U.S. 30-year mortgage rate falls to record 3.75%

Average U.S. rates on 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages dropped to record lows again this week, with the 15-year loan dipping below 3 percent for the first time ever. Low rates have helped brighten the outlook for home sales this year.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate on the 30-year loan fell to 3.75 percent. That's down from 3.78 percent last week and the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The 15-year mortgage, a popular refinancing option, slipped to 2.97 percent. That's down from 3.04 percent last week.

Rates on the 30-year loan have been below 4 percent since early December. The low rates are a key reason the housing industry is showing modest signs of a recovery this year.

Google offers virtual tours of world-famous sites

 A virtual stroll among the ruins of Pompeii or into the temples of Kyoto is available to anyone with an Internet-connected device through Google's new World Wonders project.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is offering virtual tours of 132 famous sites in 18 countries as part of an expansion of its Google Art initiative.

The service includes information in six languages, photographs and video of historical places gathered using Google's Street View technology.

Other sites include the Versailles Palace in Paris, Australia's Shark Bay and the Yosemite National Park.

Google launched the project Thursday in Madrid, saying its purpose is to support the preservation of historic places around the world and bring them to a wider audience.

The project is run in collaboration with the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO.

U.S. economy appears weaker ahead of jobs report

The U.S. economy is looking slightly weaker one day before a critical report on May job growth.

Growth was a little slower in the first three months of the year than first estimated, largely because governments and consumers spent less and businesses restocked their supplies more slowly.

The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits rose to a five-week high last week. And a survey of private companies showed only modest hiring gains last month.

Still, a softer job market hasn't caused Americans to scale back spending. Consumers spent more at retail stores in May than the same month last year, buying more clothes and Mother's Day gifts.

The mostly disappointing data sent stocks lower, keeping the Dow Jones Industrial Average on pace to record its first monthly loss since September. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note sank to 1.54 percent, a 66-year low.

The data showed that:

-- The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate of January-March growth. That's lower than its initial estimate of 2.2 percent.

-- Weekly applications for unemployment aid rose 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 383,000, the Labor Department said.

-- Private businesses added 133,000 jobs last month, according to a survey by payroll provider ADP. That figure disappointed most economists, who had hoped to see job growth accelerate after ADP's survey found that just 113,000 jobs were added in April.

Peter Newland, an economist at Barclays Research, said he was discouraged by the slowdown in first-quarter growth.

"This report does little to change the perception of an economy ticking along at a moderate pace but failing to break out into a full-on recovery with consistently above-potential growth," Newland said.

When the government issues its report Friday on May employment, economists expect it to say that employers added 158,000 jobs. That would be better than in the past two months but far below the winter's pace. They also expect no change in the unemployment rate, which was 8.1 percent in April.

Surveys show the economy is the top issue on voters' minds. Weaker growth and only modest job gains could give momentum to Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential challenger. Romney has made President Barack Obama's handling of the economy the central theme in his campaign.

The government makes three estimates of quarterly economic growth, or gross domestic product. GDP measures the output of all goods and services in the United States, from haircuts and coffee to airplanes and appliances.

A big reason growth slowed in the January-March quarter was that government spending at all levels fell at a 3.9 percent annual rate. That's the biggest decline in a year and nearly a full percentage point more than estimated last month.

Spending by state and local governments fell at a 2.5 percent annual rate, double the initial estimate.

Government spending has declined for six straight quarters. Many economists had thought the worst was over at the state and local level.

"This throws some cold water on the view that state and local governments have already bitten the bullet and are now likely to add to, rather than subtract from, growth in 2012," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial.

Analysts think the economy is growing at a slightly faster rate this spring. Hiring has been steady and gas prices are lower, allowing consumers to spend more freely. Consumer spending drives 70 percent of economic activity.

And more demand from consumers leads businesses to step up restocking, which also boosts growth.

Economists foresee growth at an annual rate of between 2 percent and 2.5 percent in the April-June quarter. Many expect the economy will maintain that pace for all of 2012, an improvement from last year's 1.7 percent growth.

Still, growth of 2.5 percent is typically enough just to keep pace with population changes. Most economists say it takes almost twice as much growth to lower the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point over a year.

The unemployment rate has fallen a full percentage point since August -- from 9.1 percent to 8.1 percent last month. Part of the season for the drop is that employers added 1.5 million jobs in that time. But another factor in the rate's decline is that some people have grown discouraged and given up looking for work. The government counts people as unemployed only if they're actively looking for a job.

In a more encouraging development, major retailers reported bigger-than-expected sales gains in May compared with a year ago. Consumers bought more clothing and took advantage of Mother's Day promotions. The modest but healthy gains followed a dismal showing in April.

