Patent Medicines Get A Belated Chemical Checkup

Ads for patent medicines and medical appliances dominate a 1930s storefront in England.

General Photographic Agency/Getty Images

Ads for patent medicines and medical appliances dominate a 1930s storefront in England.

General Photographic Agency/Getty Images

The patent medicines sold in days gone by may, contrary to the name, not have had real government patents. But that didn't stop their makers from claiming the concoctions could cure ailments ranging from indigestion to jaundice and fever.

Now, researchers have put some of these old elixirs and pills in the Henry Ford Museum's large collection of patent medicines to a modern test. They found a mix of potentially harmful metals like lead and mercury along with benign ingredients, including calcium and iron.

Library research only goes so far in understanding the once-popular medicines. "They can find out what they were supposed to cure, they can find out based on old newspapers what they caused," says chemist Mark Benvenuto who led the research for the Dearborn, Mich., museum. "But they can't necessarily find out what was in them."

Dr. Sawen's Magic Nervine Pills contained calcium, iron, copper and potassium. Despite advertising claiming they were free of lead and mercury, both elements were found in the pills.

Courtesy of Mark Benvenuto

Dr. Sawen's Magic Nervine Pills contained calcium, iron, copper and potassium. Despite advertising claiming they were free of lead and mercury, both elements were found in the pills.

Courtesy of Mark Benvenuto

Hundreds of these patent medicines were sold in stores, by mail order and from traveling medicine shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were called patent medicines because people put their names on them. Take, for instance, Hollister's Golden Nugest Tablets and Dr. Sawen's Magic Nervine Pills.

"Before the creation of the Food and Drug Administration in the early 1900s, people could claim to cure anything, and they didn't have to list what was in them," says Mary Fahey, chief conservator and head of preservation at the museum.

Benvenuto and seven of his students at University of Detroit Mercy analyzed studied 25 medicines using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence to identify metals and nuclear magnetic resonance to look at all compounds, including carbon-based chemicals, or organics.

So, did the analysis find any of the ingredients actually listed on the label? "It's tough to make that call with the organics," Benvenuto says. "None of them were nice, clean and pure for just one compound. So by NMR, you're going to see all the compounds at once. And the other thing is these things have been sitting in a bottle for 120 years ? organics tend to break down."

Because the mixture of organic substances proved to be a challenge, research on them is ongoing.

For now, the researchers focused on identifying elements first because they are much less ambiguous. "I found a lot more iron, calcium and zinc than I did mercury and lead," Benvenuto says.

For example, the team found iron, calcium and a little bit of silver and copper in Reynold & Parmely's Female Health Restorative. The pill claimed to contain coffee, ceratrum, nux vomica, pulsatilla, cocculus, cimifuga and chamomile. But just because the researchers weren't able to discern the listed organics in their analysis, doesn't mean they weren't originally included.

And then there was P.P.P. Parson's Purgative Pills which was said to contain aloes, colmel, powdered colocynth, gamboge, soap, mandrake root and peppermint oil. That actually had a significant amount of mercury in them.

When they first found mercury in a couple of them, they were reminded that medicines containing the metal were a common treatment for syphilis. "It kills the spirochete," Benvenuto says. "It almost kills you, but it kills the spirochete."

Some patent medicines were known to contain other risky ingredients like cocaine and heroin.

The modern chemists aren't able to determine a drugmaker's motive. "I don't know if people were in it just to sell stuff or actually thought they had something that would solve a problem," Benvenuto says. "But if you stop and think about this, what we were analyzing here is kind of a first step into where we've come to today. If you go back to the year 1800, the way people got rid of ailments was a lot of home remedies."

In hindsight, we can say someone had a virus and their body would have dealt with it regardless of what they ingested, he says. So taking a patent medicine and then getting better was just coincidence.

