Daily Archives: May 8, 2017


A Look at Disney World’s New Pandora-World of Avatar Land

It’s not a movie set, but visitors to Disney World’s new Pandora-World of Avatar land are in for a cinematic experience. The 12-acre land, inspired by the “Avatar” movie, opens in Florida in late May at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. It cost a half-billion dollars to build.   The marquee attraction is Flight of Passage, where a 3-D simulator plunges riders into a cinematic world. You feel like you’re riding on the back of a banshee, a bluish, gigantic, winged predator that resembles something out of the Jurassic era. …


Life Expectancy Gaps Growing in US

Life expectancy in the United States depends on what county one lives in, a new study suggests. According to the study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, “The gap between counties with the highest and lowest life expectancies is larger now than it was back in 1980 – a more than a 20-year difference in 2014 – highlighting massive and growing inequality in the health of Americans.” For example, in Owsley County, Kentucky, one of the poorest counties, life expectancy …


Vatican Celebrates Big Bang to Dispel Faith-science Conflict

The Vatican is celebrating the big-bang theory. That’s not as out of this world as it sounds.   The Vatican Observatory has invited leading scientists and cosmologists to talk black holes, gravitational waves and space-time singularities as it honors the late Jesuit cosmologist considered one of the fathers of the idea that the universe began with a gigantic explosion.   The Tuesday-Friday conference honoring Monsignor George Lemaitre is being held at the Vatican Observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 to help correct the notion that the Roman Catholic …


Bill Clinton and James Patterson Co-Writing a Thriller

Neither Bill Clinton nor James Patterson has ever tried something like this before.   The former president and the best-selling novelist are collaborating on a thriller, “The President is Missing,” to come out June 2018 as an unusual joint release from rival publishers — Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Co. In a statement Monday provided to The Associated Press, the publishers called the book “a unique amalgam of intrigue, suspense and behind-the-scenes global drama from the highest corridors of power. It will be informed by details that only a …


Meet the Iranian Who Looks Like Lionel Messi

An Iranian student who happens to look uncannily like soccer great Lionel Messi, nearly ended up in jail for disrupting public order. A photo event in Reza Paratesh’s home town of Hamedan attracted so many fans that police had to close it down, according to AFP. Paratesh’s brush with fame came after his father convinced him to pose for a photo wearing Messi’s number 10 Barcelona jersey and send it to a sports website. That worked out well as Paratesh became a popular television guest and even got a modeling …