LMFAO's Honduran Concert Goes Up In Flames

Group forced to cut show short after venue's electrical system caught fire and at least 15 fans suffered smoke inhalation.
By James Montgomery

LMFAO's RedFoo performs at the 2011 Jingle Ball
Photo: Jason Merritt/ Getty Images

LMFAO were forced to cut short a Wednesday night concert in Honduras after a fire broke out, filling the venue with smoke and sending fans scrambling for the exits.

According to TMZ, LMFAO were nearing the end of their performance at the Coliseo Nacional de Ingenieros in the capital city of Tegucigalpa when the venue's electrical system reportedly caught fire, filling the venue with smoke. According to reports, no one was seriously injured, though at least 15 fans were treated for smoke inhalation. Local television reports showed fans being escorted from the venue and receiving oxygen. Honduran authorities suggested the fire was intentionally set, though at press time, it was not clear if anyone had been arrested in connection with the blaze.

Immediately following the abrupt end to the show, LMFAO's Redfoo took to his Twitter account, joking, "Epic concert tonight! Everybody in Honduras, we set the place on fire ... #sorryforpartyrocking." He then responded to a fan about the fire, writing, "They told us there was a fire when we were on stage. Then we went to the dressing rooms and there was smoke in the halls."

He then changed his tone, writing, "On a serious note, hope everybody is safe from the fire tonight! Love you Honduras!"

A spokesperson for LMFAO's label did not respond to MTV News' request for comment on the matter by press time. Less than 24 hours removed from the fire, the hard-partying duo were pressing on, celebrating the ascension of their hit "Sexy and I Know It" to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart (knocking off Rihanna's "We Found Love") and prepping for a New Year's Eve gig at the Haze nightclub in Las Vegas, where, hopefully, nothing will catch fire.

Related Artists

• Lmfao

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1676610/lmfao-concert-fire.jhtml

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Tue, December 27, 2011 - 'Tis the Season for Science at the California Academy of Sciences

The best of the Bay Area for KQED fans: discover events hand-picked by our editors, sponsored listings, and more.

The event you are looking for cannot be found.

From here you can:

1. Select a shaded day 17 from the mini-cal.
2. Use the mini-cal to Navigate forward > or backward < a month.
3. Click here to view this week's events.

Source: http://events.kqed.org/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=19871

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Boxed scroll wedding gift Mother Father of Bride Groom

?

?

Personalised boxed poem scroll

gift from the bride or groom on their wedding day

to their Mum or Dad (Mother/Father of bride or groom)

also 2 more one to the bride from the matron of honour

& one from the bride to her new husband

This can be personalised with any message or name/s you wish

This personalised poem is printed on either an A4?parchment like mottled paper or a popset ivory paper

Rolled up into a scroll and decorated with Organza

and?satin ribbon and beautiful mulberry roses.

I have a wide choice of colours as pictured

Please let me know your colour scheme & I will try & help match it if possible.

These scrolls are going to have to be 20p more than my others to recoup some of the set up costs

with all the different colours of ribbon & roses & petals etc.

It comes in an ivory scroll box

(measuring approx 9 x 2.5 x 2 inches)

with?a gold? gift tag on gold elastic cord.

(I will soon be getting silver cord & different coloured tags

I will add a pic when I do :)

?

See my feedback on these!

I can also put a photo on the scroll if you wish.

All poems are written by me and are subject to copyright

hgillings?2008

Please do not reproduce

There are 6 poems to choose from,

they read as follows:

1/ Mother of the Bride from the bride

As I planned my wedding Mum
I couldn?t stop thinking of you
& all the support & love you?ve given me
the whole of my life through.

Through the years you?ve always been,
the one who?s always there;
Whenever I had a problem
you gave advice, guidance & care.

Without all the things you?ve done for me
I wouldn?t be who I am now
& all of this made me ponder
as I thought of the wedding vow.

You had & held me from day one
& looked after me in sickness & health too;
For richer, for poorer, until death us do part
I will always love & cherish you.

You have been a brilliant Mum
& it doesn?t end when I wed,
there will just be one more at the table
occasionally wanting to be fed.

You?ve shown a special kind of love,
so thoughtful, patient & true
& in case I don?t tell you often enough,
thank you & I love you.

2/ Father of the Bride from the groom
As I planned my wedding Dad
& thought of walking down the aisle,
I obviously thought of you
to walk me there in style.

I could only have my dear Dad
to give me away at my wedding;
With you there to support me
no stumbles I?d be dreading.

You?ve been a rock to me,
always there to lend a hand,
dependable & reliable
so I hope you?ll understand?.

Your little girl?s not deserting you,
she?s just adding a son-in-law to the family
& setting up a home from home
where you can come for tea.

To have & to hold from this day forward
my husband will look out for me too,
but for richer, for poorer, until death us do part
I?ll? always love & cherish you.

I have a heart that?s full of love
& there?s plenty there for my Dad too
& in case I don?t say it often enough
thank you & I love you.

3/ Mother of the Groom from the groom
It may not seem like long ago
that I was a little lad;
Climbing trees, grazing knees
& sometimes being bad.

You were always there for me
for advice & wisdom too;
I am the man I am today
thanks mainly to you.

As a Mum you?ve been great;
I?m your number one fan!
You taught me how to love & care
& to be the best I can.

I know I sometimes hide my heart
and show feelings not enough;
But I will admit today that
you taught me how to love.

My life has been full of
kindness, love & laughter,
& now I wed NAME
I hope for a ?happy ever after?.

You?ve been an inspiration Mum,
so thoughtful, patient & true;
& in case I don?t tell you often enough,
thank you & I love you.

4/ Father (or / & Mother) of the Groom from the bride

As I take your son?s hand today
& commit to him for life
I feel really very privileged
that he?s chosen me to be his wife.

He is such a special person,
so caring, kind & true
& I think I must say thank you
because that must be down to you.

You?ve taught him the right values
that is plain to see;
& coming from a caring, loving home
I know a great husband he will be.