During the January-March quarter, consumer spending grew at an annual rate of 2.7 percent. While that was the fastest pace since the end of 2010, it was down from the initial estimate of 2.9 percent. A key reason for the revision was fewer auto purchases.

Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, pointed out that some components of GDP were revised higher. Among them was housing, which is beginning to show signs of a modest recovery.

Another positive development this month: Gas prices have fallen sharply.

A gallon of regular unleaded has dropped by 32 cents since peaking in the first week of April. U.S. retail gasoline prices fell Thursday to $3.62 a gallon, according to auto club AAA.

Experts see gas falling to at least $3.50 by July 4.

United States crushed by Brazil, 4-1

Neymar scored a goal and was involved in two others as Brazil beat the United States 4-1 in an international friendly on Wednesday night.

The 20-year-old Santos star kicked a penalty to put Brazil ahead in the 12th minute after a hand ball by Oguchi Onyewu and then, 14 minutes later, took a corner kick which Thiago Silva headed in for his first international goal.

Herculez Gomez reduced the margin just before halftime, to the delight of the 67,619-strong crowd at FedEx Field.

But Marcelo restored the two-goal lead in the 52nd, scoring from in front after being left unmarked by Onyewu and U.S. captain Carlos Bocanegra, and second-half substitute Alexandre Pato made it 4-1 with his goal in 87th.

The 29th-ranked Americans, coming off a 5-1 win over Scotland last weekend, had difficulty coping with the pace of the five-time World Cup champions.

Coach Jurgen Klinsmann continued to tinker with his forward line because Jozy Altidore didn't arrive until Monday, and Clint Dempsey is recovering from a groin strain. Dempsey entered in the 57th minute, marking the first time he played with Landon Donovan since Klinsmann replaced Bob Bradley as coach last July.

After winning just one of their first six matches under Klinsmann, the Americans had won five in a row, including an impressive 1-0 victory at Italy. But the time for experimenting under the former German national team star and coach is nearing an end. The U.S. plays at Canada on Sunday, then opens qualifying for the 2014 World Cup on June 8 against Antigua and Barbuda.

That opponent, of course, doesn't resemble sixth-ranked Brazil in any way.

Brazil, which receives an automatic berth as the 2014 World Cup host, improved to 16-1 against the U.S. with a 35-11 goal difference. The Selecao used a young squad as they prepare for the Olympics, which is limited to players under 23 plus three older players.

Neymar scored against the U.S. in his national team debut two years ago. He took the penalty kick Wednesday after the hand ball call on Leandro Damiao's shot went off Onyewu. American goalkeeper Tim Howard dived to his right but Neymar sent the ball the other way for his ninth international goal.

United Airlines to cut 1,300 Houston jobs

United Airlines is cutting 1,300 jobs and reducing flying in Houston after it lost a fight to keep Southwest Airlines from adding international flights there.

United had warned of the job cuts if the city council voted to allow Southwest to add international flights at Houston's Hobby airport. That vote happened on Wednesday, and now United says it will carry out the job and flight cuts.

United Continental Holdings Inc.'s biggest hub is at Houston's Bush. It said that should be the only airport with international flights. It says connecting traffic will be hurt if Southwest adds international flights. United says that means it needs to cut Houston flying 10 percent.

The cuts begin this fall, even though Southwest's international flights from Houston don't start for three more years.

Dewey & LeBoeuf law firm files for bankruptcy in New York

In one of the largest law firm failures in U.S. history, embattled New York firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP has filed for bankruptcy, a move that will be followed by liquidation.

The debt-laden firm filed the papers in federal court in Manhattan Monday night.

It says it will keep about 90 employees to assist in the wind-down. It expects most of the process to be completed in the next few months.

In the meantime, it says it will operate on a budget and timetable to be determined by the court.

The Wall Street Journal says the Manhattan district attorney's office had launched a criminal investigation into activities at the firm. Regulators have sued to take over its pension plans, which they say are underfunded by $80 million.

LeBron James' 32 points lift the Miami Heat past the Boston Celtics, 93-79

A big early Miami lead was wasted. Once the Heat took control again, they simply ran away from the Boston Celtics.

And the NBA finals are now three wins away for LeBron James and the Heat.

James scored 32 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, Dwyane Wade scored 10 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter and the Heat beat the Celtics 93-79 on Monday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Shane Battier, playing in the conference finals for the first time, scored 10 points and had 10 rebounds for the Heat, who wasted an early 11-point first-half lead before running away to break a halftime tie. Miami outrebounded the Celtics 48-33, and blocked 11 Boston shots.

