Celeb Transformations: Stars Who've Morphed for Movies

Switched On: Between a Nook and a hard place

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

In the 1988 comedy Coming to America, a blatant McDonald's rip-off named McDowell's draws the legal ire of the empire built by Ray Kroc. In explaining his pathetic defense that includes noting that McDowell's uses golden arcs instead of golden arches, the eatery's manager notes that while both the Big Mac and his Big Mick both include the 1970s jingle-immortalized ingredients of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, the McDowell's flagship burger bun has, in fact, no sesame seeds.

This state of differentiation isn't a far cry from what characterized some of the earliest 10-inch Honeycomb devices -- a few fractions of an inch of thickness, a higher-quality display, a full-sized USB port, an hour or two of running time and some bundled apps constituted how many of the tablets asserted their competitiveness. Of course, there was the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer with its keyboard add-on and its follow up, the Eee Pad Slider, which finally brought an integrated one. But whether it's been from a lack of of options for manufacturers or disadvantages of the overall Honeycomb approach, larger Android tablets have made limited inroads versus the similarly sized iPad and are now going after it more aggressively on price.

Continue reading Switched On: Between a Nook and a hard place

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Severity of heart attack is dependent on the time of day

Monday, November 21, 2011

The size of a heart attack and subsequent left-ventricular function are significantly different based on the time of day onset of ischemia, according to a first of its kind study in humans, published online Nov. 17 in Circulation Research. The greatest amount of injury to the heart occurs when individuals have a heart attack between 1:00am and 5:00am.

In previous research, the infarct size in rodents following ischemia and reperfusion exhibited a circadian dependence on the time of coronary occlusion. A circadian rhythm is an endogenously driven, roughly 24-hour cycle in biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes. Previously, it was unknown if a similar circadian dependence of infarct size occurs in humans.

"We were trying to ascertain whether the time of day of when a heart attack occurs influences the amount of damage that the heart sustains, or was this just a phenomenon exhibited in rodents," said the study's senior author Jay H. Traverse, MD, a cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute? at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and physician researcher with Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.

A retrospective analysis of 1,031 patients in the Level 1 acute MI database with an acute heart attack, or ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), referred for primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with known ischemic times between one and six hours, identified 165 patients with their first heart attack who had occluded arteries on presentation without evidence of pre-infarction angina or collateral blood flow.

All 165 patients had well-defined ischemic times and the data were supported by a subgroup with cardiac MRI measurements of infarct size, or size of heart attack, and area-at-risk.

The researchers observed that the extent of infarct size was significantly associated with time of day onset of infarction. The greatest myocardial injury occurred at a 1:00am onset of ischemia and 5:00am onset of reperfusion with the peak injury being 82 percent higher than that recorded at lowest time of injury.

What are the implications of these findings? "It is important to understand that the heart's ability to protect itself against more severe damage varies over a 24-hour cycle. Identifying those protective changes may be particularly relevant for pharmaceutical manufacturers that are seeking to develop cardioprotective drugs," Traverse explained.

###

Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation: http://www.mplsheart.org/

Thanks to Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115357/Severity_of_heart_attack_is_dependent_on_the_time_of_day

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American spies outed, CIA suffers in Lebanon

(AP) ? The CIA's operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.

Hezbollah's longtime leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, boasted on television in June that he had rooted out at least two CIA spies who had infiltrated the ranks of Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group closely allied with Iran. Though the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon officially denied the accusation, current and former officials concede that it happened and the damage has spread even further.

In recent months, CIA officials have secretly been scrambling to protect their remaining spies ? foreign assets or agents working for the agency ? before Hezbollah can find them.

To be sure, some deaths are to be expected in shadowy spy wars. It's an extremely risky business and people get killed. But the damage to the agency's spy network in Lebanon has been greater than usual, several former and current U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about security matters.

The Lebanon crisis is the latest mishap involving CIA counterintelligence, the undermining or manipulating of the enemy's ability to gather information. Former CIA officials have said that once-essential skill has been eroded as the agency shifted from outmaneuvering rival spy agencies to fighting terrorists. In the rush for immediate results, former officers say, tradecraft has suffered.