I feel so very happy
to be your son?s bride
& thank you for welcoming me
with arms opened wide.

There really aren?t enough words
to say thank you fully,

for raising such a wonderful man
& then handing him to me.

I promise I will look after him,
& be the best wife that I can be,
& also the best daughter-in-law
as part of your family.

5/ To the Bride from the maid/matron of honour

?

?

Today you got married

& so honoured did I feel;?

To have stood there beside you,?

it all seemed so surreal.

?

When we became friends

over ?? years ago now,?

I never dreamt we?d be this close?

as you took your wedding vow.

To have been there as your Maid of Honour

as you took those vows today

was such an immense pleasure

that I truly can?t convey

?

We?re always there for each other

& marriage won?t change that!?

But you?re on your own on your wedding night?

because I?m a diplomat!?

?

But enough about us,?

today?s about the bride & groom?

I wish you both health wealth & happiness?

& hope with these your marriage will be strewn

??

Congratulations NAMEt & NAME?

I hope today is filled with joy & laughter?

I know that it will truly be

a happy ever after.

6 /To the groom / husband from the bride from the bride

Today I am so happy
I love being your bride;
We've taken vows & promised
to live life side by side.

I look forward to our life together
& all that it may bring
& I'm proud to wear this symbol
of our love, this wedding ring.

I feel really blessed today
to be marrying my man
& if ever I can help you Babe (or name of your choice)
I shall, I will, I can!

I know you'd do the same for me,
we'll be there for each other;
We'll be the very best of friends
as husband, wife & lover.

We'll share lots of laughter,
fun, smiles & maybe tears;
But I know our union will be blessed
& last throughout the years.

The reason why I know this
Is that we were made for each other!
This love is for eternity,
there will never be another.

My dearest darling husband
thank you for choosing me,
although I don't think you had much choice
I think it was fate & destiny!

This will be posted in a separate outer carton to

?ensure it reaches you in pristine condition.

**********Don't forget to let me know: *********

?

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 1 the number of your poem choice

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 2?your personal love from message for the end

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?? 3 the recipients name & or relationship?to include

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? ?? 4 which border you would like (see photos)

?????????? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Rings, Doves, Heart lines, Ivy or Squiggles

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 5 The wedding date & venue if you wish it included

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 6 whether you'd like popset ivory paper or gold parchment like paper

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 7 whether you would prefer confetti or silk rose petals if I have them in your colour

?

Just e-mail me the details through contact member or directly

(you will receive my e-mail address on checkout)

?

I usually put at the top:

"To my Mum

Mother of the Bride"

(or Father/Groom etc as applicable)

?

& finish with your personal love from message

followed by the

"Married ?..date??

at ?venue?."

?

If you would like it set out differently please just let me know

?

PLEASE leave feedback to confirm safe receipt

or contact me if not received

within 5 working days of making payment.

?

******? See my other items? ******

for more gift ideas & other poems

for Birthdays, Christenings, Anniversaries,

Thanks, I love you gifts etc.

?

Source: http://us.ebid.net/for-sale/boxed-scroll-wedding-gift-mother-father-of-bride-groom-57922955.htm

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Tim Tebow leads poll about potential neighbors

MTV

Would you want these as your neighbors? No, you wouldn't.

By Martha C. White, msnbc.com contributor

However they feel about his quarterbacking skills and eponymous post-touchdown crouch, many Americans think the Denver Broncos' Tim Tebow would make a pretty good neighbor. According to a new survey conducted by real estate site Zillow.com in which people were asked which celebrity they would most like as a neighbor, Tebow scored big.?

Chosen as the celebrity they'd like to live next to by 11 percent of respondents in the fifth annual Zillow Celebrity Neighbor Survey, Tebow beat out former "friend" Jennifer Aniston and her current beau Justin Theroux as well as celeb couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ? although it's unclear whether respondents fear paparazzi or just all those kids trampling their daffodils.

When it comes to the worst neighbors ever, let's just say it's a situation. Or, rather, the Situation ? and Snooki and the rest of the boozed-up, bronzed brawlers that make up the cast of MTV's Jersey Shore. This rowdy crew was voted "worst celebrity neighbors" for the second year in a row, and it seems their on-screen antics aren't making them more popular. Last year, 26 percent of respondents gave the Shore cast a thumbs-down; this year, it's crept up to 28 percent. They even beat out notorious loose cannons Charlie Sheen (21 percent) and Lindsay Lohan (14 percent).

Behind Tebow, the Jolie-Pitts and Aniston and Theroux, people say they would most like Jennifer Lopez as a neighbor, followed by Beyonc? and Jay-Z. Newly single Kim Kardashian was a polarizing figure, appearing on both the best and worst sides of Zillow's celebrity-neighbor list.

Maybe the biggest surprise of all is how many Americans don't want to live next to any celebrity. With the exception of Tim Tebow, none of the celebrities were chosen as desirable neighbors by more than 10 percent of respondents. And this year, 42 percent of people say they'd prefer regular folks rather than red carpet regulars over the fence, up from 27 percent last year. Many of us, it seems, would prefer a friendly wave to either fist-pumping or Tebowing.?

Full results are below.

Most desirable neighbors (name, percent of people who voted for them)

Tim Tebow, 11
Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt, 10
Jennifer Aniston & Justin Theroux, 9
Jennifer Lopez, 6
Beyonc? & Jay-Z, 5
Nancy Grace, 4
Kim Kardashian, 4
Other, 11
None of the above, 42

Least desirable neighbors (name, percent of people who voted for them)

Jersey Shore Cast, 28
Charlie Sheen, 21
Lindsay Lohan, 14
Kim Kardashian, 13
Nancy Grace, 3
Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt, 3
Anthony Weiner, 2
Other, 2
None of the above, 14

More real estate news can be found on Zillow's blog here.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/28/9748562-poll-reveals-most-and-least-wanted-celebrity-neighbors

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Gingrich ethics case from 15 years ago leaves scar (The Arizona Republic)

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UNESCO cuts funds for Palestinian magazine (AP)

JERUSALEM ? The U.N.'s cultural agency said Friday it is pulling funding for a Palestinian youth magazine that published an article suggesting admiration for Hitler.