Kevin Garnett scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Boston, which got 16 points, nine rebounds and seven assists from Rajon Rondo and 12 points from Paul Pierce.

Game 2 is Wednesday night in Miami.

It's the third straight year the Heat and Celtics have met in the playoffs, the third straight year James has seen his postseason path go through Boston as well — the first of those matchups coming in 2010, his final run with Cleveland.

Each of those came in the first or second rounds, never one round away from the NBA finals.

And while both sides would say there's a long way to go in this series, Game 1 winners have a decided edge in any best-of-seven, the conference final being no exception. In the most recent 10 postseasons, teams with 1-0 leads in conference finals have advanced 15 out of 20 times. One of the five instances of a team rallying from a one-game deficit was last year, when Miami ousted Chicago in five games.

Last season's Miami-Boston series ended with James scoring the final 10 points of Game 5, and the start of this year's matchup had him putting on another offensive display.

He had 13 points in the first quarter — two more than the entire Celtics roster — and Miami ran out to a 21-11 lead after the opening period. Garnett made three of his four shots in the quarter, while everyone else in Boston green was 2 for 16 from the floor.

The 11 points matched the lowest output by any team in the opening quarter this postseason. The other team to manage that few was San Antonio, which then dropped 32 on the Los Angeles Clippers in the second quarter of their game on May 19.

The Celtics' response was even better.

Boston scored 35 in the second quarter, erasing what was an 11-point deficit early in the period by scoring 27 points in the final 8:46 of the half to pull into a 46-all tie. Rondo, Garnett and Pierce combined to score 23 points in the quarter, looking absolutely vintage, near-perfect offensive execution getting to Miami time and time again. And the Celtics' comeback happened even while they got hit with three technical fouls in the second quarter, plus Allen missing four first-half free throws — matching his career-worst for an entire game.

In the end, it went down as merely a one-quarter lapse for Miami.

Another technical foul, this one on Rondo, came in the third quarter, likely born from frustration as the Heat started to roll again.

With the game tied at 50, Rondo missed three shots in a 31-second span early in the third, the last of those getting blocked by Battier — who hit a 3-pointer 11 seconds later. It started a 9-2 Miami burst, including a touchdown pass from Wade to James — Wade grabbed the rebound of a miss by Pierce, spun and delivered a 90-foot pass to the reigning MVP — for an easy score.

Miami led by as many as 13 late in the third, before taking a 72-61 lead into the fourth. James scored 10 more in the third, Boston went cold again shooting just 27 percent in the period, and Wade's left-handed bullet pass into the lane set up Joel Anthony for a dunk that pushed the Heat lead to 15 with 10:13 remaining.

NOTES: Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is now 6-0 in Game 1s at home. ... James passed Sam Jones (2,909) for 22nd on the NBA's playoff scoring list with a layup late in the first quarter, and Garnett passed Dirk Nowitzki (1,314) for 22nd on the league's postseason rebound list. ... The Heat left the floor at halftime with a 48-46 lead, then had two points by Anthony taken off after a lengthy reviewed showed he had a basket after the shot clock expired. ... Miami F Chris Bosh did a light pregame workout, but still remains out indefinitely with a lower abdominal strain. He was on the Heat bench for the first time in Miami's last six games.

Victory over Scotland makes U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann's vision clear

For months, it was just words. Perhaps even a fantasy.

We heard U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann talk repeatedly about elevating the pace of the game, dictating the momentum and employing a proactive, rather than reactive, style. He said over and over that he wanted his players to express themselves on the field, combining aggression with fitness and creativity.

“We’d like to develop a style that excites the players, but also excites the U.S. soccer fan, that they identify with,” Klinsmann said in advance of Saturday’s exhibition against Scotland.

When asked if he was able to picture back in the fall how Klinsmann’s words might translate into something tangible on the field, U.S. captain Carlos Bocanegra admitted, “Not really.”

Was it just bombast, or was it part of a master plan? Did the sort of soccer Klinsmann was talking about really exist outside of Germany, Spain and Brazil? Could Americans play it?

On Saturday night, we found out. There were mitigating circumstances, for sure. It was a friendly. The opponent was far from full strength in either body or mind. But there aren’t more than a handful of elite national teams around the world that could have withstood the onslaught unleashed by Klinsmann’s men at EverBank Field.

It was proactive. It was aggressive. It was creative. At the end of Saturday’s 5-1 demolition of Scotland, Klinsmann’s vision and ambition for his U.S. national team seemed crystal clear. That was what it’s supposed to look like.

