'Argo' wins best picture on scattered Oscar night

Grant Heslov, from left, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney pose with their award for best picture for "Argo" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Grant Heslov, from left, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney pose with their award for best picture for "Argo" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Host Seth MacFarlane performs onstage during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Ang Lee poses with his award for best directing for "Life of Pi" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Actor Christoph Waltz?poses with his award for best actor in a supporting role for "Django Unchained" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

Jennifer Lawrence, with her award for best actress in a leading role for "Silver Linings Playbook," and Anne Hathaway with her award for best actress in a supporting role for "Les Miserables," pose during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Just as Oscar host Seth MacFarlane set his sights on a variety of targets with a mixture of hits and misses, the motion picture academy spread the gold around to a varied slate of films. "Argo" won best picture as expected, along with two other prizes. But "Life of Pi" won the most awards with four, including a surprise win for director Ang Lee.

"Les Miserables" also won three Academy Awards, while "Django Unchained" and "Skyfall" each took two.

Among the winners were the front-runners throughout this lengthy awards season: best actor Daniel Day-Lewis for his deeply immersed portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's epic "Lincoln," best actress Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow in "Silver Linings Playbook" and supporting actress Anne Hathaway as the doomed prostitute Fantine in the musical "Les Miserables." Christoph Waltz was a bit of a surprise for supporting actor as a charismatic bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," an award he'd won just three years ago for Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds."

The 22-year-old Lawrence, who got to show her lighter side in the oddball romance "Silver Linings Playbook" following serious roles in "Winter's Bone" and "The Hunger Games," gamely laughed at herself as she tripped on the stairs en route to the stage in her poufy, pale pink Dior Haute Couture gown. Backstage in the press room, when a reporter asked what she was thinking, she responded: "A bad word that I can't say that starts with 'F.'" Keeping journalists in hysterics, she explained, "I'm sorry. I did a shot before I ... sorry."

That's the kind of raunchiness MacFarlane himself seemed to be aiming for as host while also balancing the more traditional demands of the job. There was a ton of singing and dancing during the three-and-half-hour broadcast ? no surprise from the musically minded creator of the animated series "Family Guy" ? including a poignant performance from Barbra Streisand of "The Way We Were," written by the late Marvin Hamlisch, during the memorial montage. But MacFarlane also tried to keep the humor edgy with shots at Mel Gibson, George Clooney, Chris Brown and Rihanna.

An extended bit in which William Shatner came back from the future as his "Star Trek" character, Capt. James T. Kirk, had its moments while a joke about the drama "Flight" being restaged entirely with sock puppets was a scream. A John Wilkes Booth gag in reference to "Lincoln" was a bit of a groaner, perhaps intentionally, while MacFarlane relied on his alter ego, the cuddly teddy bear from his directorial debut "Ted," to make a crack about a post-Oscar orgy at Jack Nicholson's house. (MacFarlane already has indicated he's one-and-done with Academy Awards hosting.)

But it was Day-Lewis who came up with the kind of pop-culture riffing that's MacFarlane's specialty. In accepting his record third best-actor award from presenter Meryl Streep, he deadpanned that before they'd swapped roles, he originally was set to play Margaret Thatcher "and Meryl was Steven's first choice for 'Lincoln,' and I'd like to see that version."

Besides best picture, "Argo" won for Chris Terrio's adapted screenplay and for William Goldenberg's film editing. Affleck famously (and strangely) wasn't included in the best-director category for his thrilling and surprisingly funny depiction of a daring rescue during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But as a producer on the film alongside George Clooney and Grant Heslov, he got to take home the top prize of the night.

"I never thought I'd be back here, and I am because of so many of you in this academy," said Affleck, who shared a screenplay Oscar with pal Matt Damon 15 years earlier for their breakout film "Good Will Hunting."

Among the wisdom he's acquired since then: "You can't hold grudges ? it's hard but you can't hold grudges."