The magazine, Zayzafouna, published an article in February written by a teenage girl who presented four role models: a medieval Persian mathematician, a modern Egyptian novelist, the Muslim warrior Saladin and the Nazi leader.

UNESCO said in a statement it "strongly deplores and condemns" the "unacceptable" material and would cease funding the magazine. UNESCO said it funded three different issues later in 2011, and not the one in question.

The magazine also receives funding from the Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank.

In the article, the author has Hitler telling her in a dream that he killed Jews "so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world." He advises her to be "resilient and patient concerning the suffering that Palestine is experiencing at their hands."

"Thanks for the advice," the narrator replies.

A translation was made public by Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli organization that tracks incitement in Palestinian media.

The magazine's director, Shareef Samhan, did not dispute the translation, though he said the girl was "accusing" Hitler and not praising him. He said he had not been aware of the text and noted that UNESCO was not a central backer of the magazine.

He defended the publication. "We depend in the content of our magazine on the participation of school students, and it's not our job to prohibit the freedom of speech," he said.

The publication sparked a written protest by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based Jewish group, to UNESCO, and that protest appears to have triggered the U.N. agency's decision and public statement.

UNESCO admitted the Palestinians as its 195th member in October, prompting the United States to cut off its funds to the agency. As a result, UNESCO was forced to scale back literacy and development programs in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the new nation of South Sudan.

"UNESCO strongly deplores and condemns the reproduction of such inflammatory statements in a magazine associated with UNESCO's name and mission and will not provide any further support to the publication in question," read the statement issued from the agency's Paris headquarters.

The statement also said UNESCO "is deeply committed to the development and promotion of education about the Holocaust."

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, Ghassan Khatib, said the article was "not acceptable."

"We educate young people in our textbooks about the Holocaust and the massacres of Hitler against Jews and against others, and we refer to these massacres as crimes against humanity," Khatib said. "This instance is exceptional, and the editor will try to be more careful in the future."

A U.S. group, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, released a statement praising UNESCO's decision.

"As victims of the horrors of Nazi brutality, we learned with deep shock that a Palestinian children's magazine could approvingly speak of Hitler's extermination of Jews as an example to be emulated. This was monstrous and grotesque," the group said.

___

Follow Matti Friedman on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mattifriedman

___

Jenny Barchfield contributed to this story from Paris, and Dalia Nammari from Jerusalem.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_unesco

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New Jersey Gov. Christie does not rule out VP run (reuters)

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When the darkroom is on your hard drive

Casey Rentz, contributor

(Image: Khuong Nguyen)

Digitally altered photos can be a blessing and curse. Our ability to snap - and upload - at the click of a button means we are inundated with more images than ever before. Tweaks in Photoshop can uniquely capture a shared moment in our culture or dangerously reshape our notions of beauty. But it is most often in the art world that digitally crafted images end up looking downright surreal.

In a 2008 image by Khuong Nguyen, a 10-year-old blonde boy stands on the uppermost ledge of a six-story building, his chin up and arms crossed as a white cape flaps behind him in the wind. Dark clouds loom above. The boy?s precarious position creates a sense of physical discomfort. In reality, of course, he never teetered on that ledge; the picture is a product of Photoshop, pieced together and tweaked with great care by the artist.

Dozens of composite photographs like this one - some equally hypnotic, others more dark or whimsical - are currently on display at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles. As photo studios increasingly meld into computer labs, the Digital Darkroom exhibition examines how each photographer uses technology to bring their vision to life.

Acclaimed commercial photographer Joel Grimes uses High Dynamic Range (HDR), a larger tonal range than can usually be captured in one exposure, to capture the deepest of blacks and the brightest of whites in his images. The HDR technique involves meshing three pictures - one underexposed, one overexposed, and one in-between - in Photoshop, which uses a tonal map to piece together a single, dramatic image. His 2009 photo Jenifer Ann, Swimmer is a washed-out close-up of a swimmer confronting the camera as she takes off her goggles. It?s serene as well as affronting.

Photoshop is a powerful tool for some. French photographer Jean-Francois Rauzier takes compositing to a new level by layering over 3,500 images in his pictures, making a resulting ?hyperphoto? almost 40 gigs in size. French Cancan, which shows hundreds of colourful turkeys milling about in front of the Moulin Rouge, makes for a busy, wild, yet fun spectacle.

(Image: Jean-Fran?ois Rauzier)

Artist Maggie Taylor - wife of renowned ?analog darkroom? compositor Jerry Uelsmann, also featured in Digital Darkroom - uses Photoshop, too, but she starts with a scanner. Taylor scans things like live goldfish, dry leaves, and dead bees and stitches the resulting images together with other photographs to create Alice in Wonderland-like colourful yet stoic animal-people hybrids.

One of the most eye-catching photos in the exhibit is Chris Levine?s holographic portrait of the Queen of England, commissioned in 2004. Like a Cracker Jack novelty card, the stereoscopic image juts out towards the viewer; the queen?s eyes follow you and her head bobs as you walk past. It?s not a new technology, but Levine improves on it by using thousands of images in the portrait, giving the Queen an eerie, psychedelic presence. To make it, Levine patched together thousands of images taken from slightly different angles, mounted it on glass that contains thousands of tiny cylindrical cut-outs, and lit it from behind with blue LEDs.

Jean Marie Vives? Cube 2006 resembles an Inception-like cube city, hovering above a serene swath of grass. To make it, the artist took dozens of shots of urban and suburban Paris and pieced the images together, putting the late day shots in the shadow part of the cube and the mid-day shots on the sunny part of the cube.

