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Volume 3670
Edgar Rice Burroughs

ECLECTICA v.2011.09


ERBWORLD NEWS

ARTIST DAVE HOOVER (May 14, 1955 - September 04, 2011)

David Harold Hoover, formerly of Warrington, passed away Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011, in Jamison. He was 56. He was the husband of Karen Hoover. They had been married for 22 years. Born in Berrysburg, Pa., he was a son of the late Gladys and Harold Hoover.

David had a Master of Fine Arts degree in Computer Animation. He currently was an instructor at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, however he started his career as a layout artist working for Filmation Studios, Hanna Barberra, and Mihan Productions. He also worked at Sony Children's Television as a storyboard artist. He later worked for DC and Marvel Comics, illustrating the adventures of many superheroes including Captain America, Spiderman, Wolverine, Punisher, and many more. He was a collector of Tarzan memorabilia. He enjoyed biking, running, hiking and swinging on vines. David was an art enthusiast; and enjoyed old Western movies.

In addition to his wife, Karen, he is survived by his daughters, Lauren Hoover and Alaina Hoover; his dog, Janey; and his two cats, Snickers and Lacey. David also is survived by his mother-in-law, Janet Freidel; his siblings, Gloria Shomper, Julie Nell, Jim Hoover, and Janis Hoover; and his loving nieces, nephews, and in-laws.

David's funeral service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, at St. John's United Methodist Church, 820 Almshouse Road Ivyland, PA 18974, where family will receive friends immediately following the service Memorial contributions may be made to Pilla Heart Center at Abington Hospital. Condolences may be made at the  Shelly Funeral Home Website.

.
Tarzan Riding Tantor

Dave wrote this in 2008:

"This drawing of Tarzan is significant to me because I did it after coming out of major heart surgery. After getting out out of the hospital, when I was finally able to work again, I decided I wanted to do something special; I felt as though I'd been given a second chance, and I didn't want to waste it. This drawing symbolizes my triumph over adversity, I came out on top!"

Much of Dave's art is featured in his many 
ERBzine Galleries starting at:
www.erbzine.com/mag3/0340.html
NASA MARS ROVER ARRIVES AT NEW SITE ON MARTIAN SURFACE
NASA.com ~ August 9, 2011
WASHINGTON -- After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before. On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater's rim. Opportunity drove approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) after climbing out of the Victoria crater.

"NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation's story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Opportunity's findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been."

At Endeavour, scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars. Endeavour became a tantalizing destination after NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected clay minerals that may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period. "We're soon going to get the opportunity to sample a rock type the rovers haven't seen yet," said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member. More>>>


Opportunity Heads Toward 'Spirit Point'

Mars Rover Arrives at New Site on Martian Surface
. .

Drive Direction Image by Opportunity After Surpassing 20 Miles

Opportunity Passes Small Crater and Big Milestone


NEW PUBLICATIONS


Marvel Comics John Carter Covers Nos. 1 and 3
Art by Skottie Young
MARVEL JOHN CARTER OF MARS PREVIEW

Next week we feature a Ron de Laat interview with
Roger Langridge
Writer for the new Marvel Comics John Carter of Mars series.
MARS TRILOGY
Edgar Rice Burroughs (Author)
Illustrators:
Scott M. Fischer
Scott Gustafson
Mark Zug
Mars Trilogy: A Princess of Mars; The Gods of Mars; The Warlord of Mars
CDN$ 10.82 | This title will be released on February 7, 2012.
Paperback ~ 704 pages ~  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
ISBN-10: 1442423870  |  ISBN-13: 978-1442423879
Product Description
This bind-up of the first three John Carter of Mars books is an ideal 100th anniversary keepsake.Ever since A Princess of Mars was published in 1912, readers of all ages have read and loved Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series. Now, 100 years later, this brand-new bind-up contains the first three classic John Carter of Mars books: A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and The Warlord of Mars. Featuring an Introduction by Bruce Coville and illustrations from three classic fantasy illustrators—Mark Zug, Scott Gustafson, and Scott Fischer—this collection is an incredible value and will be treasured by existing and new fans.
About the Author
Scott M Fischer is a painter by birth, a musician by training, and a storyteller by choice. Best known as the author/illustrator of JUMP!. Additionally he is the Illustrator of Twinkle and the New York Times best selling Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean as well as numerous novel covers. Scott lives in Belchertown MA with his wife, daughter and a menagerie of animals! Be sure to check out his latest illustrated book, Lottie Paris Lives Here by Angela Johnson.
Scott Gustafson is an illustrator whose most recent book is Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose. He has also illustrated Classic Fairy Tales, Alphabet Soup and Peter Pan. Eddie is his first novel. He lives in Chicago. 
This book has not been prepared, approved, licensed, or authorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. or any other entity associated with the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate.
Don’t miss the new John Carer anthology, Under the Moons of Mars!