The most recent high-profile example was the suicide bomber who posed as an informant and killed seven CIA employees and wounded six others in Khost, Afghanistan in December 2009.

Last year, then-CIA director Leon Panetta said the agency had to maintain "a greater awareness of counterintelligence." But eight months later, Nasrallah let the world know he had bested the CIA, demonstrating that the agency still struggles with this critical aspect of spying and sending a message to those who would betray Hezbollah.

The CIA was well aware the spies were vulnerable in Lebanon. CIA officials were warned, including the chief of the unit that supervises Hezbollah operations from CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and the head of counterintelligence. It remains unclear whether anyone has been or will be held accountable in the wake of this counterintelligence disaster or whether the incident will affect the CIA's ability to recruit assets in Lebanon.

In response to AP's questions about what happened in Lebanon, a U.S. official said Hezbollah is recognized as a complicated enemy responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before September 2001. The agency does not underestimate the organization, the official said.

The CIA's toughest adversaries, like Hezbollah and Iran, have for years been improving their ability to hunt spies, relying on patience and guile to exploit counterintelligence holes.

In 2007, for instance, when Ali-Reza Asgari, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, disappeared in Turkey, it was assumed that he was either killed or defected. In response, the Iranian government began a painstaking review of foreign travel by its citizens, particularly to places like Turkey where Iranians don't need a visa and could meet with foreign intelligence services.

It didn't take long, a Western intelligence official told the AP, before the U.S., Britain and Israel began losing contact with some of their Iranian spies.

The State Department last year described Hezbollah as "the most technically capable terrorist group in the world," and the Defense Department estimates it receives between $100 million and $200 million per year in funding from Iran.

Backed by Iran, Hezbollah has built a professional counterintelligence apparatus that Nasrallah ? whom the U.S. government designated an international terrorist a decade ago ? proudly describes as the "spy combat unit." U.S. intelligence officials believe the unit, which is considered formidable and ruthless, went operational in about 2004.

Using the latest commercial software, Nasrallah's spy-hunters unit began methodically searching for spies in Hezbollah's midst. To find them, U.S. officials said, Hezbollah examined cellphone data looking for anomalies. The analysis identified cellphones that, for instance, were used rarely or always from specific locations and only for a short period of time. Then it came down to old-fashioned, shoe-leather detective work: Who in that area had information that might be worth selling to the enemy?

The effort took years but eventually Hezbollah, and later the Lebanese government, began making arrests. By one estimate, 100 Israeli assets were apprehended as the news made headlines across the region in 2009. Some of those suspected Israeli spies worked for telecommunications companies and served in the military.

Back at CIA headquarters, the arrests alarmed senior officials. The agency prepared a study on its own vulnerabilities, U.S. officials said, and the results proved to be prescient.

The analysis concluded that the CIA was susceptible to the same analysis that had compromised the Israelis, the officials said.

CIA managers were instructed to be extra careful about handling sources in Lebanon. A U.S. official said recommendations were issued to counter the potential problem.

But it's unclear what preventive measures were taken by the Hezbollah unit chief or the officer in charge of the Beirut station. Former officials say the Hezbollah unit chief is no stranger to the necessity of counterintelligence and knew the risks. The unit chief has worked overseas in hostile environments like Afghanistan and played an important role in the capture of a top terrorist while stationed in the Persian Gulf region after the attacks of 9/11.

"We've lost a lot of people in Beirut over the years, so everyone should know the drill," said a former Middle East case officer familiar with the situation.

But whatever actions the CIA took, they were not enough. Like the Israelis, bad tradecraft doomed these CIA assets and the agency ultimately failed to protect them, an official said. In some instances, CIA officers fell into predictable patterns when meeting their sources, the official said.

This allowed Hezbollah to identify assets and case officers and unravel at least part of the CIA's spy network in Lebanon. There was also a reluctance to share cases and some files were put in "restricted handling." The designation severely limits the number of people who know the identity of the source but also reduces the number of experts who could spot problems that might lead to their discovery, officials said.

Nasrallah's televised announcement in June was followed by finger-pointing among departments inside the CIA as the spy agency tried figure out what went wrong and contain the damage.

