By CHRIS KAHN

AP - PHOENIX - It sounds like science fiction but it’s true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.

Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it’s killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.

“This is definitely something we need to track,” said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better,” Beach said. “In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”

jay: like i don’t have enough shit to worry about? now i have to add brain-eating amoeba to the list? global warming, if i didn’t hate you before, i fully hate you now!

By Jeffrey L. Rabin, LA Times Staff Writer

LA Times — The son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested early Wednesday in Orange County on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs, the latest in a series of incidents with law enforcement agencies in recent years.

Albert Gore III was taken into custody about 2:15 a.m. after Orange County sheriff’s deputies stopped him for driving about 100 mph on the southbound Interstate 5 in Laguna Niguel.

When deputies approached the Toyota Prius at the Crown Valley Parkway exit, they detected the “strong odor of marijuana,” said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department. A search of the car found marijuana and prescription drugs Vicodin, Valium, Xanax and Adderall, an amphetamine used to treat attention deficit disorder, Amormino said.

jay: the prius makes this funny, though i’m not sure why. is it because he’s al gore’s son and of course he’s driving a prius (while smoking dope and taking xanax) or is it because he got that prius up to 100mph (while smoking dope and taking xanax)?

by David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
SAN FRANCISCO — Xu Xing, a Chinese paleontologist, puzzled over the thigh bone of a monstrous new dinosaur he and his partners had discovered in the rich fossil beds of the Gobi desert.

The bone was so big, he said in an e-mail to The Chronicle, that he thought he and his colleagues had merely found another of those familiar plant-eating, long-necked, semi-aquatic creatures called sauropods, well known in the evolutionary past of the dinosaur world.[…]

“When I went back to my geologist colleague Lin Tan’s lab to check the skeleton, I was shocked,” Xu wrote in his e-mail, “I said to Tan, ‘it is not a sauropod, it is not a tyrannosaurus, it is a tyrannosaurus-sized oviraptor. We have a gigantic chicken!’”

jay: sux that the dude in the picture had to fellate that giant chicken. worst. prehistoric. job. ever.

cates: “the bone was so big…” that doesn’t sound like a complaining fellater to me.

Niagara Falls, N.Y. (AP) — A man apparently trying to sneak into the United States was rescued from an ice floe less than a mile upstream from Niagara Falls, authorities said.

Guards from Ontario Power Generation said they heard the man screaming for help at about 4:30 a.m. Saturday near the company’s water intakes near Chippawa, Ontario.

“If he hadn’t been discovered,” said Peter Larsen, a control operator at the intakes, “he would have gone through one of those gates and then very likely could have been swept over the falls.”

Rescuers in boats plucked the shivering man from the ice floe and got him ashore.

Authorities said the unidentified 42-year-old man had an inflatable air mattress with him and was apparently trying to get to the United States. The ice chunk he was on apparently broke loose.

The man was treated for mild hypothermia before being charged by Canadian immigration authorities.

jay: um, am i sensing a theme here? either the associated press is really into ice floe stories lately, or spring is the wrong time to stand on blocks of ice. or both. yes. both.

BEIJING/LONDON (Reuters) - China is on course to overtake the United States this year as the world’s biggest carbon emitter, estimates based on Chinese energy data show, potentially pressuring Beijing to take more action on climate change.

China’s emissions rose by some 10 percent in 2005, a senior U.S. scientist estimated, while Beijing data shows fuel consumption rose more than 9 percent in 2006, suggesting China would easily outstrip the U.S. this year, long before forecasts.

jay: we outsource a ton of our manufacturing to china and then bitch when their carbon emissions rise? seems to me that it’s only fair to keep the u.s. on the hook for at least some of it, like maybe right after we acknowledge that carbon emissions are actually bad.

nytimes.com — BATH, Ohio, March 15 — Doug Weintraub loves showing off his new $60,000 fireplace. It is in his backyard, with a chimney, built by a stonemason from Ukraine, that stands 16 feet tall.

Doug and Janis Weintraub had a fireplace with a 16-foot-tall chimney built outside their home in Bath, Ohio.

Beside the hearth is a cubby stocked with firewood “just for looks,” Mr. Weintraub said. As he pressed the “on” button of a remote control, a hissing sound could be heard, then the gas-burning fireplace sprang to flame, visible from inside the house.

Mr. Weintraub, a technology investor, then cranked up the volume on the fireplace’s built-in stereo system, and a meandering saxophone riff reverberated off his $2 million home and across the neighborhood. The Weintraubs said they considered building a waterfall into the fireplace, but decided that might be too extravagant.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Mr. Weintraub said.

jay: no, actually, it’s not. you’re a dildo. wait, let me be more specific. you’re an incredibly wasteful nouveau-riche dildo, even without the waterfall. i know it, the reporter knows it, and to at least a small degree, you know it, too.