(Image: Jean-Marie Vives)

Other artists in the exhibit use the more familiar 3D technique of taking two pictures (some artists rig two digital cameras next to each other and click simultaneously), messing around with the colour channel for one, and layering them in Photoshop so you get red and blue halos. Ted Grudowski creates messy portraits of Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Nimoy, Mike Pucher makes 3D portraits of plants, and Claudia Kunin makes symbol-laden, dreamy 3D works. All you need is 3D glasses and they jump off the page.

Many of the artists in Digital Darkroom have never been shown in a gallery. It took decades for them to develop their own specific techniques to match their vision, and the works? very status as museum-caliber pieces might still be contentious. Even curator Russell Brown, a senior creative director at Adobe and Emmy-winning instructor, concedes, ?I don?t necessarily think people are going to come in and say, ?It?s art!? It will be more like, ?It?s creativity!?

But maybe one day Photoshop layers will be considered as vital to artworks as layers of paint on a canvas. After all, as Brown acknowledges, ?It?s the talent behind the tool that really makes it sing.?

Digital Darkroom runs from Dec. 17, 2011 to May 28, 2012 at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, California.

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Term limit forces push for bigger public stage (hamptonroads)

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Katy Perry Named MTV's Inaugural Artist of the Year (omg!)

Katy Perry has been named MTV's first-ever Artist of the Year.

"Perry is one of the new millennium's biggest pop stars, and she matched some of pop's greatest icons on the charts this year," MTV wrote on its website. "She made us giggle with an LOL-worthy hosting stint on SNL and made her big-screen debut voicing the iconic Smurfette in The Smurfs. Offscreen, she's proved to be the kind of girl that can laugh off rumors that she's pregnant and getting divorced. She's loud, cool and a real girl's girl."

Accepting her award in the video below, Perry said, "I wasn't really allowed to watch MTV growing up so this feels really validating."

SNL: Alec Baldwin apologizes to himself for flight issue; Katy Perry buddies up to Matt Damon

Earlier this week, the singer ? whose album, Teenage Dream, has produced five No. 1 singles, a feat matched only by Michael Jackson ? was also ?named one of Barbara Walter's Most Fascinating People of 2011. ?

Watch Perry accept her award:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_katy_perry_named_mtvs_inaugural_artist152900497/43927509/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/katy-perry-named-mtvs-inaugural-artist-152900497.html

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Death or victory at the Grand Prix (The Week)

New York ? With one race left, says Michael Cannell, American Phil Hill had a shot to be the Grand Prix champion of 1961

THEY BEGAN ARRIVING a day in advance. The loyal Ferrari following ? the tifosi ? rolled up in caravans of Fiats and battered motorbikes to camp among the chestnut groves that spread more than 600 acres around the boomerang-shaped racetrack in Monza, Italy. By the glow of evening campfires they raised cups of grappa to the great drivers, the piloti who once thundered around the terrible banked turns of the Autodromo Nazionale. Most of them were gone now. Between 1957 and 1961, 20 Grand Prix drivers had died. Many more suffered terrible injuries. In the days before seat belts and roll bars, they were crushed, burned, and beheaded with unnerving regularity.

Inside the Autodromo, half a dozen teams and 32 drivers warmed up for the 267-mile Italian Grand Prix, the climactic race of the 1961 season. The spotlight was focused squarely on Ferrari teammates, drivers Phil Hill and Count Wolfgang von Trips. The next afternoon, on Sunday, Sept. 10, they would settle their long fight for the Grand Prix title, racing's highest laurel.

SEE MORE: The couple who got married while running the New York City Marathon

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Von Trips held a four-point edge ? points are awarded for first- through sixth-place finishes ? and he had earned the advantageous pole position with the fastest practice laps. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, Von Trips was descended from German nobility, and he cut a glamorous figure even in Grand Prix circles. He had the comportment of a champion, though he had crashed so many times he was plagued with the nickname Count von Crash. Hill, a California mechanic and hot-rodder, was a solitary man, given to apprehension and self-doubts about racing. He had won at Monza a year earlier, and he had set several lap records. If Von Trips was the erratic star, Hill was his rock-steady complement. Like any great sports story, it was a pairing of opposites.

The two men had traded checkered flags all summer as the Grand Prix made its way through six European countries. Neither one was Italian, which suited Enzo Ferrari, the reclusive white-haired padrone of the Ferrari empire. Every time an Italian driver died, the government launched a meddlesome investigation and the Vatican made thunderous condemnations.

SEE MORE: The New York City Marathon: By the numbers

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The location only heightened the suspense. The Italians called Monza the death circuit, in part because the banked turns catapulted errant cars like cannonballs. The sloped surface was coarse and pockmarked, and it exerted a centrifugal pull that the fragile Formula 1 cars were not designed to handle. More dangerous still, the long straights allowed drivers to touch 180 mph, and to slipstream inches apart. A series of tight curves, known as chicanes, had been installed to slow the cars, but it was still a track to be driven flat out.

ON A MILD and clear mid-September morning, the drivers went through their prerace routine wearing polo shirts and sunglasses. Hill asked a mechanic to splash a bucket of water on the back of his coveralls to keep him cool. Von Trips was as relaxed as ever, napping on a bench in the corner of the pits. He roused himself and ate a pear as the crew rolled his car into the pole position ? the inside slot on the front row ? marked with a white line on the gray asphalt. It was the only time that Von Trips had earned the top spot. "We may be teammates," he said of Hill as he adjusted his silver helmet, "but one has to fight. I love fighting."

SEE MORE: The 100-year-old marathoner snubbed by Guinness World Records

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Everything but the fight faded in the closing moments before the start. Mechanics darted about, shouting at one another in four languages. A heaving crowd of 50,000 packed the grandstands and bleachers, pressed against wire fences at the edge of the 6.2-mile course. It was their moment to see a Ferrari renaissance, to defeat the hated Brits and their Lotus cars. The drivers emerged from the pits in Dunlop coveralls and lowered themselves one by one into their cars.

Five, four, three, two, one. The Italian flag swung down and the cars leaped. Hill's car had "a stumble to it," he said, "but when the flag dropped I was gone."