The fate of these CIA assets is unknown. Hezbollah treats spies differently, said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies who's writing a book about the terrorist organization

"It all depends on who these guys were and what they have to say," Levitt said. "Hezbollah has disappeared people before. Others they have kept around."

Who's responsible for the mess in Lebanon? It's not clear. The chief of Hezbollah operations at CIA headquarters continues to run the unit that also focuses on Iranians and Palestinians. The CIA's top counterintelligence officer, who was one of the most senior women in the clandestine service, recently retired after approximately five years in the job. She is credited with some important cases, including the recent arrests of Russian spies who had been living in the U.S. for years.

Officials said the woman was succeeded by a more experienced operations officer. That officer has held important posts in Moscow, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Balkans, important frontlines of the agency's spy wars with foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations.

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org

Follow Apuzzo and Goldman at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-21-US-Hezbollah-CIA/id-e25d383186bc44d4a1eba4d374927b48

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Night-flowering orchid discovered

A night-flowering orchid, the first of its kind known to science, has been described by a team of botanists.

Experts say the "remarkable" species is the only orchid known to consistently flower at night, but why it has adopted this behaviour remains a mystery.

The plant was discovered by a Dutch researcher during an expedition to New Britain, an island near Papua New Guinea.

The findings appear in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

"It was so unexpected because there are so many species of orchids and not one was known to be pollinated at night," said co-author Andre Schuiteman, senior researcher and an orchid expert at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

"It was quite remarkable to find one, after so many years of orchid research, that is night-flowering," he told BBC News.

The specimen was discovered by co-author Ed de Vogel during a field trip in a region of lowland rainforest on the South-East Asian island.

One-night stand

Its unique flowering behaviour only came to light after the specimen was taken back to the Netherlands.

Dr de Vogel took the plant home in an attempt to understand why its buds appeared to wither when they reached a size that would normally produce 2cm flowers.

Continue reading the main story

DAY OR NIGHT?

  • Although the tiny Bulbophyllum nocturnum is the first known night-flowering orchid, it is not uncommon for plants to flower at night. Most orchids though, flower both day and night.
  • The most famous night-flowering plant it the queen of the night cactus (Selenicereus grandiflorus) (see above). Each individual dinner plate-sized flower opens for one night per year (although each cactus can have several flowers). The blooms attract pollinating bats.
  • It is not clear exactly what pollinates Bulbophyllum nocturnum, but scientists think the job is carried out by nocturnal flies. Many night-flowering orchids are strongly scented in order to attract moths, but this orchid is the wrong shape and size for that.
  • The orchid family has evolved some special tricks to attract its pollinators. Many look like pollinating insects, in order to fool those insects into attempting to mate with them. Some even smell like rotten meat, which attracts flies.

To his surprise, he observed the flowers open a few hours after dusk and remain open until a few hours after sunrise.

The flowers opened for one night only, explaining why the buds appeared to be preparing to open one day, yet be withered the next day.

The specimen has been identified as belonging to the Bulbophyllum genus, which - with about 2,000 species - is the largest group in the orchid family.

While there are a number of orchids that do attract night-time pollinators, B. nocturnum is the first known species that exclusively flowers at night.

Mr Schuiteman said it still remained a mystery why the plant had developed such behaviour.

"We think related species are pollinated by tiny flies that think they are visiting fungi," he explained.

"The flowers mimic fungi, that's what the details of the flowers look like they do.

"The flies are looking for somewhere to lay eggs, and it is most probably [a species] that forages at night."

He added: "The orchid probably has a smell, not detectable by humans, to attract insects from a distance - and when they are nearby, the shape and physical aspects of the flower probably play a role too.

'Double-edged sword'

Mr Schuiteman said the exact reason why B. nocturnum only flowered at night would remain a mystery until further field studies had been completed.

However, time may be against them as the location in western New Britain where the original specimen was found lay within a logging area.

"It was previously inaccessible but now the area has been opened by logging," Mr Schuiteman said, adding that was an area that needed to be explored because there were probably many more species waiting to be described.

He said the logging activity was a double-edged sword because Papua New Guinea's government had granted logging licences in the area meant that it created roads that had allowed the plant hunters to carry out their exploration, yet it was an activity that could threaten the long-term survival of the species.

