It is claimed that Napoleon Bonaparte wore a Breguet watch in 1798

"A Piece of the Rock"

It was like a scene out of a sci-fi movie: A behemoth threatens an innocent town from atop a cliff, shrugging off all capture attempts.

Only this real-life besieger was a 116-ton boulder, which gave indications in February 1979 that it might plunge onto Pacific Coast Highway and possibly squash a BMW or two, if not some beachfront architecture.

The innocent town was Malibu, so naturally elements of show biz were involved.

It was movie producer/ writer Robert Radnitz who led a campaign lobbying Caltrans to bring the big rock down from its 186-foot-high perch.

He was understandably nervous: His home lay in its potential path on the ocean side of PCH. Radnitz estimated that the hulk had slipped 20 feet in the previous two weeks.

PCH was closed to traffic, making it the perfect gathering spot for dozens of onlookers during the 40-hour drama.

A few watched from kayaks.

One viewer was sculptor Brett-Livingstone Strong, who said he wanted a piece of the Malibu rock so he could fashion a mini-Mt. Rushmore: a 3-foot-high bust of then-Gov. Jerry Brown, alongside the words, "For President."

Yes, the same Jerry Brown who is now state attorney general.

But the hunk of sandstone wasn't being cooperative.

A 2,500-pound steel net was dropped on it by a helicopter, but efforts to loosen the boulder from above failed.

At one point, a fire hose was attached to a hydrant and aimed at the big rock. A continuous stream of water slammed into it for more than two hours.

The Caltrans contractor in charge of capturing the giant told The Times that he had come up with the idea after his father-in-law said to him: "Why don't you wash it down?"

A reporter asked if his father-in-law was an engineer.

"No," replied the contractor. "He's an accountant." (but he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night!)

Alas, the hosing failed to bring down the boulder.

Finally, after more than a day and a half of struggle, an inch-thick cable was attached to the steel-webbed net.

The cable was fed through a pulley-like device on PCH and secured to a huge four-wheeled skip loader parked about 400 feet down the road.

Darkness was falling, "turning the boulder into a hulking silhouette," when the skip loader began to pull the cable, The Times reported.

At first, only a few fragments broke loose. Then a rumble could be heard.

"It's going! It's going!" someone yelled.

The rock began sliding slowly, its fall inhibited by additional cables attached to it on a plateau.

Then it snapped the cables and began to tumble faster and faster, caroming off an outcropping.

It crashed onto a 4-foot-deep earthen landing pad on PCH and stopped. Dirt spewed about 75 feet into the air.

"For several seconds no one said a word," The Times reported. "Then, as if on a director's cue, a loud cheer went up from the people standing nearby. Finally, there was steady applause."

One young woman scrambled atop the boulder and danced.

Crews used pneumatic drills and dynamite to break the rock into small pieces.

Onlookers chipped off souvenirs and snapped photos.

Radnitz, now 85, wrote an unproduced script about the incident, titled "The Rock." He still lives in the house near Las Tunas beach. Today that stretch of PCH is guarded by a sagging chain-link fence.

Strong, the sculptor, paid $100 for a 12 1/2 -ton chunk but changed his mind about a Brown-for-president sculpture.

"I decided to do someone not so controversial," he said.

Brown's penchant for making offbeat pronouncements had prompted critics to dub him Gov. Moonbeam.

Instead the artist chose a more strong and silent type -- actor John Wayne.

Strong rented an air chisel and, working from photos, labored for 10 weeks on his chunk, which was parked at a shopping center in Century City. Spectators watched.

"For a time, I was getting comments from people like, 'I believe that's Jimmy Durante you're carving,' " said Strong, referring to the comic whose trademark was a big schnoz. "But now people say they can see the resemblance."

An Arizona real estate man bought it, reportedly for a million dollars, and put it on display for a few weeks at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

There was talk of the celebrity rock going on a tour of East Asia but that venture never came off.

Eventually the Wayne bust was donated to Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas, where it sits in the library.

Contacted by The Times last week, a librarian there said, "Oh, the rock from Malibu."

She added that people "come up and ask about it all the time."

Jerry Brown has yet to be elected president.

"The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail"

The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail provides spectacular backcountry travel the length of the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada. It is the most rugged long-distance National Scenic Trail.