"You and I might say they didn't really do a controlled study on this sort of thing, but no one had really conceived of controlled studies back then," Benvenuto says. "That doesn't mean they cured nothing."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/08/176561880/patent-medicines-get-a-belated-chemical-checkup?ft=1&f=1007

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Federal lawsuit filed over Arkansas oil spill

MAYFLOWER, Ark. (AP) ? Two women who live near an ExxonMobil pipeline that ruptured last week and spilled thousands of barrels of oil in central Arkansas filed a federal lawsuit against the company on Friday.

The class-action complaint from Kimla Greene and Kathryn Jane Roachell Chunn comes a week after ExxonMobil Pipeline Co.'s Pegasus pipeline ruptured in Mayflower, about 25 miles northwest of Little Rock. Crews are still working to clean up oil that spewed onto lawns and roadways and almost fouled nearby Lake Conway.

The women are seeking money to make up for "a permanent diminishment in property value," according to the complaint. Their complaint says the women are bringing their lawsuit on their own behalf and for other people who live near the pipeline in Arkansas.

One of the women's lawyers, Phillip Duncan, wouldn't spell out exactly how much money they're looking for, but their lawsuit says they're seeking more than $5 million in damages for property owners.

The lawsuit said the part of the pipeline that ruptured was "in an unsafe, defective and deficient condition presenting an immediate environmental harm" on March 29 ? the day it ruptured.

"The Pegasus Pipeline running throughout the state of Arkansas is most likely to be similarly situated and maintained ..." Greene and Chunn's lawyers wrote in the complaint.

An Exxon spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit, but a spokeswoman has previously said its inspections were up-to-date. The part of the pipeline that ruptured was inspected in 2010 and again in February, according to a corrective action order that federal pipeline safety officials issued Tuesday.

The Pegasus pipeline, which runs from Patoka, Ill., to the Texas Gulf Coast, was originally built in 1947 and 1948, according to federal pipeline safety officials. It is currently out of service. For that to change, ExxonMobil would need written approval from a federal pipeline safety official, according to the order from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

___

Follow Jeannie Nuss at http://twitter.com/jeannienuss

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-04-05-Oil%20Leak-Arkansas/id-8be37b69ccc94d2786337c271d376834

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Japan increasingly nervous about North Korea nukes

FILE - In this Sunday, April 15, 2012 file photo, a North Korean vehicle carrying a missile passes by during a mass military parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said Thursday, April 4, 2013 but he added that there are no signs that Pyongyang is preparing for a full-scale conflict. The report came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. It was the North's latest war cry against America in recent weeks, with the added suggestion that it had improved its nuclear technology. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, April 15, 2012 file photo, a North Korean vehicle carrying a missile passes by during a mass military parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said Thursday, April 4, 2013 but he added that there are no signs that Pyongyang is preparing for a full-scale conflict. The report came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. It was the North's latest war cry against America in recent weeks, with the added suggestion that it had improved its nuclear technology. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2012 file photo released by Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket lifts off from the Sohae launch pad in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. Though it remains a highly unlikely scenario, Japanese officials have long feared that if North Korea ever decides to play its nuclear card it has not only the means but several potential motives for launching an attack on Tokyo or major U.S. military installations on Japan's main island. And while a conventional missile attack is far more likely, Tokyo is taking North Korea's nuclear rhetoric seriously. (AP Photo/KCNA, File)

Japan's chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga speaks about North Korea during a regular press conference at the Prime Minister's official residence in Tokyo Monday, April 8, 2013. On Monday, amid reports North Korea is preparing a missile launch or another nuclear test, Japanese officials said they have stepped up measures to ensure the nation's safety. "We are doing all we can to protect the safety of our nation," said Suga, though he and defense ministry officials refused to confirm the reports about the naval alert, saying they do not want to "show their cards" to North Korea. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, HONG KONG, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA AND FRANCE

TOKYO (AP) ? It's easy to write off North Korea's threats to strike the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile as bluster: it has never demonstrated the capability to deploy a missile that could reach the Pacific island of Guam, let alone the mainland U.S.

But what about Japan?