"My colleague who discovered it got permission from the logging company to go into the area, they even gave him a car to use.

"They realised that it would have been a shame to log the trees and destroy the orchids because they would be left lying on the ground exposed to full sunlight."

He called for areas to be left untouched: "It is the government that gives permits to log a particular area, so we should be asking them to protect areas and not issue permits for everything."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-15818662

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Riva Greenberg: Top 10 Diabetes Online Influencers Named

Earlier this month Sharecare Now -- a new service (under Sharecare) that conducts in-depth analyses of health and wellness conversations online -- named the top 10 influencers in the online diabetes community.

I'm proud to be recognized for my writing here at The Huffington Post.

The Top 10 Diabetes influencers:

1) Amy Tenderich, DiabetesMine?
?
2) Kerri Sparling, Six Until Me ?

3) Kelly Close, Close Concerns ?

4) Manny Hernandez, Tu Diabetes / Ask Manny ?

5) Leighann Calentine, D-Mom Blog

6) Riva Greenberg, The Huffington Post ?

7) Kelly Kunik, Diabetesaliciousness? ?

8) Elizabeth Woolley, About.com -- Type 2 Diabetes / Diabetic Mommy ?

9) Kim Vlasnik, Texting My Pancreas / You Can Do This Project

10) Scott Johnson, Scott's Diabetes

The "SharecareNow 10 -- Diabetes list" reflects those who demonstrated consistent impact on diabetes-specific online conversations over the past year. Influence and impact were also measured with a proprietary Sharecare Now-algorithm based on diabetes relevance, syndication, presence and reach. Influencers were then ranked from most to least influential based on a scoring structure.

This is the first Sharecare Now Top 10 list. The company intends to release a new list each month covering 49 health categories. These range from allergies to women's health and include all major health categories such as cancer, COPD, heart disease, oral health, skin care and fibromyalgia.

Diabetes was chosen as the first health category in honor of Diabetes Month, Sharecare's valued partnership with the American Diabetes Association and diabetes' epidemic nature.

Sharecare Now's parent company, Sharecare, has a mission different than most health care sites. Jeff Arnold, one of Sharecare's and Sharecare Now's creators, also the founder of WebMD, told me, "It is to humanize health care and take people from information to action to support. We're also going to judge ourselves not on page views, but on our impact on patients."

"Over the last twelve years," said Arnold, "even with the explosion in social media, in information, access and technology, chronic disease has only continued to go up. All this stuff isn't making people healthier. We want Sharecare to be the humble host highlighting experts, creating world-class partnerships (Sharecare has more than 150 partners including Dr. Oz, Deepak Chopra, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, the American Diabetes Association, the Red Cross and Walgreens) and making patients' search for quality health care information easier. We also want to enable health care providers, organizations and every day experts like those on the SharecareNow 10 -- Diabetes list to have more impact online."

In 2012 Sharecare will build as Arnold calls it, an "interactive medicine cabinet" of programs to help consumers take positive action with their health. He hopes providers will be inspired by Dr. Oz's success with his Sharecare programs "Move it and lose it," which enrolled 600,000 participants, and "Transformation Nation," a partnership with Weight Watchers, to bring their programs online.

I know almost all of the people on SharecareNow's Top 10 diabetes list. I have read, and continue to read, many of their blogs. I can tell you, without the use of algorithms, that if you're looking for information, to ask questions, share experiences and find the friendship, community and support that comes from others who live with diabetes -- and advocate for all of us -- you couldn't do better than to start with this list.

?

?

?

Follow Riva Greenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/diabetesmyths

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riva-greenberg/top-10-diabetes-online-in_b_1096919.html

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Woman to begin Antarctic crossing, awaits weather

A 33-year-old British adventurer preparing for a historic solo crossing of Antarctica was waiting at a base camp for the weather to improve on Sunday in order to begin her long journey on skis.

Felicity Aston said she has been doing more than physical training to ready herself for the expedition.

"I've also been speaking to a sports psychologist about the mental aspect of it because so much of this is about where your head's at rather than your muscles and your physical fitness," Aston told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the base camp at Union Glacier.