“Tonight, you saw the main elements of what we’re always talking about. Step by step, what we are trying to develop is a fast-paced game. There’s tempo in it. There’s one-touch combinations throughout midfield, as fast as possible, finding forwards up there, having pace, build-up from the back, no long balls,” Klinsmann said following his fifth straight win. “I think we saw some of those elements today. Obviously it’s a bit more difficult to play that way against Brazil or Italy, but I think the players, they understand more and more what we’re trying to achieve.”

Despite some early concerns, Klinsmann kept promising that he wasn’t going to impose anything on his players that they couldn’t handle. There would be no square pegs pounded into round holes. Instead, the manager found ways to position his players to succeed.

The coach isn’t restricted by labels. So what if Michael Bradley, Jermaine Jones and Maurice Edu play the same position? They’re not the same player. On Saturday, he deployed the trio in central midfield in a triangle, with Edu holding down the fort in front of the four defenders while Bradley and Jones enjoyed a bit more freedom to go forward. By giving them the option to employ their full skill set, Klinsmann won the midfield battle.

“I think a few of us, the coaches and the players, mentioned to both Jermaine and Michael that’s it okay to take chances and go forward. I think we forget how good those two can be when they do go forward,” Landon Donovan said.

“We worked on that over the last 10 days in training a lot, to see how can we get the best out of these guys, who are in their club team really exceptional players but they play very similar positions,” Klinsmann said. “In the past it was sometimes a bit tricky, when (Bradley and Jones) only play together and there was no Maurice, they left some holes behind. But there was Maurice today, and he kept some things in order and gave a little more freedom to those two and I think it worked out really well.”

It worked out spectacularly. Bradley and Jones both scored, and at least one of them was involved in each of Donovan’s three tallies.

Donovan and Jose Torres manned the flanks, pushing up to join striker Terrence Boyd in a 4-3-3 or retreating to defend when necessary. Both had the freedom to come inside and show for the ball, creating the quick passing combinations that Klinsmann was looking for. Torres and Donovan also had room to run, thanks to the sort of quick ball movement that pulls defenders out of position.

“We had a really strong center of the park and we did well to kind of come in and go out the other side and there was a lot of space. It worked well for us tonight,” Bocanegra said. “We worked on it in the week to play one-two touch inside, get it out wide, switch the field, and we did a really good job of that tonight. The midfielders had a great game.”

As Scotland wilted beneath the pressure and the Florida humidity, the Americans’ fitness and confidence really blossomed. Donovan had acres of space and the skill to exploit it, Torres was bold yet accurate with his passes and Boyd did well for a 21-year-old earning just his second senior international cap, occupying defenders and finding space in the penalty area.

The final piece of Klinsmann’s puzzle was left back Fabian Johnson, whose marauding runs down the flank gave Torres the license to pinch inside and whose skill with the ball helped the U.S. establish possession.

“Now we have a left back of the highest quality, the best left back in Germany over the last few months,” Klinsmann said. “He plays out of the back, he never panics, he’s calm on the ball and then allows us to combine from behind and we don’t have to bang the ball forward. We have a very special player developing in the U.S. team.”

There was possession. There was movement. There was just about always somebody open, and from Torres’ sweet heel pass to Donovan in the second half or Jones’ intelligent lay-off to Bradley that led to the game’s second goal, there was just enough creativity and flair to keep Scotland honest.

And remember, neither Clint Dempsey (groin) nor Jozy Altidore (joining up with the team on Monday) played a minute.

“We came out, we wanted to impose ourselves on them and try with how we played to put them on their back foot and really impose what we wanted to do on them. For the first game this summer, there were a lot of good things,” Bradley said.

Up next: Brazil on Wednesday at FedEx Field. The five-time world champions won’t crumble like the Scots. They’ll have more of the ball and will put the U.S. under more pressure in midfield. It is, as Klinsmann said on Saturday, “another learning curve for us.”

But Saturday was the clearest indication yet that the national team’s trajectory is on the rise. They’re believing what Klinsmann is preaching, and to his credit, the coach trusts in his players’ abilities and has put them in spots where they can be effective. It’s just one game, but we now know what Klinsmann’s soccer is supposed to look like.

“We don’t want to go overboard. It’s a friendly,” Bradley said. “But having said that, if we can take some of the things we did well tonight and really build on them as we go forward, then I think it’s going to be a good sign.”

Mirror covers allow drivers to express themselves on the road

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5 Hot Lady-Bots You Probably Shouldn't Have Sex With

A trained psychologist could probably say a lot about our society's fascination with hot female robots. In fact, the inability to produce a lifelike female sexbot was named as the single biggest scientific failure of the modern era in one survey of Cracked.com staff.
A closer look at lady-bots as portrayed in film may give us reason to reconsider ...

