“Breaking Bad” to get the “MythBusters” treatment

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Finally, the world might find out if it’s truly a bad idea to dissolve a body with hydrofluoric acid in a bathtub.

Discovery Channel‘s reality show “MythBusters” – which re-enacts scenarios from movies, TV and urban legend to test their accuracy with scientific methodology – is filming a “Breaking Bad”-themed episode, a spokesman for the cable network told TheWrap on Friday.

“Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan and star Aaron Paul – who plays meth manufacturer Jesse Pinkman on the series — will be on hand as “MythBusters” stars Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage put the logic of the hit AMC drama.

No other details, such as when the episode will air, were available.

Back in June, Gilligan said in an interview that he’d like to do a “Breaking Bad”/”MythBusters” crossover.

“I’d dig seeing those guys prove or disprove some of the crazy stuff we’ve done on ‘Breaking Bad,’” Gilligan enthused.

While they’re at it, perhaps they can get to the bottom of whether that electromagnet episode would have been possible in the real world.

EW.com first reported the news of the “Breaking Bad”/”MythBusters” crossover.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Israel’s Neuronix offers new Alzheimer’s treatment

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel-based Neuronix, which has developed a non-invasive medical device to help to treat Alzheimer’s disease, expects the system to be approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in late 2014.

The device, which combines electromagnetic stimulation with computer-based cognitive training, is already approved for use in Europe, Israel and several Asian countries. In Singapore it is approved for clinical trial use and the application for registration of the product is still under evaluation.

“You stimulate the brain on a biological level as well as on a cognitive level,” Neuronix CEO Eyal Baror told Reuters, saying this double approach created longer-lasting benefits.

The device, which consists of a chair containing an electronic system and software in the back and a coil placed at the head, has been tested on mild to moderate Alzheimer’s patients who suffer from dementia but are not totally dependent.

The system is in trials at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre. Patients are treated for one hour a day, five days a week over six weeks.

“We see improvement lasting for 9-12 months and the good thing is that patients can return and undergo treatment again,” Baror said. “If out of 10 years the patients have left to live we can keep them at home in a relatively mild state of the disease for three, four, five years, it’s a lot.”

According to Alvaro Pascual-Leone, director of the hospital’s Berenson-Allen Centre for Non-invasive Brain Stimulation, brain stimulation – or transcranial magnetic stimulation – involves a very low current applied to a specific part of the brain and is approved by the FDA for treatment of a variety of ailments and diagnostic applications.

“The application in Alzheimer’s disease and in combination with cognitive training is novel,” Pascual-Leono said in a phone interview from Boston.

About 20 percent of patients experience a mild headache but there are no long-term negative effects, he said.

Pascual-Leone, who is principal investigator in the Harvard trial, said that of 12 patients in the study, six received the real treatment and all showed cognitive improvement. Their improvement was significantly more than the average seen in patients taking just medication, he said.

The study’s results will be submitted for publication in the coming weeks and a follow-up study on 30 patients is planned.

Neuronix received European approval several months ago and has installations in the UK and Germany. In Israel, a few dozen patients are being treated with the device.

The U.S. trials are expected to run till the end of 2013. Neuronix is also running a trial in Israel for pre-Alzheimer’s patients.

The company expects to sell half a dozen systems in the second half of 2012 and three dozen in 2013. In Israel, the treatment costs $ 6,000.

“Our target for becoming profitable is in parallel to entering the U.S. market around 2015,” Baror said.

Neuronix has raised $ 8 million from private individuals as well as in grants from the Israeli Chief Scientist’s Office and is exploring options to raise more money in the coming year, including the possibility of going public.

(This version of the October 24 story corrects paragraph two that company corrects to say that in Singapore, device is approved for clinical trial use and its application for registration of the product is under evaluation, not that device is approved for commercial use.)

(Reporting by Tova Cohen; editing by Stephen Nisbet)

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Campaigning for victory, Romney speeches shift

NEWINGTON, N.H. (AP) — From an airport runway on a cold New Hampshire morning, Republican Mitt Romney faced 2,000 supporters and delivered the same speech he had given the day before — three times on the day before, actually.

"I won't just represent one party, I'll represent one nation," the presidential candidate declared Saturday for the fourth time in 36 hours as swing-state Republicans cheered, most of them hearing his pledge for the first time.

The Romney stump speech, like that of his opponent, is a carefully crafted 15 minutes that opens a window into the strategy behind his second presidential bid. And for Romney, it is a constantly evolving tool that has shifted sharply in recent weeks to appeal to the political center.

