Got Sum Treats For Y'all! (Courtesy Of Rich Yung Boss)

Let's start thing off RIGHT, w/ this exclusive BMW 850 concept ... Nuff said

GET WELL SOON: Stephen Hawking

Famed mathematician Stephen Hawking has been rushed to a hospital & is seriously ill, Cambridge University said Monday. The university said Hawking has been fighting a chest infection for several weeks, & was being treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, the university city north of London. "Professor Hawking is very ill," said Gregory Hayman, the university's head of communications. "He is undergoing tests. He has been unwell for a couple of weeks." Hawking, 67, gained renown for his work on black holes, & has remained active despite being diagnosed at 21 with ALS, (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), an incurable degenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. For some years, Hawking has been almost entirely paralyzed, & he communicates through an electronic voice synthesizer activated by his fingers.
"Professor Hawking is a remarkable colleague. We all hope he will be amongst us again soon," said Professor Peter Haynes, head of the university's Department of Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics. Hawking had canceled an appearance at Arizona State University on April 6 because of his illness. He announced last year that he would step down from his post as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by the great 18th century physicist Isaac Newton, at the end of this academic year. However, the university said Hawking intended to continue working as Emeritus Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

Her Mind Gets Better With Age, Like Wine

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist said Saturday that even though she is about to turn 100, her mind is sharper than it was she when she was 20. Rita Levi Montalcini (who also serves as a senator for life in Italy), celebrates her 100th birthday on Wednesday, & she spoke at a ceremony held in her honor by the European Brain Research Institute. She shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine with American Stanley Cohen for discovering mechanisms that regulate the growth of cells & organs. "At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake for her. The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime forced her to quit university & do research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom at home. "Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The best comes from them."
"I should thank Mussolini for having declared me to be of an inferior race. This led me to the joy of working, not any more unfortunately, in university institutes but in a bedroom," the scientist said. Her white hair elegantly coifed & wearing a smart navy blue suit, she raised a glass of sparkling wine in a toast to her long life.

Best Concept Car Since The "Range Stormer"

With twin sequential turbochargers & a capacity of just 1.8 litres, the F700 DiesOtto generates 238hp. An electric motor adds another 20hp & boosts total torque to 295lb ft. As a result, the S-class-sized F700 has S350 performance. Thanks to the efficiency of the engine, plus an urban start/stop function & regenerative braking, it returns up to 53mpg. Highly impressive for a big limo like this. And Pre-Scan, what’s that about? Pulsed laser sensors scan the road surface up to 7m in front of the car, detecting bumps & feeding the information back to the F700’s Active Body Control suspension. As a bump approaches, ABC uses its hydraulics to raise the body slightly, then releases the hydraulic pressure to allow free wheel movement. In effect, it lengthens & softens the springs as a bump approaches, to provide what Mercedes likes to call a ‘flying carpet’ ride. Does it really ride like a flying carpet? Mostly, yes. Roll & pitch are all but eliminated, transverse ridges in the road surface are magically erased, & minor ripples are smoothed for a calmer, quieter ride. Speed bumps are more heard than felt: Mercedes says production versions of the system will need ‘environment detection’ so the car will know when it’s in an urban area, & won’t let you race over speed bumps … & does a 1.8-litre four-pot really work in a luxury saloon? That was one of the questions Mercedes aimed to answer by building DiesOtto as a four-cylinder engine: small, light fours are bound to be more environmentally friendly that hefty multi-cylinder motors, but can they provide the performance & refinement an S-class customer expects? Performance isn’t in doubt. At 1700kg, the F700 is no featherweight (though it is light for a full-size saloon) yet the combination of 1.8-litre DiesOtto engine & the electric motor deliver brisk performance. In some ways the engine is remarkably refined: the trickiest part of getting DiesOtto to work is to manage the transition between HCCI & spark-ignition modes, which Mercedes has done incredibly well. An almost imperceptible difference in engine note is the only indication, but ultimately this is still a four-cylinder engine: it needs to be smoother & quieter for a big, pampering luxury car.

The Eco-Friendly Christmas Tree

Like, seriously ... A Christmas BOOKtree ?!!! I was wab-surfin' when I found this on the IJM photography site (http://www.ijm.nl/) and thought to myself, "Either they're just bored, or they get very, Very, VERY fuckin' high !!!" I mean, it's in all way-shape-form eco-friendly to the enviroment, and costs absolutely NOTHING, which'll save alotta people money during the holiday season (and the recession if it's still here by Christmas), doesn't this shit look high ?.. Or is it just me ?.. Hmmmmm ...

Touchin' The Sky ... W/O Kanye !!!

Lupe Fiasco teams up w/ Justin Timberlake & Ethiopian-born Pop singer Kenna will climb Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness about the global water crisis. Kenna speaks on his reasons of volunteering for the event. "My dad almost died as a child from waterborne diseases in Ethiopia, & he had talked to me about digging a well there, & I thought, ‘I have too many friends who would be concerned with the subject of clean water. Maybe I can help out." If the three artists make it to the summit they will have climbed Africa’s highest peak. The mountain, which is located in Tanzania, is nearly 20,000 feet high. "I’m an adventure junkie,” explained Lupe Fiasco. “Part of the motivation is beating Kenna to the top. Sabotaging his tent, taking the lining out of his coat, lacing it with ants or something like that." The lengthy climb is expected to take place some time during fall later this year. While we're speaking on Mr. Kick, Push ... Lupe Fiasco last month stated to the people (the public, that is) that he would be releasing his third studio album, entitled 'Lasers' later this year.