Lee, who previously won best director in 2006 for "Brokeback Mountain" (which also didn't win best picture), was typically low-key and self-deprecating in victory. His "Life of Pi" is a fable set in glorious 3-D, but Spielberg looked like the favorite for "Lincoln." The film also won for its cinematography, original score and visual effects.

"Thank you, movie god," the Taiwanese director said on stage. Later, he thanked his agents and said: "I have to do that," with a little shrug and a smile.

"Les Miserables" also won for sound mixing and makeup and hairstyling. The other Oscar for "Django Unchained" came for Tarantino's original screenplay. Asked about his international appeal backstage, Tarantino was enthusiastic as usual in saying: "I'm an American, and a filmmaker, but I make movies for the planet Earth."

Speaking of global hits, the James Bond action thriller "Skyfall" won for its original song by the unstoppable Adele (with Paul Epworth). It also tied for sound editing with "Zero Dark Thirty," the only win of the night for Kathryn Bigelow's detailed saga about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Among the other winners, "Searching for Sugar Man," about a forgotten musician's rediscovery, took the prize for best documentary feature. Pixar's fairy tale "Brave" won best animated feature.

One of the biggest moments of the night came at the end, as first lady Michelle Obama announced the winner of the best picture prize. Backstage, Affleck described how surreal it was when he heard her say the word: "Argo."

"I was sort of hallucinating when that was happening," he explained. "In the course of a hallucination it doesn't seem that odd: 'Oh look, a purple elephant. Oh look, Michelle Obama.'"

___

Contact AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-25-US-Oscars/id-0c80d6e939bc4f10acf0fd22db70304b

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Combining synthetic, natural toxins could disarm cancer, drug-resistant bacteria

Feb. 11, 2013 ? Cancer researchers from Rice University suggest that a new human-made drug that's already proven effective at killing cancer and drug-resistant bacteria could best deliver its knockout blow when used in combination with drugs made from naturally occurring toxins.

"One of the oldest tricks in fighting is the one-two punch -- you distract your opponent with one attack and deliver a knockout blow with another," said Jos? Onuchic of Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP). "Combinatorial drug therapies employ that strategy at a cellular level.

"A wealth of research in recent years has shown that both cancer and bacteria can mount sophisticated, coordinated defenses against almost any drug," said Onuchic, Rice's Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy, professor of chemistry, and biochemistry and cell biology. "By combining drugs, particularly those that place stress on different parts of the cell, we expect it will be possible to knock out either cancer cells or bacteria while simultaneously inhibiting their ability to become drug-resistant."

Onuchic and CTBP colleagues Eshel Ben-Jacob and Patricia Jennings reached their conclusions after analyzing several studies on anti-microbial peptides (AMPs), corkscrew-shaped chains of amino acids that kill Gram-negative bacteria. The CTBP team's ideas appear this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) as a commentary on new findings from MD Anderson Cancer Center about a promising synthetic AMP called D-KLAKLAK-2. In its new research, MD Anderson researchers found D-KLAKLAK-2, which was already known to kill cancer cells, is also an effective drug against antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria.

"AMPs are produced naturally by a number of animals to fight bacteria," said Ben-Jacob, professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice and the Maguy-Glass Chair in Physics of Complex Systems and professor of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University. "AMPs are corkscrew-shaped. They do not harm the animals' own cells, but they penetrate and shred the double-layered membranes of Gram-negative bacteria."

Gram-negative bacteria are a class of pathogens that includes drug-resistant varieties of bacteria that cause pneumonia, sepsis and other deadly diseases.

Ben-Jacob said cancer researchers have previously shown that they can tag AMPs with special "marker" molecules that allow the AMPs to penetrate and kill cancer cells. The markers allow the AMPs to be taken inside the cancer cells, something they cannot normally do.

"Once inside the cancer cells, the AMPs target and damage the cell's power plant, an organelle called the mitochondria, which has a double-layered membrane that is remarkably similar to that of Gram-negative bacteria," he said.

