Ian Somerhalder "Shaken" By Lack of Hollywood Support for Gulf Region

I just came across this article this morning or I most definitely would have shared it by now.

Actor Ian Somerhalder ("Damon", The Vampire Diaries & "Boone" Lost) has made two trips to the environmentally devastated Gulf region in recent weeks.  On his most recent visit, Somerhalder slept in his rental car, what he called the "Prius cabana suite" because there was no where else to stay due to all the people who have flocked to the Gulf region to try and help tame "the beast" as he calls it.  "The Beast", of course, being the BP oil spill.

Despite all the help in the Gulf, Somerhalder, a Covington, Louisiana native, notices there's something missing:  his Hollywood peers.

"Coming from the entertainment world, I'm really shaken by how quiet Hollywood is", admits Somerhalder.  While he assures his statements are made with the utmost respect for his peers and colleagues, he questions why there hasn't been a larger effort from Hollywood to raise funds to assist with the clean up. 

Hollywood is usually always right there to lend a hand, and some big names, when something bad happens.  But, I agree with Mr. Somerhalder, Hollywood has been surprisingly quiet on this whole issue.  There have been some celebrities who are admittedly trying to do whatever they can such as Kevin Costner.  But where have all the others been?

I applaud Mr. Costner and Mr. Somerhalder for their efforts and for standing up and doing what is right by putting themselves out there to help with this disaster.  I truly hope some of their colleagues in Hollywood take a page from their book and jump in to lend a hand or lend their name to the efforts in the Gulf.  The Gulf needs all the help it can get.

For more information, refer to the entire article including a video about Mr. Somerhalder's most recent trip to the Gulf.

Movies & Film: Top 7 Animatronic Movie Beasts

Throughout movie history certain films have required a bit more than what the average actor could give.  When that occurred, it was time to call in the guys and gals who specialized in building complex, and sometimes, malfunctioning animatronic animals and beasts.  After all, dinosaurs no longer roam the earth, no actor in their right mind would want to do scenes with a 3 ton Great White shark and, while gorillas can get pretty big, none have reached 40 feet in height.

The top seven animatronic movie beasts have been compiled by Charles Q. Choi in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the classic film Jaws which opened in theaters on June 20, 1975.

I think Charles Choi did a pretty good job on his list.

Robert Pattinson Distantly Related to Dracula??

According to genealogical researchers at Ancestry.com, Robert Pattison, famed for playing Edward Cullen in the Twilight series of films isn't the only famous individual known for blood lust in his family tree.

Researchers say Pattison is distantly related to Vlad the Impaler through the relationship both men have to the British royal family.  Pattinson is distant cousins with Princes William and Harry.  Vlad the Impaler is the distant uncle to the Princes.

According to Anastasia Tyler, an Ancestry.com genealogist, it was difficult work tracing Pattinson's family back to the 15th century Wallachian prince.  "Without any myth or magic, we find royalty and vampires lurking in Pattinson's life--making his history just as supernatural as the one he's playing on screen."

Kevin Coster's "Dream Machines" Have Started Work in the Gulf

As you might remember, a while back, I blogged about an effort by actor Kevin Costner to help with the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. To recap, Coster, his brother and the company they established developed a vacuum-like machine that can supposedly remove up to 97% of oil from water.

Well, the machines have made their debut in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thirty-two of Costner's "dream machines" are going out into the waters on an oil finding barge.  Over the next 60 days, the 32 machines will start to do their thing. 

I truly hope this works.  Something has to work in the Gulf.

To read a bit more about this, check out this short article.

Major Mystery of the 20th Century Solved?

For seventy-three years it has been one of the most intriguing mysteries to capture international attention. 

On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan took from from Lae with the intended destination of Howland Island some 2,556 miles away.  The last known position of Earhart and Noonan was a mere 800 miles into the flight near the Nukumanu Islands.  Approximately one hour after Earhart's last message, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) ship Itasca began search efforts that proved to be unsuccessful.  No trace of Earhart's twin-engine plane, a 1935 Lockheed Electra 10E, or of Earhart and Noonan were to be found.  The search was called off July 19, 1937.  To that point in history, the $4 million air and sea search by the USCG and US Navy was the most expensive and intense search in United States history.

In the years since that historic flight, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan have been the subject of much spectulation, rumor and theory.  Just what did happen on that fateful day in July 1937?  Did they crash into the sea and drown?  Did they crash on Saipan Island and were executed by Japanese troops?  Perhaps we shall never know.  Or will we?

New clues have surfaced that might just solve the mystery once and for all.

Over the course of twenty-one years and ten visits, researchers have scoured Nikumaroro, a remote island in the South Pacific where they believe Earhart and Noonan spent their final days.  The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has found several artifacts they feel might shed a little more light on the Earhart disappearance.  Three pieces of a pocket knife and fragments of a broken cosmetic jar are the latest artifacts that have been found.  According to Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR believes that "touch DNA" can be taken from the objects and compared to an Earhart DNA reference sample held by a DNA lab working with TIGHAR. 

Nikumaroro lies approximately 300 miles southeast of Earhart and Noonan's original destination of Howland Island. 

The researchers will be working on the island through June 17, 2010.

For more in-depth reading of this fascinating development in the interesting story of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan please read the MSNBC.com Technology and Science article and visit the TIGHAR web site.  The TIGHAR site contains photographs of a couple of of the artifacts recovered on Nikumaroro.

A New Savior in the Gulf Oil Spill? Kevin Costner?

The situation in the Gulf of Mexico seems to get worse by the day, doesn't it?  They've tried capping the spill once and it failed.  Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil has spilled, and continues to spill out into the waters threatening animal and plant life as well as the economy of those who live and work in the Gulf.

But, there may be new hope and it is from a rather unlikely source.  Kevin Costner.

Yes, you read that right.  Bull Durham, Robin Hood, Dances with Wolves.  That Kevin Costner.

No can deny that the situation in the Gulf is severe and something needs to be done ASAP before things get any worse.  And, yes, they can get worse.

British Petroleum (BP) recently enlisted the help of movie star Kevin Costner who, along with his older brother, Dan, a scientist invented a vacuum-like machine that works using a high-powered centrifuge to suck up polluted water then separate it into oil and heavier water.  Mr. Costner has spent 15 years and approximately $26 million of his personal fortune developing this machine with his brother.

In the mid 1990's, Mr. Costner founded the Costner Industries Nevada Corporation to fund eco-friendly research by his brother and a team of scientists.  The firm invented the water cleaning device as well as a non-chemical battery.

Currently, there are 26 machines in Louisiana waiting to be deployed to do their jobs in the Gulf waters.  Each machine can clean between 5 and 200 gallons of water per minute depending upon the size of the machine.  Theoretically, this means the machines could clean up the oil as fast as it is polluting the waters.  The water that is filtered out of the machines comes out 97% clean.

For more information on this ray of hope for the Gulf, you can read the independent.co.uk article.

I truly hope Mr. Costner's machines do the trick in the Gulf.  He certainly has spent a great deal of time and money on this invention.  Something needs to be done and right now, this solution does seem to add a bit of hope to an otherwise dark situation.