Asher Roth: Hip-Hop Is BLACK Music

Asher Roth may be the epitome of keeping it real. On the surface, there’s nothing inherently special about the 23-year-old rapper who’s set to drop his debut LP later this month. Roth is far from a wannabe & makes no attempt to hide his suburban upbringing. Recently, Roth dropped his thoughts on Hip Hop & all those comparisons to another famous white rapper. Ultimately, he blames the commercialization of Hip Hop & Hip Hop culture that brought him to where he is today. “Unlike Eminem, I'm classic white,” he says of his style & sound. “I'm talking about yoga & yogurt covered in fruit. I represent more of a suburban middle-class lifestyle.”While he believes Hip Hop is universal, he gives all of the credit to the original pioneers of the industry, many of whom are black. “Besides the white guys who sell it & push it, hip hop is black music,” he stated. But when that push extended to Roth’s suburban home, he caught the urge to step to the mic & tell his story. “But it got to the point where they were targeting us, the white people in the 'burbs. We got brought up on it, but suddenly when a 23-year-old white kid who's been inspired by Jay-Z starts rapping, it's a bad thing? C'mon, those rappers were talking to us the whole time. It's interesting to see what this is turning into. I was just this punk kid rapping to the laptop in my sophomore year in college. That's what hip-hop has turned into.”And then there’s that whole Eminem thing. Roth hopes his album track “As I Em” will sum everything up. “Now when I get asked, I can say, ‘Refer to song 8. Conversation over.’”

Biggest Pillow Fight That I've Seen Thus Far

Police in Detroit have ruffled some feathers after they cracked down on an organized pillow fight at a downtown park. The Detroit News reports that police at Campus Martius Park prevented the feathery fight Saturday by disarming pillow-toting participants. The bout was part of a worldwide event organized on social networking Web sites. Michael Davis of Hamtramck says police confiscated the 32-year-old man's pillows but returned their cases. He says he was told that he needed a permit. Scott Harris of Ferndale told the News that it's "not illegal to own a pillow." Detroit police spokesman James Tate says cleanup was the issue.

Citi Presents The MySpace Credit Card

MySpace has stamped its name on a new Citi credit card, in which users can earn rewards redeemable through MySpace such as free music downloads, concerts, movie premiere screenings, etc. The announcement has not been met with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm however. For example, Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb says, "MySpace is a lot of things, and despite Facebook's formidable attack it remains wildly popular, but an institution of trust and responsibility MySpace is not!" From the purely financial standpoint as well, the card has had some shortcomings pointed out already. "Noticeably absent from the manifesto is a call to pay off your balance every month, which you'd better do since the card has a starting APR of 14.24% which is high even for a student with limited credit history," explains Josh Smith at Walletpop. "As a comparison, the same Citi FORWARD card without a MySpace logo carries an APR of 12.24% which is still high but a full 2% less than that of the MySpace card." To be fair, the move isn't being poorly received by everyone. "This is a no-brainer for MySpace, as all they really need to do is supply their brand & collect referral fees from Citi," says Mashable's Adam Ostrow who notes that MySpace continues to "run laps" around its competitors in terms of monetization. Furthermore, the rewards program might provide a little extra spark to MySpace Music, which the social network launched in the later part of last year. Citi spins the MySpace branding of the card as highlighting social responsibility since you can earn points for "completing socially responsible acts" like donating to food drives, going paperless, switching to energy efficient light bulbs, etc. More details can be found at the card's official site & its MySpace profile.

Crisis In Darfur "On Brink Of Deepening"

The humanitarian crisis in Darfur is "on the brink of deepening," US envoy Scott Gration said on Saturday of the war-ravaged Sudanese region, calling for renewed cooperation with the government & an end to hostilities. "I came away very concerned about what I saw & believe that we are on the brink of a deepening crisis in Darfur," he told journalists after a morning visit to the Zam Zam displaced persons camp in region's north. "We have to come up with a solution on the ground within the next few weeks." Gration was speaking a month to the day after the government expelled 13 international aid agencies in protest at an arrest warrant against President Omar al-Beshir for alleged war crimes in Dafur. He said it was imperative to get assistance into the country "so that these people don't die & they don't incur any more suffering," but also expressed confidence that "this crisis can be avoided." "What I see as immediate problems are water & health care," he said, arguing that the "crisis can be prevented & mitigated by coming up with a flexible, creative & workable plan to ensure these folks can have access to critical medical sanitation & nutrition assistance too." The expelled agencies had distributed food, offered medical care & provided access to water to some 2.7 million people displaced by civil war in Darfur. Gration reached out to local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as an initial step with the hope of widening the scope for others eventually.
"We want to work with Sudanese NGOs. I believe they have the capability to fill some of the gaps in terms of food." "We need an environment where we can use all sources, NGO help, maybe NGOs that come in from Arab nations, additional NGOs from traditional donor countries & maybe a workable solution for some of the people that have been working in the area historically." The retired air force general said there also needed to be a political solution to the Darfur conflict. "We all have to embark on a very aggressive short-term process to bring peace to this region,"