Though it remains a highly unlikely scenario, Japanese officials have long feared that if North Korea ever decides to play its nuclear card it has not only the means but several potential motives for launching an attack on Tokyo or major U.S. military installations on Japan's main island. And while a conventional missile attack is far more likely, Tokyo is taking North Korea's nuclear rhetoric seriously.

On Monday, amid reports North Korea is preparing a missile launch or another nuclear test, Japanese officials said they have stepped up measures to ensure the nation's safety. Japanese media reported over the weekend that the defense minister has put destroyers with missile interception systems on alert to shoot down any missile or missile debris that appears to be headed for Japanese territory.

"We are doing all we can to protect the safety of our nation," said chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga, though he and Ministry of Defense officials refused to confirm the reports about the naval alert, saying they do not want to "show their cards" to North Korea.

North Korea, meanwhile, issued a new threat against Japan.

"We once again warn Japan against blindly toeing the U.S. policy," said an editorial Monday in the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of its ruling party. "It will have to pay a dear price for its imprudent behavior."

Following North Korea's third nuclear test in February, Japanese experts have increasingly voiced concerns that North Korea may already be able to hit ? or at least target ? U.S. bases and major population centers with nuclear warheads loaded onto its medium-range Rodong missiles.

"The threat level has jumped" following the nuclear test, said Narushige Michishita, a former Ministry of Defense official and director of the Security and International Studies Program at Tokyo's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

Unlike North Korea's still-under-construction intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, program, its arsenal of about 300 deployed Rodong missiles has been flight tested and is thought to have a range of about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles).

That is good enough to reach Tokyo and key U.S. military bases ? including Yokota Air Base, which is the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Air Force; Yokosuka Naval Base, where the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and its battle group are home-based; and Misawa Air Base, a key launching point for U.S. F-16 fighters.

Michishita, in an analysis published late last year, said a Rodong missile launched from North Korea would reach Japan within five to 10 minutes and, if aimed at the center of Tokyo, would have a 50-percent probability of falling somewhere within the perimeter of Tokyo's main subway system.

He said Japan would be a particularly tempting target because it is close enough to feasibly reach with a conventionally or nuclear-armed missile, and the persistent animosity and distrust dating back to Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 provides an ideological motive.

Also, a threat against Japan could be used to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington. North Korea could, for example, fire one or more Rodong missiles toward Tokyo but have them fall short to frighten Japan's leaders into making concessions, stay out of a conflict on the peninsula or oppose moves by the U.S. forces in Japan to assist the South Koreans, lest Tokyo suffer a real attack.

"Given North Korea's past adventurism, this scenario is within the range of its rational choices," Michishita wrote.

Officials stress that simply having the ability to launch an attack does not mean it would be a success. They also say North Korea is not known to have actually deployed any nuclear-tipped missiles.

Tokyo and Washington have invested billions of dollars in what is probably the world's most sophisticated ballistic missile defense shield since North Korea sent a long-range Taepodong missile over Japan's main island in 1998. Japan now has its own land- and sea-based interceptors and began launching spy satellites after the "Taepodong shock" to keep its own tabs on military activities inside North Korea.

For the time being, most experts believe, North Korea cannot attack the United States with a nuclear warhead because it can't yet fashion one light enough to mount atop a long-range ICBM. But Japanese analysts are not alone in believing North Korea has cleared the "miniaturization" problem for its medium-range weapons.

In April 2005, Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea had the capability to arm a missile with a nuclear device. In 2011, the same intelligence agency said North Korea "may now have" plutonium-based nuclear warheads that it can deliver by ballistic missiles, aircraft or "unconventional means."

The Pentagon has since backtracked, saying it isn't clear how small a nuclear warhead the North can produce.

But David Albright, a physicist at the Institute for Science and International Security think tank, said in an email he believes the North can arm Rodong missiles with nuclear warheads weighing as much as several hundred kilograms (pounds) and packing a yield in the low kilotons.