 

#5 Terminatrix: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

While Skynet began its campaign to send robots to exterminate the human race with Arnold Schwarzenegger, each robotic assassin since has looked more and more effeminate since. This is probably because even a Speak-and-Spell knows that humans will forgive a lot when it comes from a smoking hot blond wearing a red leather outfit that looks like she was poured into it. Or failing that, vaguely handsome character actor Robert Patrick.
Special Talents:
Ever since the second film, evil Terminators have come with morph-like shape-shifting abilities. In T2 they just make weapons out of their forearms, but that doesn't mean they're all work and no play: at one point in T3 the Terminatrix increases the size of her breasts to distract a policeman who pulled her over. If, at the thought of having a girlfriend who can enhance any part of her body at will makes you say, "Hey, that could get us out of countless traffic tickets!" then you're probably not using your imagination enough.

The Downside:
There is the thing with her ultimate goal being the death of all humanity, and she seems to really enjoy her work: in order to "analyze" her victim's DNA, she has to lick their blood. (More machines like this would make watching CSI infinitely more enjoyable.) We're not saying you shouldn't have sex with a Terminator, we're just saying that you really need to establish a "safe word" first. Also ...

... we're pretty sure they didn't have a reason to include genitalia in the design.
Note: While we are aware of a similarly hot Terminator in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, we expect, and hope, that the show will be canceled very, very soon, and so we'll not be including her in this list. Except to say that Summer Glau, who plays her, is very attractive, and should feel free to call us at any time.

 

#4. Lisa: Weird Science

What do you get when you put together the internet and lightning? These days, we all know that what you get is a call to tech support and a conversation with a guy who has a very heavy Indian accent yet goes by the name of "Mike."
But back in 1985 the internet was still relatively young, so the following scenario seemed plausible: When lightning interrupts two teenagers hacking into a government mainframe to run a sexual simulation based on uploaded images of swimsuit models, the result is a gorgeous naked woman (played by Kelly "Holy Fuck She's Hot" LeBrock) appearing in their bathroom. Sure, why not. Remember, back then government mainframes were also running tic-tac-toe simulations in order to determine that global thermonuclear war wasn't a good idea? (That's a War Games reference, for those of you who were outside playing during the '80s.) OK, so the movie's premise has all the science of the Salem Witch Trials.
Special Talents:
You mean, besides appearing out of thin air in a bathroom? Lisa's powers are practically limitless. She can erase memories, produce guns out of thin air and at one point, she turns Bill Paxton into some kind of sludge-monster.

So despite the word "science" in the film's title, Lisa is less Frankenstein's monster and more fairy godmother.
The Downside:
No matter how magically delicious Lisa may look, in the mid-'80s those "government mainframes" that formed her intelligence were probably a room full of Colecos with less computing power than a modern-day toaster. You'd have to phrase all your sexual requests in DOS syntax, and even when you try and get her to run "C:\SexPositions\Reversecowgirl.exe", there's probably going to be an unrecognized command in there and she'll freeze up. Or worse.

And as we'll learn sometime around 2050, nothing ruins the mood like when you have to give your lover a hard reboot.

 

#3. Pris: Blade Runner

Pris is a Nexus-6 model replicant-–a state of the art, biologically-engineered humanoid. It's actually debatable whether a replicant should be considered cybernetic (if you're a gigantic nerd, which we are) but normal humans don't have a make and model number, so Pris counts. But Pris isn't just a replicant, she's a "pleasure model" replicant, in the pleasurable form of a Splash-era Darryl Hannah. And while Blade Runner was supposed to take place in a dystopian future, any era when one could potentially have sex with endless '80s Darryl Hannahs can't be ALL bad.

Special Talents:
Allow us to reiterate: she was made for pleasure. Here the future addresses a common male problem, in that they all know the mixed feeling of sleeping with someone who does things a little too well. Sure, it feels good, but deep down you know that Michael Jordan didn't get where he is on natural ability alone. It took practice. Years of practice. So when you meet a girl who gives oral sex the same way His Airness ran the triangle offense, there's a good chance that she also has just as many highlight videos on the internet.
But when you buy yourself a brand new Pris, she's got those skills from the moment she steps off the showroom floor. You get all the benefits and none of the syphilis.
The Downside:
All Nexus-6 replicants have a pre-set lifespan of four years. You're probably saying to yourself, "That's not a downside! Every four years you get to upgrade!" Yeah, sounds great until you actually have to fork over the cash.

Also, the reason Nexus-6 replicants have a four-year lifespan is that over time they develop emotions, and eventually go crazy. So once she figures out that she was basically born with a terminal illness that no amount of boning can cure, there's a good chance she'll be a whole lot less fun. Good luck selling her on Craigslist.