Number 13 Cover

Caspak Sketches


Number 13 cover and Caspak sketches for the soon-to-be released illustrated versions
9ERB, Inc. Authorized)
written by Martin Powell - Sequential Pulp Comics


News of this project was first reported in 
ERB Eclectica 2011.07
www.erbzine.com/mag34/3429.html


PLANETARY - Issue 17: Opak-Re
Wildstorm universe's "Lord of the Jungle" by the Cassaday/Martin team. Compare the cover to All-Story pulp zine featuring the first appearance of Tarzan. Kevin Sack, Lord Blackstock is the Jungle Lord that first appeared in Issue 1. It stays fairly close to Edgar Rice Burroughs' original vision of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke--Tarzan. The legend of the ape-man, raised in the jungle but of aristocratic British stock, remains intact. So too does some of the character of the definitive Edgar Rice Burroughs vision; regal, but arrogant and impulsive. Blackstock, however, seems to be a bit of a scoundrel, both by lineage and in action.

One area where Ellis clearly diverges with the canon is in regards to Lord Blackstock's age. Burroughs' Tarzan was born in 1888. Blackstock, however, was born the same day as Snow--January first, 1900 - a Century baby. Tarzan was a powerful man, but Lord Blackstock is nearly super-human thanks to his Century birth. Opak-ReOpak-Re is a slightly more complex point of comparison to old Tarzan lore. It seems to be an amalgam of many of the lost civilizations Tarzan encountered: secluded, undiscovered, and intolerant of outsiders.  Opar was an ancient city that once provided gold to fabled Atlantis. After Atlantis vanished beneath the sea, the city's glory faded and the populace was reduced to a mostly-savage band of sun-worshippers. They liked to perform ritual human sacrifice to the sun god. Tarzan and his compatriots were on the sacrificial altar on more than one occasion. But Tarzan got the better of the bargain, as he plundered gold and jewels from the city.

Where Opar degenerated into disrepair and savagery, Opak-Re seems to have taken Atlantean technology and culture and run with it.  Opak-Re seems to be Africa's answer to Atlantis: a literally golden city, incredibly advanced spiritually, culturally, and technologically with the intellectual Anaykah being the equivalent to Opar's La, High Priestess of the Flaming God.

Read the full review at: http://home.earthlink.net/~rkkman/frames/summaries/S17.htm



FILM ECLECTICA

Local Movie Maker's New Project to Debut Early 2012
Louisiana's Other Side ~ August
Al Bohl and his daughter When Al Bohl went back to school to earn a degree in liberal and fine arts, he felt that he needed to impact his community in a positive way. Having worked in the church for years, he knew he could use his talent to encourage and inspire. Some 27 years later the painter, cartoon artist and local movie maker is doing just that with his latest project, "Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle," a documentary film about the 1918 silent motion picture "Tarzan of the Apes," which was shot in Morgan City. The film is set to debut in Shreveport-Bossier at the annual Louisiana Travel and Tourism Summit and will go to major venues like Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA following the big reveal. Go here to see the film's trailer.
 

Many are unaware of the fascinating history of the first film shot on location in the U.S. and the story of the Edgar Rice Burroughs' original, which inspired Bohl's latest venture. Projected to be released January 2012, viewers can expect to learn intriguing facts including why apes were left in the swamps of Morgan City following production in 1917. To learn more about "Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle," go here.
 

Read more on the Al Bohl Tarzan Documentary Project 
starting at ERBzine 3110
Literary adventure heroes the movies mangled
Den of Geek ~ August 22, 2011 (excerpt)
. . . The vast majority of a potential movie audience often has little or no familiarity with any given character's literary exploits. The end result can often be frustrating for fans of the original stories, especially when movies make too many arbitrary changes, or even do away with the spirit and intentions of the books entirely. . .