Trail users wind their way through some of the most spectacular scenery in the United States and have an opportunity to enjoy a greater diversity of physical and natural qualities than found on any other extended trail. The route of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail crosses five ecological life zones, and users can take in the topography, climate, vegetation, and wildlife of the Rocky Mountain West. The trail travels from Canada to Mexico, through five western states—Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

The trail's southern node is the Mexican border near Antelope Wells, New Mexico. The trail shoots north through the desert into the Gila National Forest and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness. It then crosses the El Malpais National Monument, picking up the 1,000-year-old Zuni-Acoma trade route. Before reaching Colorado, the trail travels through the Cibola National Forest and the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests.

Entering Colorado from the south, the Trail passes through remote, rugged alpine terrain like the South San Juan, Weminuche, and La Garita Wilderness Areas. There are several crossings of the Continental Divide and the Colorado Trail; for over 100 miles, the routes of the CT and the Continental Divide Trail are contiguous. The trail is almost entirely on national forest land, including San Juan, Rio Grande, San Isabel, Gunnison, White River, Pike, Arapaho, and Medicine Bow-Routt. A chunk of the trail passes through Rocky Mountain National Park and the Mt. Zirkel Wilderness.

The trail ventures into Wyoming at Routt National Forest. It then crosses BLM land before reaching the Bridger-Teton National Forest and the Popo Agie and Fitzpatrick wildernesses. From there, it's on to Yellowstone National Park.

The trail crosses into Idaho at the Targhee National Forest. It stays close to the Montana border, and after it finally jumps the line, users get to explore the Salmon National Forest, Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, and Helena National Forest. The trail transverses the Scapegoat, Bob Marshall, and Great Bear Wildernesses. Finally, after passing through Glacier National Park, the trail ends at the Canadian border.

A Delicate Balance

Even canes and shoes, items that appear to employ no technology, are getting smarter.

A team of researchers at UCLA's programWireless Health has fitted these walking aids with accelerometers and gyroscopes -- devices that were developed for fighter jets and missiles but are now in smart phones.

The canes and shoes would be used to monitor balance and teach users how to walk safely and avoid falling. Sensors inside can also transmit data in real time to doctors and caretakers who keep track of the user's mobility. The canes and shoes are still in the testing phase, but developers hope to have them on the market early next year.

Majestic

To honor the lion and help safeguard its preservation for future generations, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino has created a one-of-a-kind Lion Habitat as a showcase for public education and appreciation for this majestic creature of nature. The lion has been a part of the MGM heritage for many years, beginning with the legendary Leo, whose roars have welcomed generations of moviegoers to epics of the silver screen.

"A Thoughtful Voice Amid the Din"

I am a 66-year-old lifelong Republican who always enjoyed listening to Bill Moyers. ("A Thoughtful Voice Amid the Din," by Neal Gabler, Dec. 13.) With his unique personal style and calming voice he had the ability to discuss both sides of a political issue in a calm measured way that enabled you to understand his point of view and what the real issues were. The shrill, vitriolic ranting of talking heads like Bill O'Reilly or Donna Brazile regardless of party affiliation only serve to polarize every critical issue we face as a nation and leave a scorched earth landscape behind them where no rational discussion can take place in the middle.

Moyers' explorations over the years into topics centered around who we could be as a nation if we wanted to were often just plain inspirational.

Like Ed Morrow and Walter Cronkite before him, Bill Moyers is a once-in-a-generation broadcaster.

(Letter from Michael Joyce, Fort Lauderdale)

"Notes on the Decade"

Some smartypants point out that, technically, the '00s (oughts?) aren't over til next year. But technicalities never stop journalists or critics from their appointed rounds of deep reflection.

So in addition to their usual ten-best lists, The Times' crew of arts (and entertainment) critics have written, "Notes on the Decade," highlighting some terrible, but mostly, some heartening devleopments over the past ten years. For details click on the heading above.

"Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel"

Boilerplate looks like an old stove with legs. He was built by Chicagoan Archibald Campion as the model for a new kind of soldier -- for "preventing the deaths of men in the conflicts of nations." After many exotic adventures around the globe, he disappeared in 1918, during World War I, in the Argonne Forest in northeast France: No piece of wreckage was ever found. Subsequent rumors, though, suggested that the robot had been recovered by the Germans and later rechristened as "Panzermann."