Let there be no doubt that Romney, who once described himself as "severely conservative," is aggressively courting the narrow slice of undecided voters — largely women and moderates — who have yet to settle on a candidate.

From central Florida to central Iowa, the stories Romney tells in daily campaign stops have changed to include intimate personal details. The emphasis on his business career has been forgotten. And while he repeatedly jabs President Barack Obama, he devotes as much time to an optimistic vision for an America that would "come roaring back" under a Romney administration.

"Come walk with me. Walk together to a better place," Romney said Saturday with the confidence of a man who has used the line several times before.

The year before, Romney launched his presidential campaign in New Hampshire with a very different message. At the time, he referenced his 25-year business career in almost every speech, suggesting he was uniquely qualified to repair the nation's ailing economy.

It was all economy, all the time.

"This, for me, is not about the next step in my political career," the former Massachusetts governor who also ran for president in 2008 told a New Hampshire audience in September 2011. "I don't have a political career. I spent 25 years in business."

But three days before Election Day, Romney the businessman had completed the journey to becoming Romney the politician.

He drew heavily from his experience in Massachusetts, devoting just a few sentences to his business career. He cited his work to cut taxes, create jobs, cut the deficit, improve education. And above all, he emphasized his ability to work with the Democrats who dominated state politics.

"Instead of attacking each other, we went to work to try to solve our problems," Romney said.

While heavily scripted, the daily stump speech also offers the occasional insight. Romney often slips dry humor into his speeches along with awkward words that sometimes raise eyebrows. He loves to begin sentences with, "In the final analysis," references "quartiles," and often proclaims, "Wow!"

On Saturday he joked that his New Hampshire supporters should "harangue" his friends. Later Saturday in Iowa, he noted that Sen. Chuck Grassley recently hit a deer with his car and asked, "Was it delicious?"

Romney has never possessed the same charm at the podium that allowed successful campaigners in the past — Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama among them — to connect with voters. But, in the speeches themselves, Romney has tried to address that weakness. This week he has repeatedly declared that "talk is cheap."

He also uses his speeches to address the regular criticism that he's not offering enough specifics. In virtually every rally since late summer, he outlines a five-point plan to get the nation's economy going. It's a general list of talking points that is largely in line with Obama's, albeit with different focuses.

First, Romney says he'd push an energy agenda that focuses on oil, gas and coal. He'd then adopt a trade policy that opens markets in Latin America and cracks down on China. The Republican also supports training and education programs that work around teachers unions. He'd also get the nation "on track" to a balanced budget. And finally, he would "champion small business."

Perhaps most striking is the shift in the personal stories he tells to help connect with voters.

For several months, on a near-daily basis, he shared underdog stories of oilmen and food industry magnates. In recent weeks, he has spoken instead about Boy Scouts who watched a space shuttle explosion, talked of a sister who has raised a child with Down syndrome and devoted a special mention to single mothers.

"I think of all the single moms who are scrimping and saving to make sure they have a good meal on the table at the end of the day for their children," he said this week. "We're a nation of people with great hearts who care very deeply about things bigger than ourselves."

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Chuck Lorre slams Romney, GOP with “Big Bang Theory” vanity card

(Please note profanity in second-to-last paragraph))

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – That Chuck Lorre – what a card.

No, seriously; what a card.

The “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” honcho – who’s used the vanity cards at the end of his shows to expound on everything from former “Men” star Charlie Sheen to the humilities of aging – used Thursday night’s “Big Bang Theory” card to rant about presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the current state of the Republican party.

Unfortunately for fans of political mud-flinging, the card never made it to air. Lorre published the card on his website instead, noting that he’d opted for self-censorship.

“I’ve decided to save everybody a lot of unhappiness and not submit this week’s vanity card to the CBS censors (I know when I’ve crossed the line with these things and don’t need a bunch of corporate lawyers getting their cotton blend panties in a bunch),” Lorre wrote.

Kind of a shame, really, because it’s quite a doozy.

The card takes shots at GOP politicians’ recent stances on everything from rape to FEMA, along with a dig at the reality series “The Bachelor” and a not-so-veiled reference to Romney’s Mormonism.

The card ends with a wholesale condemnation of modern American society.