Tarzan is one of the most popular and enduring fictional characters of all time. He is known all over the world, and has multi-generational appeal and recognition. The character first appeared in print in 1912, and since then has spawned some eighty or more Tarzan movies. However, comparatively few people are as familiar with any of the twenty-five or so Tarzan novels, written by his creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and few of the Tarzan movies come close to portraying the Tarzan of Burroughs’ novels.

In the original Burroughs novel, Tarzan Of The Apes, John Clayton, (also known by his formal title, Lord Greystoke), is orphaned in the jungle and raised by a fictional species of apes. He eventually teaches himself to read using books his parents left behind, is later discovered by a French explorer, and learns French as his first spoken language. Later, he meets and falls in love at first sight with an American, Jane Porter, for whom he learns spoken English and becomes civilised. Burroughs’ vision of Tarzan is very much that of the noble savage. Tarzan is educated and very intelligent. He is strong, fast and has highly tuned senses. He has a very powerful sense of morality and justice. Basically, he’s Burroughs' conception of the ideal man. However, Tarzan is certainly not without his dark, angry and sometimes even vicious side.

Tarzan, at various different times in various different books, is a French military intelligence officer in Algeria, discovers a valley of lost dinosaurs, is given an immortality potion by a witch doctor, fights the Germans in World War I, discovers the still living missing evolutionary link between man and ape, and is a pilot for the British Royal Air Force during World War II.

In the movies, Tarzan has a really loud yell.

For many years, the Hollywood series of films, starring American Olympic swimming gold medalist Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, dominated the popular consciousness of the character. In those films, Tarzan was never even alluded to as being a British aristocrat; he is uneducated, speaks in broken English, and has a simple, almost childlike personality. That series of Tarzan movies picked up briefly in quality in the late 50s and early 60s. Long after Weissmuller had left the series, its producers finally decided to let Tarzan speak and act intelligently. Gordon Scott plays an articulate, educated version of the character in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959) and Tarzan The Magnificent (1960), two of the better Tarzan movies out there. The 1984 film, Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes, starring Christopher Lambert in the title role, follows some of the Burroughs story line from the early part of the original novel. The film, though, veers off significantly from the book once Tarzan is brought back to civilisation. The Disney animated Tarzan also follows the early parts of the book quite closely. Tarzan is depicted as teaching himself to read, for instance. As most Burroughs aficionados will tell you, however, there are no Phil Collins songs in the original novel.
More>>>
 

See full coverage of every Tarzan film back to 1918:
ERBzine Silver Screen
www.erbzine.com/mag5/0502.html
Read the full story on the Tarzan Yell at:

www.erbzine.com/mag14/1482.html



The big-screen appeal of the great ape
The National ~ September 7, 2011
Jungle-dwelling primates got their first foothold in Hollywood thanks to the Tarzan movies. Based on the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs about a human child raised by African great apes who becomes a tree-swinging hero, the Internet Movie Database lists an incredible 89 movies with Tarzan in the title between 1918 and 2008. Because using real animals in the movies was considered too dangerous and costly, the films helped popularise the actor-operated "ape suit".

"There is hardly an American male of my generation who had not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape," the author Gore Vidal wrote in Esquire of his love of all things Tarzan, "while a thousand arms and legs were broken by attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the republic." More>>>
 

For more see:
JIGGS'  SCRAPBOOK 
  (Cheetah ~ Cheeta ~ Cheta ~ Nkima) 
www.erbzine.com/mag16/1697.html


Local Tarzan pursuing childhood dream
George Herald SAf ~ September 1, 2011
GEORGE NEWS - An earnest, young man from George with an obsession to star in Stephen Somer’s 2012 Hollywood Tarzan, has caused quite a stir on the internet. His home-manufactured, short promotion film in which he stars as Tarzan, has thus far attracted hundreds of hits on YouTube. DeWet du Toit (23) is undeterred by derisive comments received during an interview with kykNet’s Rian van Heerden, who was amused at his attempts to attract the attention of Hollywood film producers. Clad in a skimpy tiger "lappie", the shoots showed off his brawny, have-been-body-building torso to best advantage.

