via Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
After an intense months-long search, Warner Bros. has chosen Ryan Reynolds to play the title character in "Green Lantern," the studio's live-action movie based on the DC Comics hero.

Reynolds and his representatives entered negotiations for the part Friday, after the studio held two rounds of screen tests for the actor, Bradley Cooper and Jared Leto. Justin Timberlake also did a screen test.

The film is being directed by Martin Campbell and produced by Donald De Line and Greg Berlanti.

One reason for the lengthy search process was that De Line, Campbell and the studio each had a different favorite among the finalists, making it difficult to come to a consensus.

If the deal is completed, it would make Reynolds the only actor to have played heroes for both Marvel and DC. He recently starred in a comic-book movie, 20th Century Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," in which he played Deadpool, also known as the Merc with a Mouth. The character is being developed for a spin-off in which Reynolds will star. He also played Marvel's vampire hunter Hannibal King in "Blade: Trinity."

"Lantern" is Reynolds second stab at a DC Comics hero. A few years ago, he was reportedly attached to play DC's "The Flash."

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You may not have known his name, but you certainly have seen him. Billy Mays was the strong-voiced TV pitchman for everything from the Hercules Hook to Orange Glow to MightyMendit to, most recently Flies Away.
He was also featured on the reality show "Pitchmen" on the Discovery Channel, which followed Mays along on his marketing jobs.
An online collection of his most popular TV spots has already turned into an impromptu memorial of sorts. Many people are expressing their condolence to his son, Billy Mays III, on his Twitter page. Billy Mays was 50.

Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50. Tampa police said Mays' wife found him unresponsive Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators he didn't feel well before he went to bed about 10 p.m. that night.
There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn't answer questions about how Mays' body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner's office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days," Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. "Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay's Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays afterward.

"All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping," MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. "It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head."

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays' death to the landing would "purely be speculation." She said Mays' family members didn't report any health issues with the pitchman, but said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in the coming weeks.

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA is not investigating his death.

Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop" who rose from poverty to stardom alongside his brothers in The Jackson Five and solo success to become one of the most successful entertainers ever, has died. He was 50.
Jackson, responsible for 13 No. 1 hits, was pronounced dead after being rushed to a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest on Thursday.

No matter what you think of him, he is arguably the most influential artist of his era.

Quincy Jones, producer of Jackson's most successful albums, said he was "absolutely devastated" by the news that Jackson was "taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age."

"To this day, the music we created together on Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all ... talent, grace, professionalism and dedication," said Jones. "He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."

Jackson was preparing for a series of London comeback concerts he hoped would alleviate his massive debts and return him to the glory days of such hits as "Thriller," "Beat It," "Bad," and "Billie Jean." His singing and dancing abilities and iconic look — from his lone silver glove to his multi-zippered jackets — made him one of the most recognizable and celebrated human beings of all time.

(Reuters) - Videogames were once blamed for rising obesity rates but are now being championed by the medical industry and for use by government departments for their health benefits.

Games like Electronic Arts' "EA Sports Active" and Nintendo's "Wii Fit" have got players of all ages moving -- and game developers and investors looking for hot new titles to cash in on this booming segment of the market.

Big John Games' upcoming "Butt Kicker" Nintendo DSi game will provide an action-based environment in which players fight against cigarettes and "Karate Bears" for Wii teaches players real karate routines using the Wii's motion-sensor controllers.

With interest in health games rising, the fifth annual Games for Health Conference in Boston expanded to 390 people this year from 100, including developers, investors and medical experts, while numbers at many other conferences are down up to 40 percent.

"Healthcare is 18 percent of the GDP of the United States and so games for health is probably the largest sector of activity in the serious games field long-term," said Ben Sawyer, co-founder of The Games for Health Project.

"If you add up the 18 month sales of "Wii Fit" and the sales of "EA Sports Active," Konami's "Dance Dance Revolution" and other healthy games, the worldwide retail numbers are over $2 billion."

Dr. Michael Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop which fosters innovation in children's learning, has just released a report looking at how digital games can play a beneficial and educational role in health care.

"The White House should launch a national initiative to promote research and development of proven games," said Levine.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose mission is to improve the health and healthcare of all Americans, has also called for a public engagement campaign supported by the president, Congress and the federal agencies to teach parents, teachers and health providers about the healthy side of gaming.

"States' governors should direct their school technology officers to look at innovations like "Dance Dance Revolution" and "Wii Fit" as a way to extend the reach of physical education and comprehensive health education," said Dr. Debra Lieberman, director of Health Games Research for the foundation.

The Games for Health Conference also showcased how videogames are being used to help doctors and patients alike.