Though research has shown that AMPs can kill cancer cells, scientists are concerned that cancer cells could develop resistance to the compounds. In part, this concern arises from the fact that AMPs are fairly common in nature and that some organisms already have genetic mutations that allow them to evade AMP attacks.

To circumvent these natural defenses, MD Anderson researchers Wadih Arap and Renata Pasqualini led an effort a few years ago to create a synthetic version of a natural corkscrew-shaped AMP called KLAKLAK-2. Like all naturally occurring AMPs, KLAKLAK-2 has a left-handed twist -- much like the threads of a screw that turn clockwise. To make the molecule more difficult for cancer cells to fight, the MD Anderson team built a right-handed, "counterclockwise" version of the molecule called D-KLAKLAK-2, with the "D" denoting right-handedness. In its most recent studies, which also appear this week in PNAS, the MD Anderson team found that D-KLAKLAK-2 is an effective killer of Gram-negative bacterial pathogens, including several types that have grown resistant to traditional antibiotics.

"Bacteria are notorious for their rapid development of drug resistance," Ben-Jacob said. "However, both bacteria and cancer have impaired ability to resist these man-made 'mirror' compounds because they cannot use the machinery they have evolved to disarm the right-handed weapons."

Onuchic said another advantage of therapies involving synthetic AMPs like D-KLAKLAK-2 is that the drugs can be administered in extremely small doses, which will reduce side effects.

The Rice team suggests maximizing the benefits of synthetic AMPs by using them in drug cocktails that act like a one-two punch for either bacteria or cancer.

Naturally occurring AMPs are chemical weapons that bacteria themselves have developed over millions of years in their never-ending war among themselves. The team reasons that combining these natural toxins with human-made mirror drugs will create the drug equivalent of a one-two punch. The combination should "confuse" bacteria and cancer and prevent them from rapidly becoming resistant to the human-made drugs.

"Nature is smarter than we are," Ben-Jacob said. "Time and again, we have seen that seemingly simple cellular foes like bacteria and cancer can learn to mount effective defenses against any new drug we create. It is time to accept them as sophisticated enemies. We should attack them in much the same way that a well-trained boxer or military commander would go after a wily opponent -- with multiple, coordinated blows of very different kinds."

Jennings is professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. Research at CTBP is supported by the National Science Foundation and by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University. The original article was written by Jade Boyd.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/JS4lMvoXLOs/130211162458.htm

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Another Hypocritical Leftist Caught with His Hand in the Tax-Haven ...

So, the gist is that "liberals are hypocrites." Well! Startling revelation - akin, I'd warrant to a discovery that "water is wet."

IF the WH spokesman Schultz's statement is correct, all will be OK for Lew. Why? Because he lost money! Nothing liberals hate so much as a profit! No, as long was Lew wasn't SUCCESSFUL, then his hypocrisy, and that of the entire Obozo administration, and that of leftists in general, will be overlooked.

- Snark

Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2013/02/10/another-hypocritical-leftist-caught-with-his-hand-in-the-taxhaven-cookie-jar-n1509117

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Largest-ever Mardi Gras float has a little hiccup

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? In a city known for overindulgence, maybe the largest-ever Mardi Gras float was a little too much.

The 330-foot long super float built by the Krewe of Endymion had to be separated in half to make a turn during its parade Saturday. Shelton Carr, who was working security at the Superdome, says the float was separated and then re-attached so it could continue to roll.

The turn was only a minor hiccup. The parade finished its route ahead of schedule.

The float ended its journey at the Superdome, where thousands of revelers were decked out in black tie attire. It was the first major event at the venue since the Super Bowl power blackout.

The multimillion-dollar float holds more than 200 riders. The parade's celebrity grand marshal was Kelly Clarkson.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-10-Mardi%20Gras-Big%20Float/id-ed269886a9714b63b4dca0447feec6cf

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