Unfazed, DeWet has since gone on shooting a new adventure drama in the Outeniqua mountains. He, in the star role as Tarzan, goes to the rescue of a beautiful blonde Jane. She has fallen into the paws of kidnappers, who happen to be poachers. It requires some agile leaps onto a railway trolley. This is where the local tourism trolley-railwaybus, the Outeniqua Power Van, came in handy.

He is also the director, financier, location hunter and did the casting. His twin brother, Rudolph who supports his dream, was on hand during takes in the mountains to give moral support. DeWet has encountered a vexing logistical hurdle. He needs a Zulu village for his next shoot. He is aiming to have the film in the can by next month and its premiere in the Garden Route by October. He hopes that the film will net some money, enough to pay for his trip to Hollywood where he is determined to convince film producers to cast him as the next Tarzan.

Impressing Hollywood
"While the other actors will just turn up with a portfolio to audition, I will arrive with a fully-fledged movie to show my talents," said DeWet over a cuppa at a local coffee shop. Apparently the Hollywood bosses are willing to cast an unknown actor. He has dyed his blonde locks black -in reaction to the criticism he received for wearing an ungainly wig in his first movie clip.

To raise funds for the movie, and enable him to take acting lessons, he has been giving talks at local schools on nature conservation. DeWet has some acting experience. He took acting lessons and starred in some TV advertisements. Craig Bruwer of Warner Brothers who has seen his YouTube debut, has advised him to further his career by taking more acting lessons in Hollywood. For more information contact DeWet on 072 782 9289. More>>>


See earlier reports on DeWet at:
ERB Eclectica 2011.07
http://www.erbzine.com/mag33/3399a.html
and
ERB Eclectica 2009.10
http://www.erbzine.com/mag20/2001.html


A Sneak Peek at More John Carter Footage Released at Disney's D23 Expo
cartermovie.com ~ August 20, 2011
Presenting the preview footage at this Disney event was director Andrew Stanton, along with stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins and Willem Dafoe. Read the coverage at our John Carter Movie News Site

Cult classic John Carter finally gets movie treatment
Ottawa Citizen ~ August 4, 2011
EMERYVILLE, Calif. — The images in the room are powerful. A wall of strange weaponry. A montage of flying machines, the likes of which we have never seen before. Blighted and forsaken landscapes. And on the table in front of us, miniature representations of otherworldly beings. The intense, bespectacled filmmaker joining us this afternoon is definitely of our world. But the paraphernalia surrounding Andrew Stanton remind us that he's currently occupying another world — the world of John Carter, a film that consumes both his days and nights, and which has been the subject of intense interest on websites around the world.

Stanton was just a kid when he stumbled on a series of comic books showing "these weird creatures with four arms." He was transfixed. "And it started me going back to the source, which was this book, Princess of Mars [by Edgar Rice Burroughs], and lo and behold, I found out there was this whole series . . . 11 books over several years." The impressionable youngster became hooked by these adventures about an American Civil War veteran who finds himself on Mars. "I was 12 years old. This idea of a stranger in a strange land . . . a human being thrown into a world he didn't see coming and not knowing anything about it — it pushed a lot of buttons."

Actual filming, which began in the U.K. 18 months ago, before moving to some of the most remote areas of Utah, is complete. But that's only the beginning: For more than a year, Stanton and his colleagues have been immersed in the intricacies of post-production on a movie that seeks an unusually ambitious fusion of digital technology with live action and real locations. Stanton estimates he has maybe 10 minutes of a totally finished film, with two-thirds "close to being finished." And then it's a race to get the last third done. "It's like making a live-action film first, and then the next two years, making an animated film. We're always shaping it, tightening it up, trying to make things run smoother."

Seeing potential for a new and lucrative franchise, [Disney] optioned Gods of Mars and Warlords of Mars, as well as Princess of Mars. But the first film carries the title of John Carter, after the central character played by Taylor Kitsch (Saturday Night Lights). Stanton didn't want it to be perceived as a genre piece, of interest only to sci-fi addicts. "I'm a huge fan of the books, and I want to honour them as much as anybody else, but also don't want to turn anybody off in coming to see the film initially, until they know what the hell it is. I see this as a timeless romance, which is what I got from the books."