This robot, given his due in "Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel" (Abrams Image: 168 pp., $24.95), is actually the creation of Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, a husband-wife team of comic book veterans. Like the novel "The Difference Engine" and all its Steampunk progeny, this book imagines our world as a place of clockwork parts and steam-driven machines. The Steampunk world still contains sophisticated technologies, but they come with a crude, clanky appearance. Boilerplate is no exception. With his goggle eyes and horn-shaped speaker, he's the kind of robot that the Little Rascals probably would've built with parts found in a junkyard.

The book includes lavish illustrations and period photos that insert Boilerplate, a metallic version of Zelig -- or Forrest Gump -- into so many pivotal moments in American history. The illustrations are so good that there's a tangible, believable quality to them that has fooled many (just ask comedian Chris Elliott, who thought Boilerplate was real and used him in his 2005 debut novel -- later, according to one media outlet, he negotiated a settlement with the authors for using a copyrighted character). There's Boilerplate, standing next to Lawrence of Arabia, mingling with the Buffalo Soldiers, boxing with Jack Johnson, even traveling to the Yukon of Jack London. The book also includes a section, on other mechanical men, under the title "Boilerplate's Brethren."

"Boilerplate" is a delight, a perfect ramble of a read that needs no bigger justification than the pleasure of sharing in the authors' fantasy. But if you do need a bigger purpose before diving in, just consider: The variety of i-gadgets today are lauded for their smooth, sleek design, right? "Boilerplate," however, taps into a yearning for things that are more old-fashioned -- for technology that still has some wires showing.

Above, Pancho Villa and staff with Boilerplate in Mexico in 1916. (Paul Guinan / Abrams / January 30, 2009)

"a Modernist reverberation"

Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield This breathtaking exhibition, organized by artist Robert Gober, demonstrates the extraordinary power Burchfield (1893-1967) was able to coax forth from the watercolor medium. A sheet of paper emerges as a membrane stretched between the outer world of nature and the inner world of the artist's emotional life. Think of it as an aesthetic skin, separating different domains that are both in constant flux. His story as an artist is the lifelong odyssey of reconciling the two -- of finding the means by which to bring them into harmony or its semblance. Burchfield gave the spiritual intuitions of 19th century American transcendentalism a Modernist reverberation (C.K.). Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. Tue.-Wed., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Thu., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Mon.; ends Jan. 3. (310) 443-7000. Shown above is Charles Burchfield's "Rainy Night".

"militaristic themes"

In 2009 at L.A. Louver, Ben Jackel showed stoneware sculptures on militaristic themes that fuse brutality, fragility and play.

Alice Tully Hall shows transparency

It will soon be three years since the more intimate auditorium of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, known as Alice Tully Hall, closed for renovations as part of a massive redevelopment plan for the entire campus. This first major completed component of the plan reopened to the public with a new transparent appearance.

"a melancholy loner in search of his place in the world"

The Canadian company marks its 25th anniversary with a new big-top touring show that tells of a melancholy loner in search of his place in the world. The production marks a return to the troupe's origins of combining two circus traditions — high-caliber acrobatic artistry and bold, slapstick clowning.

"The Magnificent Seven"

I love that movie !!!!!!

"Lights make me dizzy!"

(Photo by Bob on Flickr)

"Fotoreis IJsland Ellie Postma augustus 2009"

(Photo by jaapmuurlinck on Flickr)

Do people still live in places like this???

(Photo by bimplebean on Flickr)

Aye, Aye Sir . . .

South Korea’s Armed Forces Day is an annual event held on October 1.

The country’s military puts on a variety of displays that include performances by military bands, drills by honor guard contingents and martial arts displays by special warfare units. There are also air shows with helicopters and fighting planes. One of the highlights of the event is a skydiving performance by South Korea’s Special Warfare Command soldiers.

The "Loeb Boathouse " in New York's Central Park

With their 1858 landscaping plan under construction, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux began adding architectural features to their Park design. Around 1874, Vaux designed a two-story boathouse at the eastern end of the Lake. Here visitors could purchase refreshments, take boat rides, and watch other boats. After this wooden Victorian structure with sloping mansard roof burned down, the current Loeb Boathouse took its place in the 1950s.

Today at the Boathouse visitors can enjoy a meal in any season, with overhead heating helping to extend as long as possible the pleasure of dining on the deck overlooking the Lake. More informal snacks are available on the outside terrace across from the bicycle rental concession. At Loeb you can also rent rowboats or take a ride in an authentic Venetian gondola. This is more than a ride, it is an "event" – with luck, your gondolier might just break into song at some point in the trip.