SEE MORE: The NCAA's 'sweeping reform' of college sports

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Von Trips had a history of early faltering. It often took him a lap or so to shed his jitters and find his rhythm. True to form, he missed a few beats at the start and mired himself in a pack of six cars following Hill in tight formation, moving inches apart through the broad Curva Grande and the two sharp rights at the Curva di Lesmo. Von Trips was in fourth as the group charged down the long backstretch and around the big south curve to finish the first lap.

With Hill pulling away, Von Trips surely felt an urgency to maneuver his way up through the tightly bunched field. It was still early, but if he got trapped in traffic he might forfeit his chance for a top finish, and with it his edge over Hill. With teeth bared he passed the defending world champion Jack Brabham and Lotus's Jim Clark in two powerful blasts of acceleration.

SEE MORE: Rangers-Cardinals Game 6: 'The greatest World Series game ever'?

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On the second lap, Von Trips sped through a bend in the backstretch with Clark trailing behind and slightly to his left. The bend slowed them only slightly as they rolled into the fastest stretch, a straight where drivers could press the accelerator for nearly 30 full seconds. Moving at 150 mph, Von Trips watched for his chance to pass.

Four hundred feet before the next turn the German swerved left to make his move. In his haste to catch Hill, he was unaware that Clark had stayed close. He may have assumed that Clark was slipstreaming directly behind him. In any case, Von Trips "shifted sideways," Clark later said, "so that my front wheels collided with his back wheels. It was the fatal moment."

SEE MORE: Remembering Joe Frazier

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VON TRIPS COMMITTED a tiny miscalculation, a miscue of no more than an inch, but at 150 mph it was enough to sling him onto a grassy shoulder to the left. His wheels plowed the soft earth, as the car rode up a 5-foot slope where spectators stood two deep behind a chest-high chicken-wire fence. In an instant of explosive violence, the Ferrari slashed along the fence for about 10 feet, shredding spectators like a big red razor, then bounced end-over-end back onto the track. The mauled car came to rest right side up with its wheels collapsed inward.

Five spectators standing along the fence died instantly, their skulls crushed by the threshing car. The survivors screamed in reaction to the death all around them. Bodies lay in scattered clumps. Ten more would die later. More than 50 were injured.

SEE MORE: Albert Pujols' quarter-billion-dollar deal: 'Disaster' for the Angels?

?

Meanwhile, Clark's Lotus spun and struck the embankment several times before coming to a rest in the grassy stretch beside the road. The car was crushed, but Clark squirmed out unscathed.

The man who was supposed to be the Grand Prix champion lay facedown on the track in bloodied coveralls, alone and motionless. His car had rolled on top of him, then, on the next bounce, flung him like a rag doll. His distinctive silver helmet had not saved him, nor had the flimsy roll bar.

SEE MORE: The NBA lockout ends: Winners and losers

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Clark jumped from his car and helped a race marshal drag Von Trips's car to the shoulder. He glanced at Von Trips, but could not bring himself to check on him. "I didn't really want to go over to where he lay," Clark said. With his helmet tucked under his arm, Clark went back to the pits, where he all but collapsed.

Von Trips had died of skull fractures by the time an ambulance arrived. In a few savage seconds, no more than a few heartbeats, all his charm and promise, all the hope he offered to his troubled homeland, came to a violent end.

SEE MORE: Labor dispute: Will the entire NBA season be lost?

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A paramedic spread a sheet over the body. A bloodied forearm dangled from the shroud as Von Trips was carried to the ambulance on a stretcher. It was the public's last glimpse of him. All over Germany people froze over their coffee or pilsner, as the radio sportscaster waited for a messenger from the Ferrari pit to explain why the count had not come around on the last lap.

Meanwhile, the race flowed on with Hill leading Moss by 18 seconds. Drivers wove through the smoke and debris, slowed by a marshal waving a flag of caution while the bloodied bodies were laid out on the roadside covered in tent canvas and newspapers. No announcement was made to the crowd.

SEE MORE: Mike Krzyzewski: Greatest basketball coach ever?

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Hill passed the scene 41 more times that afternoon. On each lap he glimpsed the crumpled remains of the car, but he was uncertain whose it was until he saw Von Trips's name removed from the scoreboard.

After Von Trips crashed, three other Ferraris dropped out. Watching on television in Modena, Enzo Ferrari said, 'Abbiamo perduto.' We have lost. It was a curious reaction given that Hill was driving a nearly perfect race, a masterpiece of precision and pacing. Less than two hours after Von Trips crashed, Hill whipped by the checkered flag in first place, the only one of five Ferraris to finish.

The win gave Hill nine points, clinching the championship. He had overcome waves of obstacles ? Ferrari's partisanship, a late-summer deficit in points, an 11th-hour engine failure ? to become the first American to win racing's greatest prize. Among other things, the win resolved the tug-of-war between anguish and ambition that had gripped him for more than a decade. It affirmed a pursuit that he had so often doubted.

Hill had arrived at the triumphant moment that had drawn him since childhood like a distant light. The realization that he had prevailed ? the wondrous reality of it ? came over him that day as "a warming relief, a soaring feeling."

Hill walked to the victory podium in a throng of pushing, swaying well-wishers. Sweat matted his hair and goggles dangled from his neck. He sipped from a bottle of mineral water and asked about Von Trips. "I suspected the worst, but it was not until after champagne and congratulations on the victory stand that I was told," he said later.
?

Sports Illustrated reported that Hill sobbed and dashed away as the flashbulbs popped. But he was too inured for that. Hill may have sagged. He may have paled beneath his sooty cheeks. But his face betrayed nothing but stony acceptance. "At the risk of seeming to be callous I can only say that my emotional defenses are pretty strong," he later wrote.