 

#2.The Stepford Wives: The Stepford Wives

Take every result of the Women's Liberation Movement and press 'undo'--that was the idea when the men in Stepford decided to engineer gynoid replacements for their wives. (It sounds like a part of your body you only hear about when it gets cancer, but 'gynoid' is actually the term for a female android. Thanks, Wikipedia!) These new gynoids have all the features their husbands liked so much in the originals--like orifices--without any of the buggy programming that comes with free will.
All it took to upgrade to Wife 2.0 was a firmware installation in your old analog "beta-test" wife. That's nothing compared to what a new Powerbook will cost you, and even Apple's designers have a long way to go before they produce anything as appealing to the eye as real-life Stepford Faith Hill.

Special Talents:
When you're married to a Stepford Wife, a hot meal will be waiting for you when you arrive home and you can have whatever kind of sex you want with her, whenever you want it. That's plenty special for us, but just in case you're picky, one Stepford Wife even has an ATM machine installed in her mouth. Feel free to make your own deposit and withdrawal jokes, we just wonder what kind of fees our bank would charge that kind of transaction! High-five!
The Downside:
We had to think long and hard about this one, because it seems like a pretty sweet deal, as long as you don't have some bizarre objection to blonds. We gave it some time though, and it occurred to us that women, much like prisoners and political refugees, yearn for freedom and the right to live as they choose. That desire led to the original Women's Lib movement, and if women in the '60s were able to ignore decades of social programming, you better believe the Stepford Wives will eventually rebel against a few lines of C code.

One day you're coming home to a hot meal, and the next day your wife feels that her armpit hair is a miracle of nature and the Black Panthers are meeting in your living room. We're also not sure we'd ever get over our fear that we’d get drunk and end up sticking our dick into a cash machine. Again.

 

#1.Gigolo Jane: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

Any article on hot robo-chicks is bound to have a few prostitute-i-trons in there, and when it comes to hot bots, Ashley Scott as Gigolo Jane really takes the cake. She almost makes watching A.I. tolerable, except she only has about 30 seconds of screen time (not nearly enough for us to take our pants off), and then Haley Joel Osment makes a face like a sad puppy dog for 120 minutes and we begin drinking gallons of water whilst Google Mapping directions to Stanley Kubrick's grave.
All we really know about her is that she is friends with Jude Law's character, Gigolo Joe, an android who humps lonely housewives for a living. And that she's really really attractive.

Special Talents:
Tits.
The Downside:
The true travesty is that a movie called
Gigolo Jane: Fuckbot probably would not have gotten such an all-star cast. Besides that, once again we find that readily-available, super-hot sex slaves are the silver lining on the cloud that is a bleak, dystopian future, blah blah blah.
We get it: the streets seem dirty, everyone looks miserable and there never seems to be any sunshine. The same could be said about Reno, and Reno's sex slaves sure don't look like Ashley Scott.

And so for the 37th time on this site, but probably for the best reason yet, we would like to welcome the coming apocalypse.

5 Absurd Sci-Fi Scenarios Science is Actually Working On

It's no coincidence that so many of our modern gadgets seem to have come from Star Trek -- our inventors and engineers all grew up watching it. In many ways, science fiction, not science, leads the way.
But while it's easy to imagine watching the hopeful utopia of Star Trek and saying, "Let's make that real!" it's a little stranger to think the same after watching Blade Runner or Gattaca. Yet ...

#5. A Lab Is Brewing Apocalyptic Superdiseases

The Sci-Fi Premise:
Movies about a worldwide superplague seem to come along every few years (see: last year's Contagion), but within that genre is the more cynical and outlandish "Lab creates and accidentally releases a pandemic" subgenre, like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Stephen King's The Stand.
The premise is flawed from the start, as is typical of apocalyptic movies. Why in the hell would the government allow a top-secret lab to create a world-killing microbe in the first place? In terms of movie logic, it falls right into the category of "Hey, let's turn our nuclear arsenal over to Skynet" and "We should absolutely take this huge, destructive monkey back to New York."

Getty
"Tyrannosaurs are the new house cats!"

The Reality:
And thankfully, for once, we're right! There's no top-secret lab creating an apocalyptic disease. Because the lab is not secret at all, and it's located in Rotterdam.

Getty
"It's down past the open-air asbestos dump. If you see the puppy slaughterhouse, you've gone too far."