. . . Stanton is pleased to have relative newcomers rather than major stars. "I couldn't have been happier. The chemistry's there on the screen. You can't stop looking at them . . . but they're not too familiar. When I attend movies, I want to believe these people are who they are playing." However, established actors Willem Dafoe and Samantha Morton were cast as Tharks, the nine-foot-tall, four-armed Martians who become a vital part of Carter's new life. "How would you like to wear grey pyjamas and learn to walk on stilts while wearing facial cameras in 100-degree heat?" he asked them.

Stanton wanted to raise the motion-capture technology used in films like Lord of the Rings and Avatar to a new level. He needed co-operative actors, capable of showing that Tharks are real people with real emotions, and he got them. Dafoe, for example, was willing to replicate his character's height by performing on stilts, and wearing an unbearably hot outfit marked with black dots that would be reference points for animators who are now recreating his movements digitally in post-production.

"I needed the best actors I could find," Stanton says. "I felt very strongly this was the way to get the most believable performances I could get . . . even though, ultimately, they're not going to be on screen. They all said:Where do I sign? And I got all the subtleties I wanted."

In the past, other filmmakers have wanted to bring the Burroughs Mars novels to the screen. "But the technology still wasn't there to realize it," Stanton says. The Mars novels are strange and compelling books. But perhaps the strangest thing about them is that they remained so long under the radar. Yet there was always a cult following that persisted, even during the times when the books were out of print. Stanton counts himself as a member of this cult.

"It was like this weird sort of secret society," he says. And he kept encountering unexpected fans. "The grandfather of our costume designer — it was his favourite book. The governor of Utah came to visit the set, because it was his favourite book."

More>>>
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
For more see our John Carter coverage at our Film News site:
www.cartermovie.com



Johnny Weissmuller: Fake ID for Olympics?
LA Times Blog ~ August 2011
In the days leading up to the qualification tournament for the 1924 United States Olympic swimming team, Illinois Representative Henry Riggs Rathbone expressed his doubts that Weissmuller, the swimming sensation (who later went on to become a film superstar as the portrayer of Tarzan on the screen), was born in the United States. Why won't he produce a birth certificate? Was he eligible for the U.S. Olympic team? Obviously, the U.S. Olympic swimming team allowed Weissmuller to compete, since he won five Gold Medals for the U.S. in 1924 and 1928.

But was Weissmuller a U.S. citizen when he won Olympic gold?  In 1950, at the height of his fame, the town celebrated their hometown hero with a special day for Weissmuller (schools even closed for the day) and the Rev. Father MacKowiak presented Weissmuller with his church birth records, the same records that secured him a spot in the 1924 Olympic Games. But were they actually Johnny's records?
No, they were not.

Weissmuller was actually born in 1904 in Freidorf (as Jonas/Johann), a suburb of the city Timi oara within the Banat region of what was then Hungary and is now Romania. When Weissmuller was an infant (not even a year old) his family emigrated to the United States. They settled in Pennsylvania where their second son, Petrus (Peter) was born in 1905 (in Windber).

The Weissmullers eventually moved to Chicago, where Johnny took up swimming. He dropped out of high school and was working odd jobs when swimming coach WIlliam Bachrach discovered him at the Illinois Athletic Club. He began training Johnny and eventually "debuted" Johnny in August 1921 when Weissmuller became a dominant swimmer. He actually had an undefeated record in official competition. As his records and accolades began piling up in 1922 and 1923 (including breaking Duke Kahanamoku's record in the 100 meter freestyle), attention naturally began to turn to the 1924 Olympics in Paris, France. Weissmuller's grandmother made a bold decision to try to claim that Johnny was born and raised in Chicago, stating, "Johnny was born in Chicago, will be 20 years of age next June, and has no intention of being anything but an American citizen." The Chicago Tribune went with the headline, "CAN'T BAR WEISS FROM OLYMPICS; WAS BORN HERE." Rathbone backed off a bit, noting that it was possible Weissmuller WAS born in Chicago, but the fact remained that there was no evidence that he was and his family would not (or could not) deliver it.