"Saab Story"

General Motors Co.'s plans to save Saab by selling it have failed, and the storied Swedish brand will be the latest to hit the scrap pile. Shown above is the 1937 first SAAB Model 92001.

One of the most modern and futuristic car models of its time. Sixten Sason´s Saab protoype 92001 has inspired Playsam to design a wooden model painted in high lustre black paint. Length: 220 mm.

(http://www.trollhattansaab.net/archives/2005/07/toys.html)

Doheny Mansion

Today the newly renovated Doheny Mansion at Mount St. Mary’s College, shown above, reopens for public tours at 9, 9:45, 10:30 and 11:15 a.m. Tours include the first floor of the mansion and surrounding grounds. $25. No. 8 Chester Place, Los Angeles. (213) 477-2962.

"stylish birdhouses and feeders"

Give your backyard habitat a modern vibe with these nifty bird feeders and houses.
First up, a window-mounted bird feeder (upper left) by the new design group Born in Sweden. Rose Apodaca, co-founder of the contemporary design store A+R, discovered the clear, globe-shaped feeder in Paris last summer and started importing it for her Venice shop and online store. “We think it’s going to do gangbusters this winter given its reasonable $18 price tag, cool packaging and even cooler design,” she says. The 4.5-inch-diameter bubble of recyclable plastic mounts on windows with a double suction cup.

Jayme Jenkins, owner of Aha! Modern Living, an online store based in Eugene, Ore., says the hanging glass bird feeder (upper right) by Eva Solo is one of her most popular items. “It’s hard to find stylish birdhouses and feeders. Hence, I had an ‘Aha’ moment when I found this one.” Made of hand-blown glass, the doughnut-shaped feeder is 7.5 by 5 inches and costs $52.80. For a 20% discount through Jan. 31, use “LATIMES” as a promotional code when checking out.

Loll, maker of eye-catching and durable outdoor furniture, has added the Cube and Pitch birdhouses (bottom left and right) to its line of products made in the U.S.A. from recycled plastic milk jugs. (It takes about 24 one-gallon jugs to fabricate each little house.) The Pitch, shown in leaf-green, is 7 inches square and has a 7-3/4-inch-wide mid-century-style sloped roof. Loll’s Cube birdhouse, shown in white, is 5 inches high and the base measures 5.5 by 6.5 inches. Its horizontal siding evokes modernist lines. Both styles come in six colors, and cost $68 each.

-- Debra Prinzing

Photo credits, clockwise from top left: A+R, Aha! Modern Living, Loll

Too Many Toys ???

In David Shannon's excellent book "Too Many Toys" (pictured above), he tells the story of a boy named Spencer who has way too many toys. It's a children's book of course, but as a mother, I learned a lesson from it: Parents don't necessarily have control of how many toys they have in their home. Spencer gets toys from his parents and his grandparents, his aunts, his uncles, even from his cousin Drew. He also gets them from friends on his birthday, and on their birthdays (in goody bags). He gets toys at the drive-through, at school "for having lots of Peace Person Points," and at the doctor's office when he doesn't squirm. How can a parent keep up with it all?

"Sign stolen from former Auschwitz death camp"

OSWIECIM, Poland - The Nazis' infamous iron sign declaring "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- German for "Work Sets You Free" -- was stolen today from the entrance of the former Auschwitz death camp, Polish police said.

The Auschwitz death camp's main gate at sunrise. "The theft of such a symbolic object is an attack on the memory of the Holocaust," Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said in a statement from Jerusalem. (Janek Skarzynski, AFP/Getty Images / January 13, 2005)

"Avatar" ticket sales big but not top-grossing

"Avatar" may be the highest-profile movie of the year, but it's not one that got out hordes of fans early in the morning.

James Cameron's new 3-D science-fiction flick grossed $3.54 million from shows that started at or soon after midnight today in the U.S. and Canada, according to distributor 20th Century Fox.

Despite the huge hype for the film, there turned out to be a relatively small number of Cameron devotees who came out to watch a two-hour-and-42-minute film after 12 a.m.

The top-grossing midnight debuts of all time, November's "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" and July's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" started off with $26.3 million and $22.2 million, respectively.