Von Trips claimed all the morning headlines. The newspapers buried Hill's triumph, if they mentioned it at all. The insinuation was that Von Trips was the rightful winner. Hill was merely an understudy, despite two first-place finishes, two seconds, and two thirds. The New York Times printed an account of Von Trips' death on its front page. Mention of the new champion waited until after the story jumped to page 33. "He knows that his victory has been so submerged in the press under the death toll," the reporter wrote, "that few people even realize he is champion."

---

?2011 by Michael Cannell, reprinted courtesy of Twelve. Excerpted from The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit.

?

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Gingrich says rivals' criticism taking a toll

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shakes hands with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich after a Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shakes hands with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich after a Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a town hall meeting at Memminger Auditorium, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

.Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn, waves to supporters during a campaign stop at the Hy-Vee grocery store, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011, in Spencer, Iowa. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaks during a campaign stop at the Chrome Country Inn in Algona, Iowa, Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Republican presidential candidate former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman speaks during a Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Newt Gingrich tried to quiet unrelenting campaign criticism that he acknowledged had taken a toll as Mitt Romney stepped up insider attacks Saturday in hopes of regaining front-runner status with the first presidential vote little more than two weeks away.

Gingrich, the former House speaker enjoying a late surge in the polls, pledged to correct what he said were his rivals' inaccurate claims about him. Romney, the ex-Massachusetts governor looking for a rebound, portrayed Gingrich as a well-heeled lobbyist since his service in Congress and predicted that conservative voters will reject Gingrich as they learn more about his lengthy Washington record.

"I'm going to let the lawyers decide what is and what is not lobbying, but when it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, typically it's a duck," Romney said.

With the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3 up for grabs, most candidates are redoubling their efforts heading into the holidays, when voters generally tune out the race.

Gingrich is their prime target. Last week alone, anti-Gingrich ads from a Romney ally outspent Gingrich by an 8-to-1 margin on television.

Gingrich cited "the extraordinary negativity of the campaign" during a call from Washington with Iowa supporters. He said he was inclined to hold teleconferences every few days so people can discuss ideas and his campaign can "encourage them to raise any of these things that you get in the mail that are junk and dishonest."

"I'll be glad to personally answer, so you're hearing it from my very own lips," he said in the forum. "We don't have our advertising versus their advertising, but you get to ask me directly."

Romney campaigned in early-voting South Carolina, where tea party activists have given Gingrich a strong lead in polls. Romney told reporters that many voters now are just beginning to pay attention to the race and will turn on Gingrich after they learn about his time in Washington and his role with mortgage company Freddie Mac, a quasi-government agency.

Gingrich's consulting firm collected $1.6 million from the company. Gingrich insists he did not lobby for them and only provided advice.

"I think as tea partyers concentrate on that, for instance, they'll say, 'Wow, this really isn't the guy that would represent our views,'" Romney said after a town hall meeting with South Carolina Rep. Tim Scott. "Many tea party folks, I believe, are going to find me to be the ideal candidate."

Gingrich said the attacks on his record have been brutal, but he insisted they are exaggerated.

"I just want to set the record straight," Gingrich told his Iowa backers. "We were paid annually for six years, so the numbers you see are six years of work. Most of that money went to pay overhead ? for staff, for other things. It didn't go directly to me. It went to the company that provided consulting advice."

It's a distinction without a difference, his rivals have said. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann continued to criticize his tenure as a consultant and Texas Rep. Ron Paul continued an ad accusing him of "serial hypocrisy" for taking Freddie Mac's checks.

During a Friday appearance on Jay Leno's late-night television show, Paul also turned on Bachmann.

"She doesn't like Muslim. She hates them," said Paul, who routinely clashes with his rivals over foreign policy. "She wants to go get them."

Bachmann told reporters in Estherville that was not true.

"I don't hate Muslims. I love the American people," she said. "As president of the United States, my goal will be to keep America safe, free and sovereign."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry rumbled through rural Iowa on a bus tour. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum stuck to a plan that has won him the honor of spending the most time in the state, yet has not yet translated into support in polls.

Iowa's largest newspaper, The Des Moines Register, announced it would publish its presidential endorsement in Sunday editions. In 2008, the paper backed Sen. John McCain, the eventual GOP nominee who came up short in Iowa's caucuses.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who early on decided against competing in Iowa, was campaigning in New Hampshire. Huntsman, who also served as President Barack Obama's ambassador to China, has kept his focus on New Hampshire, where independent voters are the largest bloc and can vote in either party's primary.

As the Iowa vote neared, Gingrich's decision to take the weekend off from campaigning raised eyebrows given his rivals' busy schedules. Gingrich called the decision "pacing."

Gingrich has prided himself on a nontraditional campaign, but his advantages in the polls could shift if the only exposure to Gingrich comes through rivals' negative ads.

Gingrich's campaign manager noted the onslaught in a fundraising pitch to donors.

"With Newt's opponents spending $9 million on attack ads in Iowa, we need to quickly ramp up our messaging," Michael Krull said Saturday.

Anti-Gingrich ads, courtesy of Romney allies, dominate in Iowa. The Restore Our Future political action committee on Friday spent an additional $1 million on airtime, and broadcast almost $790,000 in commercials against Gingrich last week alone. Gingrich, by comparison, spent roughly 100,000 on broadcast and cable ads.

That looked to continue into the final week before the Christmas holiday.

Romney, who has kept Iowa at arm's length after investing heavily here four years ago only to come up short. His advisers note they have kept in touch with supporters of his 2008 campaign that came in second place in Iowa.

___

Hunt reported from Charleston, S.C.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-17-GOP%20Campaign/id-2ac0e4a6c880421893ba9d08de860372

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Thai activist gets 15 years for insulting monarchy (AP)

BANGKOK ? A political activist was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison on charges of insulting Thailand's king, the third person to be imprisoned in a month under the country's strict lese majeste law.

The law, which forbids defamation of the monarchy, is being increasingly criticized as an infringement of free speech and an instrument of political persecution.

Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul, nicknamed "Da Torpedo" for her aggressive speaking style, has been detained without bail since July 2008 after speaking at rally using impolite language.