That's right, in a lab comfortably decorated with a disco ball and functional beer tap -- because if you're going to be working with ridiculously dangerous viruses, it's best to do it while drunk and listening to the one genre of music most likely to destroy your faith in humanity -- virologist Ron Fouchier has experimented on the feared bird flu virus, creating a new mutation that's more dangerous and potentially more contagious than the already-deadly original. In his experiments infecting ferrets with the virus, it eventually became airborne, so direct contact was no longer necessary for infection. The victim just needs to breathe the same air.

sciencemag.org
At least if he ultimately causes the apocalypse, we can call him Ron "Douchier."

The details of Fouchier's work remain unclear, mainly because the voice of reason that is America's National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has said, "Hey, guys? What you're doing is cool and all, but couldn't terrorists get hold of this and kill basically everyone?" Even if they couldn't break into the lab, there's already evidence that groups like al-Qaida are trying to recruit college-educated members who majored in mad science with a minor in playing with deadly viruses -- so what can't be stolen can still be replicated.
Fouchier's work hasn't been published, mainly to prevent someone from copying it and using it less in the pursuit of science and more in the pursuit of the end of the world as we know it. Meanwhile, we hope they've got some amazing locks on that place.

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"Eh, that should be good."

#4. The U.S. Military Is Paying to Re-Create Avatar, Only With Deadly Killbots

The Sci-Fi Premise:
James Cameron's obscenely successful film Avatar involves soldiers traveling to a distant world in search of a valuable resource. The environment and the natives are hostile, however, so they train soldiers to remotely operate avatars: They hook their brains up to a machine and effectively become the artificial person on the other end (you may also remember a similar "humans control avatars with their minds" scenario in the Bruce Willis movie Surrogates, except you probably don't, because who the hell saw Surrogates?).
However, you might have been too caught up in the 3-D and fighting cat people to stop and realize what an amazingly useful (if creepy) technology this would be for a military that wants to keep its "real" soldiers out of harm's way.

"Careful. Last week, I thought I was playing Warcraft and accidentally wiped out half of Russia."

The Reality:
But the Pentagon sure as hell realized it, as evidenced by their aptly named Project Avatar. That's the thing about having R&D budgets in the billions: If you see a movie you like, you can just call up a few scientists and say, "Make all the badass parts actually happen." Thus DARPA, the hive of batshit insane supervillainy that develops cutting-edge tech for America's armies, has budgeted $7 million to fund robots that work just like avatars.

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"Also, we'll all need Fast & Furious cars."

We're not talking about remote-controlled drones, either. Those are old news. No, DARPA wants to "develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bipedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier's surrogate."
"Bipedal" is the key word there. That means they want a walking humanoid robot to do all of the things a soldier would do if he or she were there. And no, it doesn't sound like they're talking about handing the soldier a control pad and letting him play his robot like a video game. They refer to developing the technology of "telepresence" and letting the robot act as a "surrogate" body (damn it, Bruce Willis, if your movie had only grossed more you could have gotten this whole thing named for you).

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For some reason, they only want it to say "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker."

How would that work? Well, as this Wired article points out, DARPA has already been developing robots that can work on mind control alone. Whether or not you think any of this is creepy depends entirely on whether you're imagining a platoon of mind-controlled robots with red glowing eyes kicking down a terrorist's door or kicking down yours.
While we're on Avatar, we should probably bring up ...

#3. Investors Are Already Funding Off-World Mining

The Sci-Fi Premise:
The idea of mining other planets/moons/asteroids for minerals not found on Earth wasn't invented by Avatar -- that's what the robots in Blade Runner were built for, after all. But it's never good news -- these movies are always about a dying Earth sending astronauts to go exploit space rocks for the resources we've drained from our own planet. It's what the ship in Alien was doing before the aliens arrived, and it's the backdrop for the video game franchise Dead Space.

Wikipedia
"Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to death we go!"

Note that it always ends in a horrific massacre at the hands of otherworldly monsters.
The Reality:
James Cameron, not content to get his hands on just one Ridley Scott sci-fi franchise, has partnered with several other mega-rich investors to bring Blade Runner's dystopia one step closer to reality. Planetary Resources -- a company that was founded two years ago but kept secret until very recently (because that's completely normal and shouldn't creep you out in the slightest) -- plans to make up for our severe shortage of unobtainium here on Earth by sending robots to mine nearby asteroids.

Steve Jurvetson
Seriously, Jim, a $237 million budget and "unobtainium" was the best you could come up with?