Opera for the masses and ME

Opera purists often turn their noses up at Andrea Bocelli. But for a great many people, he is opera. For better or for worse, Bocelli -- who has made a career out of moving between classical and pop -- represents the closest thing to opera that most people will ever experience.

No stranger to Southern California, Bocelli was in town recently to appear at the Honda Center in Anaheim last Sunday evening. The Italian tenor performed a set of holiday music from his latest album, "My Christmas," which was released in November. He also performed some operatic arias and duets.

Open for Excitement

A monorail passes through the $8.5-billion CityCenter complex, which has three hotels and a mall. The 61-story Aria Resort & Casino opened Thursday. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times / November 19, 2009)

"dead-sexy sports car"

The Audi e-tron -- a spectacularly cool and highly evolved prototype of an electric sports car due from the German giant at the end of 2011 -- may not be the car that crushes California's bold pioneers of electric mobility.

But what it represents could.

In the next couple of years, globe-striding automakers such as Nissan-Renault, Mercedes-Benz, VW Group, GM and Ford will begin cranking out tens of thousands of electric cars. Not just small electric city cars and mid-size family sedans (like GM's Volt and Nissan's Leaf) but powerful, dead-sexy sports cars.

The Audi e-tron, whose only shared component with the look-alike Audi R8 are the halfshafts, will at some point have company in the luxury electric sports car segment in the form of Mercedes' electric-version SLS gullwing (and no, I never thought I'd be writing those words).

This armada of electron-burners will not be diffident, underbaked beta-testers. No asterisks they. These will be -- they have to be -- fully fledged Nissans, Mercedes and VWs, built to these companies' exacting standards and sold at a price that economizes their global scale.

(Dan Neil. L A Times)

New Art Museum

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State University's trustees have approved the start of construction for a new art museum on the East Lansing campus.

The school says it will break ground March 16, 2010 for the Eli and Edythe Broad (BROHD) Art Museum. It's expected to open in early 2012.

In 2007, Michigan State alumnus Eli Broad and his wife Edythe donated $18.5 million toward building the museum. The couple also gave $7.5 million to commission a sculpture, buy art works and fund operations and an endowment.

"When dreams come true . . ."

At long last, Boeing Co.'s 787 passenger jet took to the skies Tuesday, making its maiden test flight and marking a major milestone in commercial aviation.

Thousands of Boeing workers and journalists were on hand at Paine Field just north of Seattle to witness the takeoff of the Dreamliner, a 250-seat jetliner that promises to burn less fuel and last longer than other aircraft flying today.

History of a Legend Grown Old

In 1936, the East and West communities of the San Francisco Bay Area came together like never before. While ferries had long carried people across the Bay's often choppy waters, automobiles were the future of transportation. This meant local residents wanted a quick way to drive between the rapidly growing cities of San Francisco and Oakland. As expected, as soon as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was built in 1936, it immediately became the favorite way to travel between San Francisco and the East Bay.

Cynics believed that the bridge would be impossible to build due to the potential impact of turbulent waters and gusty winds. Engineers had assumed that the area's high winds posed a greater threat than earthquakes, despite the bridge's proximity to two major fault lines. The varying soils and water depths, the inaccessibility to bedrock, and the unique design challenges inherent in developing a bridge to span eight miles across the Bay led some to believe that building such a bridge was unthinkable.

The largest and most expensive bridge ($77 million) of its time, the Bay Bridge faced not just natural obstacles, but political hurdles as well. There had been discussion of building a bridge between San Francisco and Oakland since the 1870s, but construction did not move forward until the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, with support from President Herbert Hoover, agreed to purchase bonds to be repaid later with bridge tolls.

"Rugged Mountains with Snow"

(Photo by Daglar)

Sunrise . . . Sunset

(Photo by Carl and Linda)

Pelican Pier Sunset

(photo by http://www.tropicalphotosbylarson.com)

Forest Mist

(Photo by "basia")

"built that way"

This building at 130 Bush Street, built in 1910, is one of the narrowest buildings, if not the narrowest, in San Francisco. Sandwiched between two taller skyscrapers, this Gothic Revival structure is 10 stories high and 80 feet deep, but only 20 feet wide. (It doesn't quite make the cut for narrowest commercial building in the world -- that's the Sam Kee Building in Vancouver, at 6 feet wide). The building was originally occupied by a garment manufacturing company that specialized in thin accessories: neckties, belts, and suspenders. (Hee hee!) Notice how the Shell Building to the right has matched the height of 130 Bush with its lower floors. Contrary to what you might think, the narrow building wasn't squeezed in to a narrow spot. It was built that way when nothing was to the right of it. The Shell Building came later.