The text of the vanity card is presented below in its entirety, to preserve flavor and flow:

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #397

CENSORED BY ME

What does it say about us when we are simultaneously pro-life and pro AK-47′s? What does it say about us when God’s will would allow a rapist to ask for shared custody and child support payments? What does it say about us when a black guy’s in charge and we say things like “it’s time to take America back”? What does it say about us when we think the institution of marriage is threatened by gay people who love each other, but not by idiotic game shows like “The Bachelor”? What does it say about us when we export democracy with Hellfire missiles, then restrict the right to vote here? What does it say about us when we build nuclear submarines to defend against exploding vests? What does it say about us when we think a guy who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, keeps his money offshore, stubs his toe and says “H-E-double hockey sticks” and wears magical underwear can feel our pain? What does it say about us when we demand less government and more FEMA? What does it say about us when we completely forgot the colossal shit storm we were in four years ago?

The answer, my friends, is not blowing in the wind.

The answer is, “We are fucking crazy.”

It’s just a shame that Lorre has trouble sharing his feelings.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Amsterdam struggles to evade ban on dope-smoking tourists

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The mayor of Amsterdam may be unable to deliver on his promise to scrap the ban on tourists visiting the city’s marijuana-selling coffee shops, the Dutch justice ministry said on Friday.

Dope smokers were relieved this week when mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the coffee shops would remain open to foreigners.

The conservative national government that lost power in September had pledged that only locals would be allowed to buy “weed” in coffee shops from the beginning of next year.

Amsterdam’s marijuana cafes and bars attract millions of tourists and the outgoing government‘s impending ban on foreigners met strong resistance from businesses.

“We understand that the policy of the central government is to have one policy for the entire country,” said a spokeswoman for the city.

“But Amsterdam’s situation is very different from the rest of the country’s, because we have so many tourists.”

The mayor’s promise has, however, ruffled feathers in The Hague, the seat of Dutch government, and the spat will determine whether decades of Dutch drug tolerance continue.

The two parties forming the Netherlands’ next government want to allow cities to circumvent the national ban implemented by the former government, which included the Christian Democrats.

But the justice ministry said there was no guarantee the law would change to accommodate Amsterdam’s concerns.

“The coalition agreement says that tourists will be banned from coffee shops in the whole country,” a spokeswoman said. “What accommodation there will be for local requirements has not yet been finalized.”

Last year’s ban followed government claims that cannabis had become stronger and more dangerous and that coffee shops had criminal links.

“The mayor knows that closing the coffee shops will lead to all kinds of problems,” said Laurens Buijs, a sociologist at the University of Amsterdam. “Mayors know that the government’s ideological approach is not really helping.”

For decades, the Netherlands has been known as a haven of tolerance for soft drugs, attracting tourists from around the world to its 700 coffee shops.

But that tolerance has drawn complaints from residents who say the influx of cannabis lovers brings congestion and crime.

Local authorities argue the ban will not only hit the economy, but will encourage illegal street dealers and push up crime rates.

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Robert Woodward)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Bloomberg cancels marathon amid outcry

RT @YahooSportsNBA: Jeremy Lin and James Harden are the NBA’s best backcourt. Do not argue. http://t.co/zsGlGTgp via @YahooBDL

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Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.

“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple rolls out iPad mini in Asia to shorter lines

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Apple fans lined up in several Asian cities to get their hands on the iPad mini on Friday, but the device, priced above rival gadgets from Google and Amazon.com, attracted smaller crowds than at the company's previous global rollouts.

Apple Inc's global gadget rollouts are typically high-energy affairs drawing droves of buyers who stand in line for hours. But a proliferation of comparable rival devices may have sapped some interest.

About 50 people waited for the Apple store in Sydney, Australia, to open, where in the past the line had stretched for several blocks when the company debuted new iPhones.

At the head of Friday's line was Patrick Li, who had been waiting since 4:30 am and was keen to get his hands on the 7.9-inch slate.

"It's light, easy to handle, and I'll use it to read books. It's better than the original iPad," Li said.

There were queues of 100 or more outside Apple stores in Tokyo and Seoul when the device went on sale, but when the company's flagship Hong Kong store opened staff appeared to outnumber those waiting in line.

The iPad mini marks Apple's first foray into the smaller-tablet segment, and the latest salvo in a global mobile-device war that has engulfed combatants from Internet search leader Google Inc to Web retailer Amazon.com Inc and software giant Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft's 10-inch Surface tablet, powered by the just-launched Windows 8 software, went on sale in October, while Google and Amazon now dominate sales of smaller, 7-inch multimedia tablets.