Serious games developer Virtual Heroes is working on a new first-person shooter sequel for Hope Lab's popular "Re-Mission" game, which has been distributed to cancer patients in 81 countries since 2006.

"We're taking their existing concept and trying to raise the fun bar and creating more lifelike and enjoyable environments within the human body," explained Jerry Heneghan, CEO of Virtual Heroes.

"Players will take control of Roxy, the protagonist, and have new weapons to battle cancer with thanks to input from cancer patients."

Virtual Heroes is also updating its HumanSim technology with a new human physiology engine, technology has been used by Duke Medical Center's nursing school to train nurses virtually.

Heneghan said he hopes this software will inspire gamers to turn to careers in healthcare and make people in the medical profession more proficient with more grants and funding flowing into universities for health games.

(Reuters) - Saturn's icy moon Enceladus could contain watery underground caverns, forming a potential home for alien life, scientists said on Wednesday.

German researchers have found salt -- a signature chemical for seawater -- in ice grains from vapor jets streaming out of surface cracks, providing the strongest evidence yet of a liquid water reservoir beneath the moon's frozen crust.

A U.S. team said the amount of salt they had detected using a different method suggested an earlier theory that water was boiling explosively into the vacuum of space via geysers was wrong, and evaporation was occurring quite slowly.

Both studies were published in the journal Nature.

One explanation for the slower evaporation may be that water is emerging from pressurized chambers below the so-called tiger stripe fractures in the moon's surface, said John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"Our picture of its sub-surface must now be expanded to include the possibility of misty ice caverns floored with pools and channels of salty water, lurking beneath the tiger stripes," he wrote in a commentary on the two scientific papers.

"What else may lurk in those salty pools, if they exist, remains to be seen."

The Cassini spacecraft first discovered huge plumes erupting from fissures near the south pole of Enceladus in 2005, sparking speculation of a vast underground ocean spewing vapor through giant Yellowstone-like geysers.

Since then, scientists have debated whether this meant that Enceladus (pronounced en-SELL-ah-dus), with a diameter of only 310 miles, was hiding a reservoir of liquid water. It is one of about 60 moons of the ringed planet Saturn.

Frank Postberg of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg said the presence of sodium salts was compelling evidence, indicating salty minerals were washed out from rock on Enceladus in the same way oceans absorb salt on Earth.

He and colleagues reported they had found salty grains of ice after analyzing data from Cassini's cosmic dust detector as it flew through Saturn's outermost ring, where Enceladus orbits.

Whether or not Enceladus harbors life remains a mystery. But the evidence of liquid water, coupled with heat near the moon's South Pole, suggests it is possible.

"If you have this large amount of water in contact with a rocky core and you have heat, then you have very good conditions," Postberg said in a telephone interview.

"On top of that we measured a slightly alkaline pH value, which is very good for the formation of complex organic molecules."

Scientists hope to find out more when Cassini makes two more close fly-bys of Enceladus in November.

It's official. Finally. After over 12 years of waiting since the FCC announced the US transition to all digital TV broadcasting in late 1996, the switchover has finally arrived. Analog TV broadcasts have been turned off and all full power broadcasts in the US are now digital.
The 15% of the population that still watches over the air TV now needs a set made in the last three years or a set-top digital tuner box (or alternately, sign up for cable or satellite.)
It's hard to imagine anyone still unaware of the transition at this point. Numerous stations have already switched to digital and had their analog signal turned off for months. Anyone watching TV broadcasts have seen crawls during programming and endless news segments and PSAs for about a year now regarding the switch. However, Nielsen statistics released just last week supposedly indicate 5% of central Texas households (about 30,000) are still unprepared. It seems awareness and understanding are two different things.
There are local resources available in cities all across the country. Free walk-in and in-home assistance is available, as well as free phone support; all being provided by TV stations, electronics stores, and non-profit organizations nationwide.
To find local resources for assistance, as well as broadcast coverage maps detailing what channels you should be able to receive, go to dtv.gov.
If you are tech-savvy, volunteer to help at one of these places after making sure your family and friends are all set to enjoy DTV.

A word about DTV tuner boxes: they are not all the same in features or quality. Having used three myself, I can say that they all have unexpected idiosyncrasies. For example; some have buttons on the actual unit and others don't; requiring you to have the remote even to turn it on. If remotes get misplaced in your household, this can lead to several minutes of scrambling to find it while your show already started.
Some units have significantly longer startup times than others. Some are heavy enough to remain stationary on top of your set under their own weight; others are small and light enough that the cables attached to them make it hard to have them sit in any one place without doublestick foam tape.
A pretty complete list of models and features can be found at Consumer Reports.org.