The Criminal Court found Daranee guilty of violating the lese majeste law, which provides for a jail term of three to 15 years for anyone who "defames, insults, or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent, or the regent."

Daranee, a journalist, became an activist after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was deposed in a 2006 coup and delivered fiery speeches at rallies organized by Thaksin's "Red Shirt" supporters.

Daranee said she would not appeal Thursday's sentence. "I have no will to keep fighting and I will neither lodge an appeal nor seek a royal pardon," she said.

Criticism of the lese majeste law increased last month after a 61-year-old grandfather received a 20-year sentence for four text messages sent from his phone to a government official.

The sentence given Amphon Tangnoppakul was believed to be the heaviest ever received in a lese majeste case because of additional penalties issued under a related law, the 2007 Computer Crimes Act. He denied sending the messages and said he didn't even know how to use the SMS function on his telephone.

The plight of "Uncle SMS," as he became known, has drawn international attention as well to the lese majeste law.

So did the sentencing earlier his month of Thai-born American Joe Gordon to 2 1/2 years in prison for translating excerpts of a banned biography of Thailand's king published by Yale University Press and placing them online. Gordon was in Colorado when the alleged offense occurred and was arrested when he later visited Thailand.

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman, Darragh Paradiso, said the United States has utmost respect for the Thai monarchy, but is "troubled by recent prosecutions and court decisions that are not consistent with international standards of freedom of expression."

The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, issued a statement of concern, saying "Such harsh criminal sanctions are neither necessary nor proportionate and violate the country's international human rights obligations."

Lese majeste prosecutions used to be rare in Thailand, and were mostly used for partisan political purposes as a means of smearing opponents.

But the number of high-profile cases has risen in recent years as nervousness about the eventual succession to 84-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej has increased, with the previously taboo subject of the monarchy's proper role starting to become a matter of public discussion.

However, loyalty to the monarch is still a touchstone of Thai politics, and frank discussion is difficult.

Earlier this year, a movement led by intellectuals and academics began a public campaign for reform of the lese majeste law, officially Article 112 of the Criminal Code.

This was Daranee's second trial. She received an 18-year term in her first trial, but was granted a new trial after courts ruled that her petition against having the first trial closed was not heard in a timely way.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_monarchy

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NVIDIA open sources CUDA compiler, shares the LLVM love with everyone

A few years back, Intel prognosticated that NVIDIA's CUDA technology was destined to be a "footnote" in computing history. Since that time, Jen-Hsun Huang's low level virtual machine (LLVM) has more than proven its worth in several supercomputers, and now NVIDIA has released the CUDA source code to further spread the parallel computing gospel. This move opens up the LLVM to be used with more programming languages and processors (x86 or otherwise) than ever before, which the company hopes will spur development of "next-generation higher performance computing platforms." Academics and chosen developers can get their hands on the code by registering with NVIDIA at the source below, so head on down and get started -- petaflop parallel processing supercomputers don't build themselves, you know.

NVIDIA open sources CUDA compiler, shares the LLVM love with everyone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Less knowledge, more power: Uninformed can be vital to democracy, study finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2011) ? Contrary to the ideal of a completely engaged electorate, individuals who have the least interest in a specific outcome can actually be vital to achieving a democratic consensus. These individuals dilute the influence of powerful minority factions who would otherwise dominate everyone else, according to new research published in the journal Science.

A Princeton University-based research team reports Dec. 16 that this finding -- based on group decision-making experiments on fish, as well as mathematical models and computer simulations -- can ultimately provide insights into humans' political behavior.

The researchers report that in animal groups, uninformed individuals -- as in those with no prior knowledge or strong feelings on a situation's outcome -- tend to side with and embolden the numerical majority. Relating the results to human political activity, the study challenges the common notion that an outspoken minority can manipulate uncommitted voters.

"The classic view is that uninformed or uncommitted individuals may allow extreme views to proliferate. We found that might not be the case," said lead author Iain Couzin, a Princeton assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. He and his co-authors found that even a small population of indifferent individuals act as a counterbalance to the minority -- whose passion even can cause informed individuals in the majority to waver -- and restore majority rule.

"We show that when the uninformed participate, the group can come to a majority decision even in the face of a powerful minority," Couzin said. "They prevent deadlock and fragmentation because the strength of an opinion no longer matters -- it comes down to numbers. You can imagine this being a good or bad thing. Either way, a certain number of uninformed individuals keep that minority from dictating or complicating the behavior of the group."

Of course this effect has its limits, Couzin said. He and his co-authors also found that if the number of uninformed becomes too high, a group ceases to function coherently, with neither the majority nor the minority taking the lead. "Eventually, noise dominates because there just aren't enough informed individuals to guide the group," he said.

Parallels to humans

An important aspect of the findings, said Couzin, is that they are based on experiments on groups of fish, as well as mathematical models and computer simulations. Though the idea of uninformed populations benefiting the democratic process seems counterintuitive, the experimental results suggest that this dynamic is a naturally occurring decision-making process, he said.

The experiments involved golden shiners, a fish prone to associating the color yellow with a food reward, Couzin said. The researchers trained groups of golden shiners to swim toward a blue target, while smaller groups were trained to follow their natural predilection for a yellow target. When the two groups were placed together, the minority's stronger desire for the yellow target dominated the group's behavior. As fish with no prior training (the uninformed individuals) were introduced, however, the fish increasingly swam toward the majority-preferred blue target, the researchers report.

"We think of being informed as good and being uninformed as bad, but that's a human construct. Animal groups are rarely in a fractious state and we see consensus a lot," said Couzin, who studies the behavior and communication behind animal movement, swarming and flocking.

"These experiments indicate there is an evolutionary function to being uninformed that perhaps is as active as being informed," he said. "Animals may be equally adaptable to simply going with the majority in certain circumstances because having that quick decision-making capability is beneficial for survival. We shouldn't think of it as a bad thing, but look at advantages animals exhibit to being uninformed in natural circumstances."