That is far smaller than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki but big enough to cause significant casualties in an urban area.

Japan also is a better target than traditional enemy South Korea because striking so close to home with a nuclear weapon would blanket a good part of its own population with the fallout.

Regardless of whom North Korea strikes ? with a nuclear or conventional weapon ? it can be assured of one thing: a counterattack by the United States.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-08-AS-Japan-NKorea's-Nuke-Threat/id-c479cb46731f45b4ba97ff64f13aa9d0

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Quake hits near Iran's nuclear city Bushehr, 37 dead

By Yeganeh Torbati and Marcus George

DUBAI (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 37 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages, Iranian media reported.

The 6.3 magnitude quake totally destroyed one village, a Red Crescent official told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), but the nearby Bushehr nuclear plant was undamaged, according to Iranian officials and the Russian company that built it.

"Due to the intensity of this earthquake, this tragedy has deepened and we have seen the destruction of many homes in the region, the deaths of 37 people and more than 850 injured," the governor of Bushehr province, Fereydoun Hassanvand, told Mehr news agency.

Many houses in rural parts of the province are made of mud bricks, which have been known to crumble easily in quake-prone Iran. Some 700 homes were destroyed, Hassanvand said.

Across the Gulf, offices in Qatar and Bahrain were evacuated after the quake, whose epicenter was 89 km (55 miles) southeast of the port of Bushehr, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The early afternoon shock was also felt in financial hub Dubai.

The Russian company that built the nuclear power station, 18 km (11 miles) south of Bushehr, said the plant was unaffected.

"Personnel continue to work in the normal regime and radiation levels are fully within the norm," Russian state news agency RIA quoted an official at Atomstroyexport as saying.

Iran informed the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency that there was "no damage to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and no radioactive release from the installation", an agency statement said.

One Bushehr resident said the quake shook her home and the homes of her neighbors but they were not damaged.

"We could clearly feel the earthquake," Nikoo, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said. "The windows and chandeliers all shook."

While initial fears about nuclear fallout receded, nearer the epicenter the rescue efforts ramped up into the night in search of survivors and to feed and house hundreds of residents who were traumatized by at least 16 aftershocks.

A Red Crescent official told ISNA that 20 people had been saved by rescue teams searching through the rubble.

Reports in Iranian media spoke of landslides destroying buildings and crowds gathering in the town of Dashti from outlying areas in search of help. Military officials said army and police units had been deployed to maintain order.

Water and electricity lines were severed and communities stayed in the streets because of the threat from aftershocks.

Iran's most powerful authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered his condolences to the victims and urged authorities to extend all efforts to save lives and help the afflicted.

Tuesday's quake was much smaller than the 9.0 magnitude one that hit Japan two years ago, triggering a tsunami that destroyed back-up generators and disabled the Fukushima nuclear plant's cooling system. Three of the reactors melted down.

Iran is the only country operating a nuclear power plant that does not belong to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, negotiated after the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl which contaminated wide areas and made 160,000 Ukrainians homeless.

Western officials and the United Nations have urged Iran to join the safety forum.

REPEATED WARNINGS

Tehran has repeatedly rejected safety concerns about Bushehr - built in a highly seismic area - that began operations in September 2011 after decades of delays.

Iran sits on major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 which flattened the southeastern city of Bam and killed more than 25,000 people. In August more than 300 people were killed when two quakes struck the northwest.

A report published last week by U.S. think-tanks Carnegie Endowment and the Federation of American Scientists said that "ominously" the Bushehr reactor sits at the intersection of three tectonic plates.

"Iran's sole nuclear power plant is not at risk of a tsunami similar in size to the one that knocked out the electricity and emergency cooling systems at Fukushima. But, repeated warnings about the threat of earthquakes for the Bushehr nuclear plant appear to have fallen on deaf ears," the report said.

The quake happened on National Nuclear Technology Day when Iran's leaders celebrate the technological advances they say will reduce the country's reliance on fossil fuels, leaving more of its abundant oil for export.

