Jerry Curl

Photo caption: Satellite images taken on July 28, left, and Aug. 5, right, shows the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland before and after a 110-square-mile piece of ice broke off. The huge ice island is more than four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island. The Arctic — an area described as Earth's refrigerator because its ice helps keep temperatures cool — continues to warm up and is unlikely to return to earlier conditions, according to an annual report card issued Thursday by top scientists. Record temperatures across the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, a reduced summer sea ice cover, (and) record snow cover decreases" were cited as factors supporting the conclusion in the 2010 Arctic Report Card issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report card "tells a story of widespread, continued and even dramatic effects of a warming Arctic," lead researcher Jackie Richter-Menge, an expert at the federal Cold Regions Research and En...

From the Sisters website : We’re sorry to announce that Scissor Sisters have been forced to cancel their upcoming shows on mainland Europe. Due to funding issues, it has become impossible to make the tour work financially. The band are very disappointed, but it is beyond anyone’s control. Said the band: “We’re saddened to discover that we are unable to play our scheduled tour dates through Europe. We’re genuinely sorry about this frustrating situation. We’ll try to make it up to you and return to these beautiful cities soon.” Refunds are available from the point of purchase for all nine of the canceled shows, which were due to take place between 29th October and 14th November. All other upcoming Scissor Sisters dates, including December’s UK arena tour, remain unaffected.

Lynch tells More about her marriage: The actress is settling down with her wife psychologist Lara Embry, whom she met last year at a lesbian rights fundraiser. "I'd never dated anyone that I wanted to marry," she says. "I didn't think it was going to be out there for me. But the minute we were married, I felt the difference. I felt like I am no longer alone." And it's a double-high note: "I got married – and I married a doctor!"

Mashable reports : After retiring the floppy disk in March, Sony has halted the manufacture and distribution of another now-obsolete technology: the cassette Walkman, the first low-cost, portable music player. The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. Once these units are sold, new cassette Walkmans will no longer be available through the manufacturer. The first generation Walkman (which was called the Soundabout in the U.S., and the Stowaway in the UK) was released on July 1, 1979 in Japan. Although it later became a huge success, it only sold 3,000 units in its first month. Sony managed to sell some 200 million iterations of the cassette Walkman over the product line's 30-year career. Somewhat ironically, the announcement was delivered just one day ahead of the iPod's ninth anniversary on October 23, although the decline of the cassette Walkman is attributed primarily to the explosive popularity of CD players in the '90s, not the i...

If Democratic candidates are counting on long-standing support from gay voters to help stave off big losses on Nov. 2, they could be in for a surprise. Across the country, activists say gay voters are angry — at the lack of progress on issues from eliminating employment discrimination to uncertainty over serving in the military to the economy — and some are choosing to sit out this election or look for other candidates. President Barack Obama's hometown of Chicago, with its large, politically and socially active gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, offers a snapshot of what some are calling the "enthusiasm gap" between voters who came out strong for Obama and other Democrats in 2008 and re-energized Republican base voters, including tea party enthusiasts who say they are primed to storm the polls. It didn't help that the controversy over the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays erupted less than two weeks before the ele...