- U.S. multi-transplant boy to leave Miami hospital
- New evidence that asteroid killed dinosaurs
- Galaxy crashes trigger new star births - astronomers
- Director John Carpenter's Vampire movie opens in theaters this Halloween
- Danish scientists develop atom-size computer chip
- McCartney in cancer appeal, Linda's album launched
- MIND-READING COMPUTER CHIP SMACKS OF SCI-FI
- Into Deep Space
- Monkeys can count, too, study finds
- Paul McCartney never told Linda she was dying
- Jazz Profiles on NPR - Shirley Horn
- Electronics Arts kills 'Thrill Kill' game before release
- Grumpy Old Men and Women Are Born- Not Made
- Last Leprosy Center to Close
- 'Private Ryan' leaves German audience stunned
- !!! APES RULE AGAIN !!!
- Boy receives unusual bone graft in Fla.  
- H. P. Lovecraft archives  
- Could rabies explain the vampire legend?

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Maryland teenager who made history by surviving an unprecedented series of multi-organ transplants was preparing Thursday to leave a Miami hospital - something that once seemed extremely unlikely. Daniel Canal, 13, of Wheaton, Md., is the only person to have received three sets of four transplanted organs, the first set in May, the second in early June and the third 2-1/2 weeks later. He was getting ready to leave the University of Miami's Jackson Children's Hospital Thursday, released from intensive care, able to eat solid food for the first time in years and feeling well.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - They may look slow and stately from here, but galaxy crashes create a hotbed of new star formation, astronomers said Wednesday. They said new telescopes and other equipment, like the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, have helped astronomers see what is going on when two galaxies collide. Writing in the science journal Nature, Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and colleagues said such observations have transformed theories about galaxies. Until the 1950s astronomers thought galaxies were isolated mini-universes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New evidence found deep within the Earth's crust adds support to the theory that a huge asteroid smashed into the planet 65 million years ago and killed off the dinosaurs, researchers said Thursday. They found extraterrestrial chromium in the rocks that were on the surface of the Earth at about the time dinosaurs disappeared. Writing in the journal Science, the scientists said they measured levels of a chromium isotope, 53Cr, in rocks at the K-T boundary, the geologic layer in the Earth that coincides with dinosaur extinction. These rocks were at the surface when the Cretaceous period ended and the Tertiary began, and when the dinosaurs began their slide into extinction.

'Vampires' Durability - John Carpenter's new film "Vampires" opens Friday around the country, just in time for Halloween. The film is a testament to the durability of the vampire genre in Hollywood. Since the era of silent movies, not a decade has gone by without a new Dracula interpretation. But as times change so do the bloodsuckers. Listen as Beth Accomando reports for Morning Edition on whether vampires can still scare an audience.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish scientists said Monday they had created a chip where a single atom jumping back and forth could generate the binary code which is the basis of digital information used by computers. Applying this technique - which might only become commercially viable in a decade or two - information stored today on a million CD-roms could be stored on a single disc, said physics doctor Francois Grey, the team leader. "Society seems to find use for this," he said, referring to the search for ever smaller units in various technological applications.

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney appealed to women on Monday to beware of breast cancer as an album of songs by his wife Linda was released six months after her death. McCartney, who also released previously unseen family video footage, said Linda's disease had been diagnosed too late for her to stand a real chance of survival. "The thing about breast cancer is that the earlier you catch it the better, so the trick for all women is to get checks, to think about things like mammograms even though you think you may be being a bit too fussy," he said in a filmed statement.

A paralyzed Georgia man who received a tiny brain implant has become the first human to control a computer using only his thoughts. The implant, about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, has apparently allowed the 53-year-old man to successfully communicate with a computer using only his thoughts. An Emory University researcher involved with the project says, "We have him think about movement. This sends a signal to a receiving unit in his scalp, which sends a message to the computer screen." Click for more. I wonder what happens if he wishes his computer were dead.