Israel, Gulf Arab states and many Western countries fear Tehran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability and the Islamic Republic is under international sanctions aimed at forcing it to curb some of its atomic work.

Iran denies it wants nuclear arms and says its atomic work is for electricity generation and other peaceful uses.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna, Regan Doherty in Doha, Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Michael Roddy and Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/6-3-magnitude-quake-strikes-near-irans-nuclear-123722902.html

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Kerry struggles to get Turkey to mend Israel ties

ISTANBUL (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry struggled Sunday to convince Turkey's leaders they should promptly restore full diplomatic ties with Israel, two American allies counted on by President Barack Obama to help calm the turbulent Middle East.

But Turkey demanded that Israel first end all commercial restrictions against the Palestinians before the once-close partners could end their estrangement, which stems from an Israeli raid in 2010 on a flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip. Eight Turks and a Turkish-American died.

Obama revived the rapprochement during a visit to Israel last month, and Kerry aimed to firm that up in Istanbul, the first stop in a 10-day trip.

The stakes are high, given that the U.S. sees Turkey and Israel as anchors of stability in a region riven by Syria's civil war, Arab Spring political upheavals and the potential threat posed by Iran's nuclear program.

"We would like to see this relationship that is important to stability in the Middle East and critical to the peace process ... get back on track in its full measure," Kerry told reporters at a news conference with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Kerry said that meant promises of "compensation be fulfilled, ambassadors be returned and that full relationship be embraced."

He also met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and then went to Israel.

Obama, before leaving Israel two weeks ago, arranged a telephone conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Erdogan. Netanyahu apologized for the flotilla incident; compensation talks are expected to begin this week.

But Davutoglu suggested that full normalization of ties would probably take some time.

"There is an offense that has been committed and there needs to be accountability," Davutoglu said.

He signaled that Turkey would pursue a "careful" advance toward a complete restoration of relations, with compensation and an end to Israeli trade restrictions on the Gaza Strip as the stumbling blocks.

"All of the embargoes should be eliminated once and for all," he said through an interpreter.

Fixing the relationship long has been a goal of the Obama administration, and the U.S. desperately wants significant progress by the time Erdogan visits the White House in mid-May.

The Turks have reveled somewhat in what they view as a diplomatic victory, with billboards in Ankara celebrating Netanyahu's apology and praising Erdogan for bringing pride to his country.

Perhaps seeking to add to his leverage, Erdogan indicated shortly after the call that he was in no hurry to finalize the deal and pledged to visit the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory soon.

From a U.S. strategic sense, cooperation between the American allies has only become more important as Syria's 2-year conflict has grown ever deadlier.

More than 70,000 people have died in the war, according to the United Nations, but the U.S. fears it could get even worse, by spilling into neighboring countries or through the use of chemical weapons.

Both potential scenarios have led to intense contingency planning among Washington and its regional partners, including Israel and Turkey.

Kerry, who noted his twice-weekly telephone chats with Davutoglu, spoke of shared U.S. and Turkish efforts to support Syria's opposition coalition.

The opposition has suffered from poor coordination between its political leadership and the military factions leading the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and from intense infighting among those who seek to guide the amorphous movement's overall strategy.

Turkey has gone further than the U.S. in its assistance, accepting some 180,000 Syrians as refugees and sending advanced weaponry to rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.

The U.S. is only providing nonlethal aid to the rebels in the form of meals, medical kits and training.

Kerry praised Turkey for its generosity toward refugees and commitment to keeping its borders open, an issue of growing U.S. concern as the outflow of Syrians stretches the capacities of neighboring countries to accommodate them.

"The United States and Turkey will continue cooperating toward the shared goal of a peaceful transition in Syria," he said.

After arriving in Israel for his trip there in two weeks, Kerry went directly to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

He planned to see Netanyahu and other senior Israeli and Palestinian officials Monday and Tuesday as part of a fresh American bid to unlock the long-stalled Middle East peace process.