She aims to become the first person to cross Antarctica alone using only muscle power. If she manages to complete the journey in late January as planned, she would also set a record for the longest solo polar expedition by a woman, at about 70 days.

"Unfortunately the weather hasn't been kind to us so far," Aston said.

At the base camp, she said, "it's blue sky. It's quite warm relatively for Antarctica, but unfortunately the weather on the other side of the continent isn't good enough to fly, apparently."

"So we're sitting here waiting for the weather to improve," she said.

Aston has been to Antarctica before but said she is particularly thrilled that she will be climbing solo through the Transantarctic Mountains and onto the continent's vast central plateau.

"Being out there and effectively having Antarctica to myself ? or it will feel like that ? appeals to me," she said. "And just the completeness of it, you know, to ski from one side of Antarctica to the other and to find out what it's like to be out there on my own."

The ordeal she faces will be similar to that endured by Boerge Ousland of Norway, who made a 64-day trip across the continent in 1997. But he harnessed Antarctica's fierce winds by strapping himself to a parachute-like sail when they blew in his favor. On those days he could ski as far as 140 miles while towing a sled carrying about 400 pounds (nearly 900 kilograms) of supplies. At other times, his speed dropped to about 2 mph (3 kph) as he struggled through crevasse-laced terrain, he said.

"It was physically and mentally tiring. I crossed snow bridges not knowing if they would hold my weight. I had to go slowly and very carefully," he said.

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Aston's previous travel adventures have included skiing across the Canadian Arctic and crossing the Greenland ice sheet. But this is her first solo expedition.

"I'm looking forward to finding out what it will be like to go that length of time without seeing anyone," she said. "There's a definite appeal to just getting going and how simple life becomes when all you have to worry about is eating, sleeping and skiing."

She needed to pack the bare essentials because she will be pulling her supplies behind her. Her food rations include porridge, freeze-dried dinners and plenty of chocolate, which in all she said will add up to more than 4,000 calories each day.

"There's a lot of chocolate involved in this. It's great," she said with a laugh. "I get to eat chocolate all day and I still manage to lose weight, so that's a bonus from my point of view."

____

AP Radio reporter Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45376336/ns/world_news-americas/

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Official says Wagner not a suspect in Wood death (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Investigators reopened the case of Natalie Wood's 1981 drowning after receiving new information they deemed credible enough to warrant another look at one of Hollywood's most enduring mysteries.

A detective said Friday, however, that the three-time Oscar nominee's husband, actor Robert Wagner, was not a suspect.

Los Angeles Sheriff's Lt. John Corina said nothing has yet changed the official view that Wood's death in the chilly waters off Southern California's Santa Catalina Island was anything but an accident.

"Right now, her death is an accidental drowning," Corina said.

Corina said Friday that two detectives would delve into the case and interview witnesses, including some who have come forward since the announcement a day earlier that the actress' death is being reviewed again.

Corina declined to say whether all the new information came from Dennis Davern, who was a captain of the yacht that Wagner, Wood and actor Christopher Walken were sharing on Thanksgiving weekend in 1981. Davern said on national television Friday that he lied to investigators about events on the yacht Splendour when he was interviewed after Wood's death.

Davern accused Wagner of having a fight with Wood before she went missing and delaying the search for her after she went missing from the boat.

On Nov. 29, 1981, Wood drowned after spending several hours drinking in a yacht with Wagner, fellow actor Christopher Walken and Davern. Davern told NBC's "Today" show on Friday that he made mistakes by not telling the truth about events leading to the death and had urged Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide investigators to reopen the case.

It is Davern's latest attempt to change the official account of what happened.

"Was the fight between Natalie Wood and her husband Robert Wagner what ultimately led to her death?" show host David Gregory asked.

"Yes," Davern replied.

"How so?"

"Like I said, that's going to be up to the investigators to decide," the captain said after a long pause.

Davern said he believes Wagner had intentionally kept the investigation into Wood's death low profile and didn't do everything he could have done. When Gregory pressed Davern for supporting details, he said that was the duty of investigators.