Deep Space 1 blasted into space Saturday on a mission to study an asteroid. The satellite contains a super-efficient electric propulsion system that was once only found in science-fiction, like Star Trek The NASA mission is primarily intended to test the new propulsion system and other advanced equipment, but the satellite's trajectory also could give some of its instruments new close-up views of an asteroid and two comets. For details on the mission, listen as Ivan Amato reports for Morning Edition.

Primates and Counting People who examine the differences between humans and other animals have held up tool-making and language as evidence of our superiority. Then it was found that chimpanzees could communicate by hand signs and could make and use tools. Though debate continues over whether apes are truly using language, there's another form of intelligence that's being studied in non-human primates -- counting. And this week's issue of the journal Science has some new findings on monkeys that count. NPR's Christopher Joyce has the story.

LONDON (Reuters) - Paul McCartney has revealed he knew his wife Linda had just days to live, but decided not to tell her breast cancer had finally overwhelmed her. McCartney, who spent just one night apart from Linda in almost 30 years of marriage before her death in April, said, "I knew a week or so before she died. I was the only one who knew. One of the doctors said she ought to be told but I didn't want to tell her because I didn't think she'd want to know." For McCartney, her death was a double agony - his mother had died of breast cancer when he was just 14 years old. Linda McCartney died at the family ranch in Arizona after losing her three-year fight against cancer.

Jazz Profiles on NPR - This week Shirley Horn

"Songs are lucky when Shirley Horn chooses them."¹ Horn has a rare ability to get inside a lyric, find the "center" of the song and transform it into an emotional and very personal expression. With her sensuous voice and magical touch at the piano, Horn’s name has become synonymous with the words "love song."

Horn remembers playing piano in her grandmother’s parlor as early as age four. "I wanted music with a passion, it was my blood, it was my life," she explains. She later attended Howard University Junior School of Music, in Washington, DC, where she studied great Western classical composers on piano. But jazz soon took over her musical aspirations. Horn began singing when she realized she could earn more money as a vocalist. But singing and playing piano were almost inextricable for her, and she would continue to develop both interdependently. According to lyricist and writer Joel Siegel , "[Horn] fuses voice and piano into a single expression."

Horn’s first recording, "Embers and Ashes", was released on a very small label in 1960, but it got her some high profile attention. The great trumpeter Miles Davis was so impressed that he tracked Shirley down and invited her to New York to open for him at the Village Vanguard. Davis even told the club’s owner that he wouldn’t play if Shirley couldn’t perform. Horn reminisces about that magical performance in front of a star-studded audience.

One need not look far to understand Davis’ appreciation of Shirley Horn’s vocal style. Both Horn and Davis are recognized for their use of space--long silences between notes--to create a certain tension, particularly when doing ballads. As Siegel puts it , "There’s a kind of suspense, wondering when the next note’s gonna come." A comparison of versions of "My Funny Valentine" by both musicians demonstrates Siegel’s point.

Davis remained a close friend and mentor to Horn until his death in 1991. Following the sensational Village Vanguard performance, Horn recorded a couple albums with producer Quincy Jones on the Mercury label. But Horn had been signed as a vocalist, and had to leave the piano to someone else. This arrangement didn’t feel quite right for Horn, who recalls, "I wasn’t playing piano for myself…I wasn’t really happy."

After the Mercury contract expired, Horn retreated from the limelight to be with her family back in Washington. She never abandoned her music—she performed before large and devoted crowds in DC with her own trio, including Charles Ables on bass and Steve Williams on drums. But Horn’s long absences from large entertainment centers made it difficult for her to find recording opportunities. Finally, in 1986, the prestigious Verve label took the advice of record producer Richard Seidel and signed Horn and her trio to a contract.

Horn’s greatest fame has occurred in this latest phase of her career. The trio emerged with numerous Grammy Award nominations, including one for her most popular album, "You Won’t Forget Me", which featured appearances by Davis and harmonica solos by Toots Theilemans. A memorable performance in Paris yielded yet another fantastic Verve release, "I Love You Paris," in 1992.