With the Olympic trials fast approaching, the Weissmullers changed their tune. Johnny was not born in Chicago, he was born back in Windber. In fact, his younger brother Peter was actually his OLDER brother. The church records in Windber read "Petrus John Weissmuller," but John has clearly been written in in another color pen with different handwriting. Still, this was enough and Weissmuller was awarded a passport.
More>>>
 

The Weissmuller Tarzan films are featured at:
ERBzine Silver Screen
www.erbzine.com/mag5/0502.html

Jon Favreau on John Carter, "Seeing the scale of it, I'm really glad it's not me."
ComicBookMovie.com ~ August 4, 2011
Jon Favreau: I cameoed in John Carter, and they showed me footage. I have not seen [the trailer]. I saw a rough version, Andrew showed it to me. It's gonna be great. Just from what I've seen there. I remember meeting Willem Dafoe, and seeing what they're doing. I really feel — and you know it's very close to my heart — I'm [in] the chain of filmmakers who've passed the torch for a 100 years on this one. I'm really proud that somebody is doing it right. And seeing the scale of it, I'm really glad it's not me. It's a huge movie, a huge movie.
 


'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'
remembers what made original great
Recommended Pulp Site:

www.pulpmags.org



CAUGHT IN OUR WEB

What kind of ape was Tarzan raised by?
Straight Dope ~ November 29, 2001
Dear Straight Dope:
Who or what type of critter was Tarzan raised by? I recall from the books that he disliked gorillas and from the descriptions, chimps are too small. Did old Edgar just make up a whole class of apes?

First answer: yes, it's fiction, and Edgar Rice Burroughs made up the whole thing. He wasn't a naturalist, zoologist or anthropologist, and his jungle animals behaved as he wanted them to, to tell a good story. Reality definitely took a second place. Hell, about a 102nd place. Burroughs did distinguish his great apes from gorillas, but did not identify them further than that. More>>>
Refs cited:
www.tarzan.com
Burroughs Bibliophiles
Tarzan Alive by PJ Farmer


Fossils revise human evolution theories
Mangani Found?
CBC.ca ~ Sept 8, 2011 ~ A pair of two-million-year-old fossils with a mish-mash of human and ape characteristics have changed the way scientists think human-like features evolved. A detailed new analysis of an adult female and a young male of a species known as Australopithecus sediba reveals they had the most human-like pelvis and hand ever found, and a grapefruit-sized brain and an ape-like heel built for tree climbing. The species is "uniquely positioned… to be a good candidate ancestor for the earliest members of the genus Homo," More>>>
.ERB's Mangani Alive - At Last
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iiAnjkrSgUQ
THE TWO HURTLING MOONS OF JASOOM?
GRAIL and the Mystery of the Missing Moon

The "Big Splat." Four snapshots from a computer simulation of a collision between the Moon and a smaller companion
show how the splattered companion moon forms a mountainous region on one side of the Moon.
NASA News ~ Sept. 7, 2011: As early as Sept. 8th, NASA's GRAIL mission will blast off to uncover some of the mysteries beneath the surface of the Moon. That cratered gray exterior hides some tantalizing things – even, perhaps, a long-lost companion. If a paper published recently in the journal Nature* is right, two moons once graced our night skies. The proposition has not been proven, but has drawn widespread attention.

"It's an intriguing idea," says David Smith, GRAIL's deputy principal investigator at MIT. "And it would be a way to explain one of the great perplexities of the Earth-Moon system – the Moon's strangely asymmetrical nature. Its near and far sides are substantially different." The Moon's near side, facing us, is dominated by vast smooth 'seas' of ancient hardened lava. In contrast, the far side is marked by mountainous highlands. Researchers have long struggled to account for the differences, and the "two moon" theory introduced by Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug of the University of California at Santa Cruz is the latest attempt.

Scientists agree that when a Mars-sized object crashed into our planet about 4 billion years ago, the resulting debris cloud coalesced to form the Moon. Jutzi and Asphaug posit that the debris cloud actually formed two moons. A second, smaller chunk of debris landed in just the right orbit to lead or follow the bigger Moon around Earth. "Normally, such moons accrete into a single body shortly after formation," explains Smith. "But the new theory proposes that the second moon ended up at one of the Lagrange points in the Earth-Moon system."


Call of the wild at Banham Zoo
Norwich Evening News ~ September 2, 2011
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/what-s-on/days-out/call_of_the_wild_at_banham_zoo_1_1012167
Set out for a safari in Norfolk at one of the region’s best-loved attractions. You can discover a whole wild world at Banham Zoo, which is home to almost 1,000 animals from across the globe. On the day we visited, the weather was cool but clear, so the kids spent around an hour at Tarzan Towers, a brilliant outdoor playground with all manner of jungle gym equipment to assist small people in the important business of letting off steam.

