The heart of our galaxy may be a cluster of up to 25,000 black holes created by the demise of stars throughout the Milky Way and slowly falling to the center where they are gradually gobbled up by the giant black hole lurking there.

Jumbo discovery: DNA analysis confirms that African forest elephants have diverged enough from their savannah cousins that, along with the Indian elephant, there should be considered to be three separate species. Add one more to the endangered species list.

Chile Mulls Plan to Curb Global Warming. The patented plan would fertilize the ocean to enhance plankton growth, which in turn would consume more CO2 dissolved in the ocean water. Atmospheric CO2 would go into solution to compensate. Chile would “clean up” on carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change [New Scientist]

Do you suppose supermarketeers will go for this?

More opiates used to treat severe pain. A new study shows that a recent trend toward increased use of narcotic analgesics to treat severe chronic pain has not been accompanied by wider abuse of these drugs, despite the fears of “pharmacological Calvinist” detractors of adequate pain relief in medical practice.

The screenwriter of The Usual Suspects and the producer of The Sixth Sense team up with director Simon West to do a film based on the ’60’s cult classic TV series The Prisoner. Patrick McGoohan will be the executive producer.

Mickey And Minnie Skate Around Controversy in Northern Ireland by refusing to be photographed shaking hands with mayor of Londonderry.

McDonald’s humble pie? Apologizes for poking fun at Malta.

Consul of Imaginary Principality Arrested

“A man acting as consul of an imaginary principality off Britain was arrested in Madrid on suspicion of selling

fake passports to international criminals, the Civil Guard said.” The Principality of Sealand, based on a surplus military platform in the Thames estuary, follows international law and issues its own passports, according to its website.

Plan Helps Elderly With Prescriptions: proponents claim, this plan, if implemented, will make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to offer affordable prescription drug coverage to virtually all elders.

ZDNet: News: Breaking News In Brief

“The leaders of a Congressional panel Tuesday

said an automated system sought by the

Securities and Exchange Commission to

monitor fraud on the Internet could violate the

privacy of Americans.”

Life as a fate worse than death

“I am praying that the judge will be merciful,

that he will see the reasons to grant the DNR

and that he will spot and judge harshly the

self-interest that led the parents to fight it.” [Salon]

Sun’s Got the Beat “Like blood pulsing in an artery, newly discovered currents of gas

beat deep inside the Sun, speeding and slackening every 16 months.

The solar “heartbeat” throbs in the same region of the Sun suspected of driving

the 11-year cycle of solar eruptions, during which the Sun goes from stormy to

quiet and back again. Scientists are hopeful that this pulse can help them unravel

the origin and operation of the solar cycle.” [NASA Science News]

Salon review of Alice Kaplan’s new book The Collaborator about French pro-fascist novelist and critic Robert Brasillach, who was executed by firing squad on direct order of de Gaulle in the waning days of WWII. Simone de Beauvoir called his condemnation symbolically rather than judicially sound, and disturbing questions remain unanswered about what was essentially an execution for “hate speech”, a finding that intellectual crimes were as noxious as political or military. Moral ambiguity and irony swirl around the case. The judge and prosecutor had themselves been Vichy collaborators. Alice Kaplan is the daughter of a Nuremberg prosecutor. De Gaulle explained his excepting Brassilach when he pardoned all who had not actively colluded with German authorities with the assertion that “talent is a responsibility.” “And there is the more obscure question, too, of

his actual involvement in denouncing Jews in hiding in the

pages of Je Suis Partout. It was never proved beyond doubt,

but clearly the intent to harm existed. It’s an open question

whether such ambiguities merit death. In a society at peace, it

is difficult to judge the mood of a place like wartime France,

where words could literally kill.” Brasillach himself, Kaplan says, represents the contradiction of someone who came to fascism through a devotion to the mythic and symbolic, with a disdain for the political and economic. She also raises fascinating speculation that his attraction to fascism may have been at base homoerotic. In any case, refining our modern conception of “hate speech” and “crimes against humanity” depend on grappling with the Brasillach case. “Kaplan, like de Beauvoir,

is right when she points out that executing people because of

their words is a dubious path to tread. If words are actions,

after all, why not have a thought police and arm them to the

teeth? Brasillach would have approved.”