With guys like Ross Perot Jr. and Google's Larry Page also pelting the venture with obscene wads of cash, the company isn't wasting any time: They plan to launch their first test craft within two years, and from there, they're looking to aim for near-Earth asteroids, with on-board robots (sorry, they probably won't look like Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah) setting up bases to get down to some off-world mining.
And no, this isn't just a case of bajillionaires not realizing when they can't accomplish something just by tossing cash around: The company was co-founded by Peter Diamandis, who helped start the X-Prize competition to spur nongovernmental space flight -- remember how that turned out? And MIT Professor of Planetary Science Richard Binzel agrees that seeking out things like water and metals on asteroids is a step that humanity must take sooner or later, especially if we want to stake our claim to more of the cosmos. A trip to Mars, for example, might be made possible by stopping at the occasional asteroid to refuel the ship and pick up a latte at Starbucks (come on, you know it'll happen).

On Mars, Apple Stores already outnumber the aliens 3 to 1.

Of course, some of the comments by people involved with the project break away from "progressive, forward-thinking science" and veer more toward "Holy shit, that's totally batshit insane" territory. For example, one of the company's apparent goals is to "capture" a small asteroid and draw it into the moon's orbit so that we can have our very own dangerously-close-to-Earth asteroid to study whenever we want. That can't go wrong, right?
But don't worry, it'll probably be at least a few years before we have to worry about the robots that they send up to live on our new pet asteroid going all psycho when they discover their own mortality. We'll have accidentally opened the portal to hell long before then.

Google makes search 'more human' with Knowledge Graph

Google has revamped its search engine in an attempt to offer instant answers to search questions.

A new function, the Knowledge Graph, will make the site's algorithms act "more human", the site said in a blog post.

The feature will at first be available to US-based users, but will be rolled out globally in due course.

It follows similar efforts by rival Bing to provide added search content beyond the typical list of links.

Microsoft's search engine launched its "snapshot" column last week as part of a wider site redesign.

Google's senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal explained that, until now, the search engine was only able match keywords, rather than understand context.

Mr Singhal said the words "Taj Mahal" could mean different things to different people.

"You might think of one of the world's most beautiful monuments, or a Grammy Award-winning musician, or possibly even a casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Or, depending on when you last ate, the nearest Indian restaurant," he said.

Key information

Google said the Knowledge Graph has been programmed to use around 3.5 billion different attributes to organise results meaning it can now group results according to those various alternative interpretations.

For some searches, such as on prominent people, Google will automatically pull up a summary box with key information on that topic.

The next step, Mr Singhal said, is to look at how the site can answer more complex questions, such as "What are the 10 deepest lakes in Africa?"

In doing so the search engine would need to draw on multiple sources and factor in many different criteria.

This kind of computational, intelligent search is currently pioneered by the likes of Wolfram Alpha - a site which gathers verified data, such as from the World Health Organization, to provide statistical results.

It has long been a technological goal to produce search engines that could react entirely naturally to human-like queries.

One such effort includes the somewhat iconic search engine Ask Jeeves, where users can ask a stereotypically English butler for help.

Satellite Technology Reveals Clues to Lives of Mysterious Manta Rays

marine scientists are using satellite technology to track the elusive ocean wanderings of giant manta rays - graceful creatures that ply the world’s seas.
The co-authors of the new study say more measures are needed to protect dwindling worldwide manta populations, but complicating the issue is that almost nothing is known about the day-to-day movements and ecological needs of these enigmatic gentle giants.
To solve some of the mystery, the scientists attached satellite transmitters to six manta rays swimming off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, and then recorded their travels for the next 13 days.
Mantas are the largest species of ray.  They can weigh 2.5 tons, and their wing-like fins can span more than 7.5 meters.  Filter-feeding manta rays reach their enormous size by feasting on free-floating clouds of fish eggs and microscopic organisms called zooplankton.
The researchers say their new satellite telemetry shows some of the giant rays they studied covered more than 1,100 kilometers during the 13-day study period. 
The six mantas spent most of their time cruising around Mexico’s coastal waters where food was plentiful.  However, the scientists say the satellite data revealed the majority of the locations were in major shipping routes where the mantas could be hit by passing vessels.  Only 11.5 percent of the places where the six rays gathered were located in marine protected areas.
The Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed mantas as “vulnerable” to extinction. 
The study's co-authors say research using satellite tracking technology is critical in developing effective conservation and management strategies.
The new study was a collaboration of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Britain’s University of Exeter, and the government of Mexico.  It is published in the journal, PLoS One (Public Library of Science One).
Mantas, like all rays, are closely related to sharks.  They have the highest brain-to-body ratio of all shark and ray species known to science. 
Despite their imposing size, manta rays pose no threat to humans.  They do not have a potentially deadly barbed tail like a stingray, or teeth like a shark.
The enormous ocean giants filter feed just like their colossal whale-shark cousins, or baleen whales, which are mammals.  Mantas give birth to live young, having one or two pups roughly once every one or two years.