA 12S Mitochondrial Gene: The Phylogeny of Didelphimorphia and of the Living Fossil Microbiotheriid Dromiciops gliroides Thomas. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 13: 525-535.

6-Though Scotland it should be said is a land not of lagers but of ales, which are brewed using a lineage of humanity?s yeast, not lager yeast.

=======

Images: Safety razor by Hustvedt at Wikimedia Commons; The Brewer, designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century by J Amman by Mikhail Ryazanov at Wikimedia Commons; Monito del Monte by WolfmanSF at Wikimedia Commons; William of Ockham, from stained glass window at a church in Surrey by Moscarlop at Wikimedia Commons.

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