There is an HIV positive porn star

Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation founder,
Sharon Mitchell

In a serious blow to the porn industry, the Los Angeles Times reported that a female performer in the pornography industry has tested positive for HIV, according to the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, a San Fernando Valley-based clinic that serves adult performers.

This case marks the first publicly confirmed HIV infection in an adult star in California since 2004 when an HIV outbreak shut down porn production for weeks. According to the LA Times, "The new HIV infection was confirmed publicly only after discussions of a possible HIV case appeared on adult industry websites." They quote porn veteran and clinic founder Sharon Mitchell, saying they had recently changed their policies on HIV positive performer disclosure for new cases "because if there isn't a widespread danger – if someone isn't completely virulent and hasn't worked and there aren't a lot of people at risk, we don't put a quote out there; just blankets: Everyone should come in and test."

Read the whole LA Times story here.

New Element

Element 112, is still looking for a name, but it will be added to the periodic table more than a decade after the first single atoms of it were produced. Element 112 was officially recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

It is part of a group of super heavy elements that are very unstable and begin to fall apart within a few milliseconds of creation. As yet, it is only possible to "make" such elements in the lab with most powerful of particle accelerators.

Read more here in the BBC.

Bats recognize each others voices

The study was conducted with greater mouse eared bats like this one.

The Clarion Content has always been fascinated by animal communication. Our Gaian perspective implies almost axiomatically that animals can communicate with each other (and us, if we are open to it) in very sophisticated ways.

A recent study at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, Israel, verified that individual bats recognize each other's voices. They have also analyzed how it works. The lead scientist, Yossi Yovel explained to the BBC, "If you think of this in comparison with humans, it's like being able to recognize a person just by listening to the same one-syllable yell in different voices. The bats learned the voice by listening to hundreds of very short yells."

Read more here from the BBC News.

Interesting visual links

We have two interesting links to cool visual stimuli for you, dear reader.

The first one came our way courtesy of our friends at the MEP report, a site you should be checking out regularly if you aren't already. It is a fascinating diagram, high school science book-style, on the eleven types of lightning that scientists have observed. Neato.

This picture link we discovered looking for an illustration to put with an earlier post. It didn't really work there or anywhere else, but it was a cool image.

Hope this movie gets made

We had only just heard that there was a remake of the 1981 classic Heavy Metal in the works. Unfortunately, before we even able to post on it, there has apparently been a break-up between the producer David Fincher and Paramount Pictures. He is now looking for a new studio to make the movie.

The Future Kings of Nowhere

We highly recommend this band!

If Regina Spektor was the artist we had to tell everybody about in 2007, and the Avett Brothers were the shout it from the rooftops band of 2008...

We are far enough into 2009 to declare it the year of the Future Kings of Nowhere.

A MySpace reviewer hit it on the nose, "If pressed, this Durham group (Shayne O'Neill on vocals and guitar, Mike on drums, and Jon on bass) will tell you that they play "acousticore," music for people who are angrier than Peter, Paul or Mary, but nicer than Henry Rollins."

Sample below. Link to their record label here.

Interesting Pop Culture links

The Clarion Content always hopes to be a purveyor of interesting links. We regularly post an interesting links column on the main page, you can find them here. Today we have a new batch of pop culture links.

The first link is to an article about a Clarion Content favorite, In-N-Out. With apologies to Cookout, In-N-Out is bar none the single best fast food chain in America. It is only in California, Nevada and Arizona. They have done just the opposite of most American companies hewing closely to the founder Harry Synder's principles of of controlled growth, limited menu, fresh food and regional focus. However, now both the founder and his widow, Esther, have passed. The Los Angeles Times does a fabulous review of a new book on the future of In-N-Out by BusinessWeek writer Stacy Perman. Read it here.

The next one is a tricky situation. A sixteen-year old at Sickles High School in Tampa, Florida has gotten herself in an embarrassing predicament. The young lady decide not to wear any underwear on the day of the high school yearbook photos. In subsequent interviews she told a local television network it was because she didn't want her panty lines to show. (Ever heard of a thong?) Well the situation went from bad to worse when the young lady failed to cross her legs for a photo of the school's pottery club. More than 2,500 copies of the yearbook were distributed with a photo of the young lady's private parts on display. She has been unwilling to return to school. Her mother wants to sue the district which is refusing to recall the yearbooks while claiming the photo only shows a shadow. Oy gevalt, read more here.

For the final link it is back to the Los Angeles Times and a fascinating article about the changing place of the piano in the American home. Once a staple, pianos have become marginal in this day and age. What does that reflect at about the speed of culture and its allocation of time? What does it say about American dreams of upward mobility and middle class life? Interestingly at the same as piano sales have dropped from 105,000/yr to 54,000/yr, acoustic guitar sales grew to 1,348,000 from 611,000; and electric guitar sales from 543,000 to 1,520,000 per year. Maybe the piano industry needs to sponsor a piano-based video game, ala "Guitar Hero?" Read the full article here.

Now stay away from my daughter

The San Jose Mercury News reports a thirty-year old woman from Anderson, California was arrested and faces eleven felony counts after allegedly having sex with two local boys, ages fifteen and sixteen. In a 48-page report released this week, she reportedly told the cops that she was protecting her teenage daughter by diverting the boys' attention to herself. The woman pled not guilty during an appearance Wednesday in Shasta County Superior Court and remains jailed, with a bond set at $250,000.

It almost uses a curse word

Ahhh, Alabama, it has a special place in United States' lore. Not only is it in the bottom third of the country in adult literacy, child poverty, and educational attainment but things happen Alabama that rarely happen outside the Deep South. Take this for example...

McDonald's is pulling the Kidz Bop 8 CD that is being given away with McDonald's Happy Meals in Boaz, Alabama. On the Kidz Bop cover version of Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want To Be," some parents are hearing the F Bomb. The hilarious part, the part that makes it just so Alabama, is that there are no curse words in the song.

The lyric in question goes, "I'm tired of looking 'round rooms wondering what I gotta do." Some Alabama parents are hearing, "I'm tired of f**king 'round rooms wondering what I gotta do."

Bam, it is into the pile with the rest of the books to burned.

Diamond sets a record

A flawless, vivid blue, diamond weighing 7.03 carats sold for almost ten million dollars this week...


not the Blue Diamond in question.

Reuters reports that the price paid, a stunning $9.49 million, was a new record for a fancy vivid blue diamond. The auction was held by Sotheby's jewelry department, Europe and the Middle East, and conducted by chairman David Bennett. The final two bidders apparently battled back and forth in hectic fifteen minutes by phone before the diamond was sold.

Sotheby's noted that the rectangular-shaped blue stone set a record for price per carat of any gemstone ever sold at auction, $1,349,752/carat. Blue diamonds are the rarest members of the diamond family after reds. According to Reuters the new owner will have the right to name the stone, which is mounted in a platinum ring. It was put up for sale by London-listed Petra Diamonds, which extracted it last year from the historic Cullinan mine in South Africa.