Conversations in Israel will also cover shared U.S. and Israeli concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Representatives from the U.S. and other world powers met the Islamic republic in Kazakhstan for another round of negotiations, but no breakthrough was announced on a proposed deal that would see international penalties eased on Iran if Tehran convinces the world that it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Kerry said the "door is still open" for a negotiated agreement, but that the onus was on the Iranians.

"If you have a peaceful program for nuclear power, as a number of nations do, it's not hard to prove that," he said. "They have chosen not to live up to the international requirements and standards with respect to verification of their program."

The other stops on his trip are Britain, South Korea, China and Japan. He returns to Washington on April 15.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-struggles-turkey-mend-israel-ties-182253810--politics.html

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Sci-fi TV show ''Defiance'' dovetails drama with video game

By Eric Kelsey

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Science-fiction drama "Defiance" wants to go where no television series has gone before, weaving a show with an online video game to achieve the elusive goal of parlaying success on one entertainment platform to another.

The new series, which premieres on U.S. cable channel Syfy on April 15, tells the story of frontier town Defiance, formerly St. Louis, in the near future following a 30-year war between humans and seven alien races.

Syfy last week released a multi-player, plot-based video game, developed with Trion Worlds, that lets users build their own personas and explore the landscape of a reshaped Earth in the San Francisco area. The game is made for Sony's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox360 and PC.

Spinning a film or TV series into a video game, or vice versa, is nothing new. But producers say "Defiance" is the first to weave both game and show together at the same time. The video game alone took some five years to create.

Known in the entertainment industry as the "second screen," the concept lets viewers engage with a show on a second platform on which networks pin hopes for additional advertising sales and cementing a dedicated fan base.

"What's unusual about what we're doing ... is we're building the second-screen concept into the actual DNA of the show-game combo," "Defiance" executive producer Kevin Murphy told Reuters.

"We're working to make a terrific serialized drama that stands on its own, but we understand that what has people watching us is the fact that this cross-platform promotional is something very, very desirable."

"Defiance" will be a guinea pig for the viability of merging media like video games with TV shows.

"Nobody has done this before, that's the scary part," he said. "The wonderful part is that there's nobody to say, 'No, no, no, that's not the way it's done.

"It's something (Syfy President) Dave Howe always refers to as the holy grail of entertainment," he added.

Syfy spent about $100 million to develop the game and show, and the network expects about 20 percent of viewers and players to cross over between the two platforms.

"We're very cautiously optimistic," Howe said, adding that it will still take the standard four or five weeks to know if "Defiance" will be renewed for a second season.

'OLD-SCHOOL' SCI-FI

The "Defiance" cast is led by ex-Marine and vagabond Nolan, played by "Liz & Dick" star Grant Bowler, and his adopted alien daughter Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas).

The two finally become tied down helping Defiance Mayor Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz) defend the town from invasion.

Murphy, whose past credits include writer and producer on TV drama "Desperate Housewives," said there are plans for several crossovers between the series and game, including adapting user-created personas from the game into subsequent seasons of the television show.

Murphy said he wanted to depart from the recent popular television series of dark, dystopian sci-fi, such as AMC's "Walking Dead" and Syfy's "Battlestar Galactica."

"I think this is sort of a tip of the hat more to the old-school science-fiction like 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars,' which were very hopeful, optimistic worlds," Murphy said.

The show often reflects American challenges of an ethnically diverse and often divided society.

In the pilot, polyglot alliances are tricky as humans and some races of aliens must reluctantly brush aside differences to protect the town from automatons known as the Volge.

"On our show, the aliens are not invading us," Murphy said. "The aliens are part of the melting pot .... They each have their own sort of social mores that they left behind and have been challenged because they've come to a new world."

Syfy is a unit of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sci-fi-tv-show-defiance-dovetails-drama-video-185835020--finance.html

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Rick Warren's Son Dies of Suicide

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/rick-warrens-son-dies-of-suicide/

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