New at Banham this year is Zarafa Heights Sky Trek. For an extra charge, you can take to the air on the sky trek which sits next door to the zoo’s Giraffe House and Zafara Heights Walkway and encourages visitors to embrace their inner-Tarzan by tackling a series of lofty rope bridges and tightrope walks before ending with a speedy zip wire back down to earth.



Aristocrat's Tarzan(R) Lord of the Jungle(TM) Slot
Hits Again for $292,653.52 at Spotlight 29 Casino
Lucky Winner Becomes 4th Player to Hit Jackpot in 5 Months
MarketWatch.com ~ September 2, 2011
LAS VEGAS, NV, Sep 02, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Aristocrat's Tarzan(R) Lord of the Jungle(TM) slot is one of North America's most popular casino games. Now, a Coachella player has hit the grand progressive jackpot for $292,653.52 at Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella, Calif., becoming the 4th player in just 5 months to hit the jackpot.
 
See the news on a previous win at:
THE TARZAN SLOTS 
www.erbzine.com/mag35/3558.html


Stop Using Chimps as Guinea Pigs
New York Times ~ August 10, 2011
Ping Zhu


Today is the start of a two-day public hearing convened by the Institute of Medicine, which is examining whether there is still a need for invasive chimpanzee research. Meanwhile, nine countries, as well as the European Union, already forbid or restrict invasive research on great apes. Americans have to decide if the benefits to humans of research using chimpanzees outweigh the ethical, financial and scientific costs. The evidence is mounting that they do not. For one thing, many new techniques are cheaper, faster and more effective, including computer modeling and the testing of very small doses on human volunteers. In vitro methods now grow human cells and tissues for human biomedical studies, bypassing the need for whole animals.

Such advances have led to a drop in primate research. Many federally owned chimpanzees were bred to support AIDS research, but later proved inferior to more modern technologies. As a result, most of the 500 federally owned chimpanzees are idling in warehouses. Ending chimpanzee research and retiring the animals to sanctuaries would save taxpayers about $30 million a year.

We also know more about the consequences of invasive research on the animals themselves. Biomedical procedures that are simple when performed on humans often require traumatizing restraint of chimpanzees to protect human researchers from injury, as chimpanzees are five times stronger than humans. For instance, acquiring a blood sample from a chimp can require a “knockdown,” or shooting it with a tranquilizer gun. If you’ve seen video of a knockdown, you know it is clearly frightening and stressful.

Moreover, even the mere confinement in laboratory cages deprives chimpanzees of basic physical, social and emotional sustenance. Numerous peer-reviewed studies of chimpanzees in sanctuaries who had previously been confined in laboratories have documented behavioral symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Chronic and traumatic stress harms chimpanzees’ health and compromises the results of experiments conducted on them.
. . . Continuing innovations in alternatives to the use of invasive research on great apes is the civilized way forward in the 21st century. Past civilizations were measured by how they treated their elderly and disabled. I believe that we will be measured, in part, by how we treat animals, particularly great apes.

Americans can no longer justify confining these magnificent and innocent animals to traumatic invasive research and life imprisonment.

~ Roscoe G. Bartlett is a Republican representative from Maryland.
Submitted by David Lemmo
They Die, We Die: An essay on life and…
Salem-News.com ~ August 5, 2011
To put the importance of socialization in perspective, consider feral children, raised in isolation from other humans. Fiction writers have often depicted children raised by wild animals, such as the legendary Romulus and Remus, abandoned as children and raised by wolves and who, after they were rescued by a shepherd, grew up to found Rome; Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s "noble savage" or Edgar Rice Burroughs’ "Tarzan, lord of the apes". Real feral children, however, are the exact opposites of their fictional counterparts. There are documented cases of children raised in isolation from human groups and all behaved more like wild animals than humans. They could not speak—in some cases could no longer even learn to speak—and reacted to humans with fear and hostility, walked hunched or on all fours, tore into their food like wild animals, were apathetic to their surroundings, and were unable to keep even the lowest standards of personal hygiene. Society plays a decisive role in the emotional, mental and cultural lives of biologically individual human beings. More>>>
Read out giant collection of 
Feral Children 
reports and stories at:
http://www.ERBzine.com/feral


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