Davern has said for years that the official account of Wood's disappearance was not what really happened, including in a 1992 appearance on a Geraldo Rivera special and in a 2000 Vanity Fair piece. He also worked with author and friend Marti Rulli on "Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour," a book released last year.

Corina said he was not concerned about a 2010 book Davern co-authored on Wood's disappearance, or that the 30-year anniversary of the actress' death.

Wagner spokesman Alan Nierob said Friday a statement he released Thursday spoke for itself. It said that Wagner's family supports investigators' efforts and trusted that they would evaluate the new information and determine whether it came from "a credible source or sources other than those simply trying to profit from the 30-year anniversary of her tragic death."

Davern denied he was motivated to speak out for profit.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Thursday the renewed inquiry was prompted by unspecified new information about the case. The Los Angeles Times reported that Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca said detectives want to talk to Davern and that he had "made comments worthy of exploring." The paper said the agency had also received information from an unidentified third party.

In the Vanity Fair story, Davern is quoted as saying that Wood and Wagner fought in their cabin before the actress disappeared. Coroner's officials ruled her death an accidental drowning, perhaps caused by her slipping off the boat while trying to tie down a dinghy.

She was found wearing a flannel nightgown, socks and a red down jacket and Davern identified her body for authorities, according to an autopsy report. Her body had superficial bruises, according to the report, but those were considered consistent with drowning.

Her death sparked tabloid speculation that foul play was involved, but Wagner and Wood's sister have dismissed any suggestion the actress' death was anything more than an accident. Coroner's officials at the time agreed, writing that Wood was "possibly attempting to board the dinghy and had fallen into the water, striking her face."

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said the agency hadn't been asked to do any additional investigation into Wood's case.

Sheriff's officials are also hoping for tips from the public that may shed new light on how Wood, who was afraid of being in the water, ended up drowning.

Wood received Academy Award nominations for "Rebel Without a Cause," "Splendor in the Grass" and "Love with the Proper Stranger." She was 43 when she died. She and Wagner were twice married, first in 1957 before divorcing six years later. They remarried in 1972.

Lana Wood wrote in a biography on her sister, "What happened is that Natalie drank too much that night."

Wagner, star of the television series "Hart to Hart," wrote in a 2008 autobiography that he blamed himself for his wife's death.

He recounted the night of Wood's disappearance, during which the couple and Walken drank at a restaurant and on the boat. Wood went to the master cabin during an argument between her husband and Walken. The last time Wagner saw his wife, she was fixing her hair at a bathroom vanity and she shut the door.

Wagner wrote that despite various theories about what led Wood to the water, which she feared, it was impossible to know what exactly happened.

"Nobody knows," he wrote. "There are only two possibilities; either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened."

Later in the book, Wagner wrote, "Did I blame myself? If I had been there, I could have done something. But I wasn't there. I didn't see her." He wrote that he never saw his wife after she died and has never returned to Catalina Island.

___

AP reporters Alicia Rancilio and Joe White contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_en_mo/us_natalie_wood_investigation

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Just in time for holiday travel: Gas prices fall

By msnbc.com wire reports

U.S. average gasoline prices fell nearly 5 cents a gallon to $3.38 over the last two weeks due to a combination of weak economic conditions and fewer daylight hours, an industry analyst said on Sunday.

The national average for self-serve, regular gas is down 8.64 cents over the past month, according to the Lundberg survey. Since the last Lundberg report on Nov. 4, the average was $3.38 a gallon, down 4.82 cents.

The survey is based on some 2,500 gas stations nationwide.

"U.S. gas demand has been damaged by bad economic conditions, and demand since Nov. 5 has been struck a bit further because of the loss of daylight saving time," said Trilby Lundberg, editor of the survey. "Consumers always expand driving with more daylight hours and better weather; consumption drops off with fewer daylight hours."

Two weeks ago, the United States changed to standard time from daylight savings time.

Trilby said that the current average is nearly 51 cents higher than one year ago on Nov. 19.

San Francisco, at $3.78 a gallon, had the highest average price for self-serve, regular gas in the two-week survey period, while drivers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, paid the least at $2.96 a gallon.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/20/8914540-just-in-time-for-holiday-travel-gas-prices-fall-5-cents

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