POSITIVE REVIEWS

Unveiled last week, the iPad mini has won mostly positive reviews, with criticism centering on a screen considered inferior to rivals' and a lofty price tag. The new tablet essentially replicates most of the features of its full-sized sibling, but in a smaller package.

"Well, first of all it's so thin and light and very cute - so cute!" said iPad mini customer Ten Ebihara at the Apple store in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district.

At $329 for a Wi-Fi only model, the iPad mini is a little costlier than predicted but some analysts see that as Apple's attempt to retain premium positioning.

Some investors fear the gadget will lure buyers away from Apple's $499 flagship 9.7-inch iPad, while proving ineffective in combating the threat of Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7, both of which are sold at or near cost.

Also on Friday, Apple rolled out its fourth-generation iPad, with the same 9.7-inch display as the previous version but with a faster A6X processor and better Wi-Fi. Both devices were going on sale in more than 30 countries.

Apple will likely sell between 1 million and 1.5 million iPad minis in the first weekend, far short of the 3 million third-generation iPads sold last March in their first weekend, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

"The reason we expect fewer iPad minis compared to the 3rd Gen is because of the lack of the wireless option and newness of the smaller form factor for consumers," Munster said in a note to clients. "We believe that over time that will change."

Reviewers have applauded Apple for squeezing most of the iPad's features into a smaller package that can be comfortably manipulated with one hand.

James Vohradsky, a 20 year-old student who previously queued for 17 hours at the Sydney store to buy the iPhone 5, only stood in line for an hour and a half this time.

"I had an iPad 1 before, I kind of miss it because I sold it about a year ago. It's just more practical to have the mini because I found it a bit too big. The image is really good and it's got the fast A5 chip too," Vohradsky said.

The iPad was launched in 2010 by late Apple boss Steve Jobs and since then it has taken a big chunk out of PC sales, upending the industry and reinventing mobile computing with its apps-based ecosystem.

A smaller tablet is the first device to be added to Apple's compact portfolio under Cook, who took over from Jobs just before his death a year ago. Analysts credit Google and Amazon for influencing the decision.

Some investors worry that Apple might have lost its chief visionary with Jobs, and that new management might not be able to stay ahead of the pack as rivals innovate and encroach on its market share.

(Additional reporting by Mariko Lochridge in Tokyo, Stefanie McIntyre in Hong Kong and Miyoung Kim in Seoul; Writing by Noel Randewich and Edwin Chan in San Francisco; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Alex Richardson)

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Songwriter Bill Dees,”Oh, Pretty Woman” co-writer, dead at 73

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Singer-composer Bill Dees, best known for his songwriting collaboration with Roy Orbison on the hits “Oh, Pretty Woman” and “It’s Over,” has died at age 73 in Mountain Home, Arkansas, according to an obituary posted online by a local funeral home.

Dees, a Texas native who got his start in the 1950s with a high school band called the Five Bops, is credited with writing scores of songs in all, some recorded by such performers as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Glen Campbell.

But Dees’ most fruitful collaboration was his work with fellow Texan Orbison, with whom he teamed up to write Orbison’s signature 1964 hit, “Oh, Pretty Woman.” which was featured years later in the soundtrack to the movie “Pretty Woman,” starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

The band Van Halen also scored a hit with a cover version of “Oh, Pretty Woman.”

According to various accounts, the song’s refrain grew out of an offhand comment Dees made when Orbison’s wife, Claudette, walked into the room where the two men were writing together, and Orbison asked her if she needed any money.

Dees cracked, “Pretty woman never needs any money,” and the song took shape from there, with the bulk of the composition coming together in less than hour.

As recounted in one biography posted on Dees’ official website, Dees also contributed uncredited harmony vocals on the record.

“Oh, Pretty Woman” went to No. 1 in United States and topped the charts in Britain, as did the 1964 Orbison ballad co-written by Dees, “It’s Over,” a considerable achievement given the dominance of the Beatles and other British groups on both sides of the Atlantic at the time.

Other Orbison singles Dees co-wrote included “Born on the Wind,” “Crawling Back,” “Communication Breakdown,” “Walk On,” “Windsurfer” and “So This Is Love.”

Dees died last week, on October 24, at Mountain Home, where he had lived since 1989, according to an announcement posted on the website of the Kirby & Family Funeral Home, where a memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, November 3.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Eric Walsh and W Simon)

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