Donald Saari, a professor of mathematics and economics at the University of California-Irvine who studies voting systems, said he sees parallels to the Princeton-led work in markets and politics.

Highly informed economic forecasters and political activists frequently lose out to the masses of consumers and regular voters who base decisions on personal preferences and reasons more than on expertise, said Saari, who is familiar with the Science report but had no role in it.

For instance, he said, the arc from minority domination to pluralism to the potential degeneration into "noise," as described in the Princeton study, can be seen in the American electoral system.

A forceful minority can dominate in circumstances that attract the more politically inclined, such as midterm elections and primaries. In more popular elections, however, that influence wanes as less passionate people participate. Situations in which a candidate's personality or personal life takes precedent over policy positions in voters' minds could be an equivalent to the breakdown in direction Couzin and his co-authors found when there is a glut of uninformed individuals, Saari said.

"This study gives us a new interpretation of group decision making that really flies in the face of previous opinions. We usually assume that a highly opinionated and forceful group is going to sway everyone," Saari said.

"What we have we here is something very different," he said. "It doesn't say whether or not the consensus it good, it just provides a way of understanding when and how the consensus changes. If the numbers of the uninformed, or people who don't have a strong opinion, are large enough, that dilutes the effect of the highly opinionated or knowledgeable in the final outcome. Quite frankly, I think it's because the highly opinionated are not in the center and the uninformed, to a large extent, are."

Saari said that there might be an additional consideration or factor that uninformed individuals bring to the group process rather than mere devotion to the majority opinion.

"These results raise a lot of questions for me and present another way of thinking about and coming up with explanations for what we observe in group dynamics," he said.

"I think the effect the uninformed have is much more than just number-counting plurality and that they're offering something else," Saari said. "Why are the fish with no 'opinion' more effective toward taking the group toward plurality than the fish that only had some opinion? What is that additional dynamic, what are the real contributions of the uninformed? I don't know what it is, but I do know it's worth investigating."

The power of the uninformed in simulations and reality

The researchers developed three models that initially revealed and described how uninformed individuals restore popular power. The modeling work was based on a computational tool developed in Couzin's lab that predicts and explains animal group behavior based on various forms of social interaction among group members. Couzin first reported the model in the journal Nature in 2005.

For the current work in Science, Couzin worked with, from Princeton, second author Christos Ioannou, a former postdoctoral fellow in Couzin's lab who is now a research fellow at the University of Bristol; postdoctoral researcher Colin Torney and doctoral student Andrew Hartnett, both in Couzin's lab; and professors Simon Levin, the Moffett Professor of Biology and co-author of the 2005 Nature paper, and Naomi Leonard, the Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The team also included G?ven Demirel, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems; Thilo Gross, an engineering lecturer at the University of Bristol; and Larissa Conradt, a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge.

In this project, Couzin used his model to first simulate animal groups of different sizes with a majority and a minority population, each with a differing preference to move in a certain direction. He added the factor of how strongly the respective groups felt about their preference, a variable he could increase or decrease.

As expected, the researchers report, if the majority's preference was just as strong or stronger than the minority's, the group moved in the direction the majority favored. But when the intensity of the minority's preference increased, the animals as a whole frequently caved to that group's desires. In the groups with the strongest minority preference, the animals always went with the minority.

Couzin then added a third group, the uninformed, that had no preference on the direction to move. The model showed that even the presence of one or two uninformed individuals caused an immediate change in the group's behavior. The uninformed individuals were ultimately most effective in the groups with the least committed minority and those with the smallest total number of members. But even in groups with the most adamant minority, the majority took back control with less than 10 uninformed individuals present.

"Consensus naturally emerges in these models once uninformed individuals are introduced," Couzin said. "There is a sharp transition from minority to majority control. At a certain threshold, only a few uninformed individuals can alter the entire outcome of group decisions."

Mathematical models -- one created by Demirel and Gross, another by Torney -- helped explain the mysterious pull of the uninformed individuals. These models were based on social processes in human groups, such as how conventions become established, or how people influence each other's opinions, Couzin said.

The calculations indicated that during the decision-making process, all individuals have a tendency to follow what they perceive as the predominant view, but opinionated individuals are more resistant to social pressure, Couzin explained. This reluctance to compromise manipulates the perception of what is popular, meaning that the strong convictions of the minority can make their view seem dominant. Uninformed individuals, having no strong opinion or preference, tend to inhibit this process because they respond quickly to numerical rather than semantic differences and curb the influence of forceful individuals.

The models were used to design the experiments with the golden shiners, which Ioannou, who was not aware of the hypothesis being tested, conducted over a three-month period. The majority group of fish trained to swim toward the blue target consisted of six fish; five fish made up the strongly "opinionated" minority group, which was driven by a natural attraction to the color yellow.

As in the simulations, the minority group won out when uninformed individuals were not present and the fish swam toward the yellow target in slightly more than 80 percent of the trials where only the minority and majority groups were present.

The untrained fish, however, which were introduced in groups of five or 10, consistently put the group on course toward the blue target, Couzin explained. When five were added, the whole group went toward the blue target half the time. In trials with 10 untrained fish present, the fish made their way to the blue target nearly 70 percent of the time.

"We saw that the counterweight to a powerful minority can come from the least expected population -- the uninformed," Couzin said.

"It was extremely rewarding to see this counterintuitive prediction play out in reality with living organisms," he said. "Our work is a simplification of reality, but it allows the underlying mechanics of this type of decision making to be observed and understood."

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Searle Scholars Program, the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research, the Royal Society and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency administered by the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Princeton University. The original article was written by Morgan Kelly.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. I. D. Couzin, C. C. Ioannou, G. Demirel, T. Gross, C. J. Torney, A. Hartnett, L. Conradt, S. A. Levin, N. E. Leonard. Uninformed Individuals Promote Democratic Consensus in Animal Groups. Science, 2011; 334 (6062): 1578 DOI: 10.1126/science.1210280

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111215141621.htm

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