That same year, Horn also fulfilled a long-time ambition to work with the brilliant arranger and composer, Johnny Mandel . The album, "Here’s to Life, " was number one on the Billboard charts for a record-breaking 17 weeks. It was a fitting milestone for Horn. Throughout her career, she has never compromised her music or her personal life in pursuit of fame. She took her time with success in the same way she controls a slow and shifting tempo on one of her ballads. But all the while, Horn fulfills her heartfelt ambitions by doing what she loves—making music.

¹ Quote by New York Times jazz critic John Parelis.

Credits:
The profile of Shirley Horn was written and produced by Margot Stage. Jazz Profiles is produced by Tim Owens. Assistant producer Madeleine Smith. Executive Producers -- Mary Beth Kirchner and Murray Horwitz.

When Electronic Arts agreed in August to buy many of the assets of Virgin Interactive Entertainment, it acquired a library of classic computer and video games that includes "The Seventh Guest," "Dune 2" and "Command & Conquer."  But EA not only acquired those classics, it also got the rights to several new products, including a highly anticipated fighting game for the Sony PlayStation called "Thrill Kill."  Click Here for more!

For more than a century, a former plantation in Louisiana has been at the front of the battle against leprosy in the United States. It’s the last federal hospital in the country for people with the illness, which is now known as Hansen's disease. The facility has become a victim of its own success, and later this year it’s scheduled to be transferred back to the state of Louisiana. That will force the 122 remaining patients to decide whether to stay or leave the hospital where many of them have lived for decades. For the details, listen as Sally Squires reports for All Things Considered on the hospital, its patients and the fear and discrimination that surround the disease.

November 20, 1996 -- Gerontologists are studying how people's personalities change as they age. Researchers are finding that our personalities don't change drastically as we grow old.  NPR's Wendy Schmeltzer reports.

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - American director Steven Spielberg's anti-war film "Saving Private Ryan" left a German sneak preview audience in stunned silence Wednesday ahead of its nationwide release Thursday. A crowd of 400 German business and cultural leaders watching an advance screening with U.S. Ambassador John Kornblum was left momentarily speechless by the film with its graphic scenes of Germans fighting Americans in World War II. "It's a horrible and exhausting film for me because it has brought back so many memories of bombs and screams of pain," said Thomas Sturzena, 59, a toothpaste company executive who sat motionless for minutes after the film ended.

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Reuters) - A 5-year-old boy was recovering Friday after he became what is believed to be the first person in the U.S. to receive an unusual type of shoulder bone transplant. Adam Johnson of Nassau, Bahamas, received the bone graft Sept. 14 after undergoing chemotherapy for a rare form of bone cancer for two months at the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. In the operation doctors removed a tumor from the boy's right shoulder. They removed part of the bone where growth occurs from Adam's leg and attached it to a bone graft from a cadaver. The bone graft was then transplanted to the boy's shoulder.

!!! APES RULE AGAIN !!!
Celebrate the Sci-Fi Classic movie...

!!! 30th ANNIVERSARY !!!
Planet of the apes Prolog by Charlton Heston

Enter the "Planet of the Apes" web site and experience a wealth of information incorporated in time lines that span hundreds of years of Ape and Human history.  The individual Ape timelines include actual film clips and never-before-seen footage from the "Behind The Planet of the Apes," a documentary tracing the making of the "Planet of the Apes" movies. Explore these timelines and learn more about the legendary science fiction franchise, "Planet of the Apes."
Monday, Sept. 21 1998

(c) 1998 Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc. "Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment," "Fox," and their
associated logos are the property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Vampires

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Could rabies be behind the legend of the vampire?  A Spanish neurologist, proposing a novel genesis for one of the most feared ghouls in Western culture, says the tale of the blood-sucking predator may have originated with a major rabies epidemic in Europe in the 1700s.  "Sometimes things that are apparently bizarre and senseless can have a logical explanation," said Dr. Juan Gomez-Alonso of Xeral Hospital in Vigo, Spain.   His rabid vampire thesis appears in the issue of the journal Neurology released Monday. 

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