Cleveland, Ohio Celebrating Christmas

Up and Down and Around Vancouver

"the Crooked House"

Polish architect of the Crooked House, Szotynscy Zaleski, was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and the drawings of the Swedish artist and Sopot resident Per Dahlberg. The most photographed building in Poland, the 4,000 square meter house is located in Rezydent shopping center in Sopot, Poland.

"I Love a Piano"

This unique piano house was built recently in An Hui Province, China. Inside of the violin is the escalator to the building. The building displays various city plans and development prospects in an effort to draw interest into the recently developed area.

"Canada's Arctic - In the Grip of Change"

There's a fab new exhibit at the amazing Vancouver Aquarium: "Canada's Arctic - In the Grip of Change" is a truly wonderful and educational exhibition featuring stunning photography about the animals, people, landscape and conservation and environment of the country's most remote areas including Iqaluit and Resolute Bay.

The exhibit also features a few tanks (baby arctic char, some really pink and fluffy arctic anenomes and "zooanthids", skeleton and Greenland shrimp and weird, tiny hedgehog anthropods) and some pretty cool and interactive "multi-tap" tables (imagine a table that's like an iPhone screen - you can tap, enlarge, move about digital images and videos, and they will automatically show you how the images connect together).

Of course the most fascinating backdrop for this exhibit of all this is the wonderful and growing beluga family swimming behind you. Watch Aurora and her new calf, a smiley and nuzzling not-so-little girl) or Qila and Tiqa, as they all play about. It's a great use for a popular room - and now, even more informative and fascinating than ever.

A "slice" of Vancouver

When visiting Vancouver make sure you see the Sam Kee Building. At just 1.5m/6ft wide, it's the world's most narrow office building - and easy to miss!

"the world's first steam-powered clock"

The historic district of Gastown is Vancouver's oldest neighbourhood. Still as colourful as ever, it is a favourite destination of tourists.

A daytime stroll down Gastown's cobblestone streets reveals artist studios, designers' shops, First Nations' galleries and antique stores in refurbished heritage buildings. Gastown is also home to the world's first steam-powered clock, now one of the city's most photographed attractions.

The Matterhorn's Glacial Ice

Photographs of the Swiss mountain -- taken in 1960, left, and in 2005 -- show the shrinkage of its glacial ice. Both photos were taken after major snowstorms.

Left photo copyright: Bradford Washburn / Courtesy Panopticon Gallery

Right photo copyright: David Arnold

"Christmas around the World"

The Capitol Christmas tree in Washington, D.C., is decorated with 3,000 ornaments that are the handiwork of U.S. schoolchildren. Encircling evergreens in the 'Pathway of Peace' represent the 50 U.S. states.
The world's largest Christmas tree display rises up the slopes of Monte Ingino outside of Gubbio, in Italy's Umbria region. Composed of about 500 lights connected by 40,000 feet of wire, the 'tree' is a modern marvel for an ancient city
Ooh la la Galeries Lafayette! In Paris, even the Christmas trees are chic. With its monumental, baroque dome, plus 10 stories of lights and high fashion, it's no surprise this show-stopping department store draws more visitors than the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.

(source unknown)

"H. M." will be remembered

Arguably the most important and certainly the most famous single case study patient in Psychology and Neuroscience passed away on Tuesday December 2nd. H.M. as he was known to probably every student of Psychology can now be revealed as Henry G. Molaison, 82, from Windsor Locks, CT.

HM was a man with no memory (well... at least episodic). Early in his life he developed epilepsy which left him very much incapacitated, he would have numerous small and large seizures a day. After nearly lethal doses of drugs that sought (unsuccessfully) to control the seizures, doctors, namely William Scoville, decided on a drastic course of action. They would remove the source of the seizures. So after some exploration into HM's brain they discovered that the source of all his problems lay in and around the hippocampus. Melville and his team of surgeons went in a short time later and removed a majority of his medial temporal lobe and thankfully the seizures stopped. Unfortunately though, something just as debilitating replaced them - HM had no memory. He could remember some things prior to the surgery but he could form no new ones.

H.M. is the basis for nearly everything we now know today about the neural basis of memory. People have continued research with him up until his recent death at the ripe old age of 82.