A New Species in New York Was Croaking in Plain Sight

The new species of leopard frog, whose entire known range is roughly within commuting distance of Midtown Manhattan, makes an unusual sound.On a foray into the wilds of Staten Island in 2009, Jeremy A. Feinberg, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolution at Rutgers University, heard something strange as he listened for the distinctive mating call of the southern leopard frog— usually a repetitive chuckle. But this was a single cluck.

“I started hearing these calls, and I realized they were really distinct,” Mr. Feinberg said.

Three years later, Mr. Feinberg and four other scientists who joined him in multiple field and laboratory studies, are finally comfortable making their declaration: a new species of leopard frog — as yet unnamed — has been identified in New York City and a number of surrounding counties.

The find is surprising on a number of fronts, not least of which is that the new frog was hiding in plain sight in one of the most populated centers in the world. (Most new species are found in remote areas.) And it illustrates the power of genetic testing in parsing more finely those animals that may be nearly identical in appearance, but are, in fact, of different species.

Jennifer Lawrence: Hunger for Stardom in the Hunger Game

The movie “The Hunger Games” will sparkle Jennifer Lawrence career, but her career started long ago before she ever started.

Her career in acting started on a farm in Kentucky, she convinced her mother to take her from their horse farm in Kentucky to New York so that she could audition and meet agents. She auditioned for Twilight, but did not work out.   She got smaller roles with big-name actors. Parts containing a TV movie Company Town and an episode of Monk in 2006, episodes of Cold Case and Medium in 2007 and 2008 — and eventually, her efforts earned her a spot on the TBS Sitcom The Bill Engvall Show, in which she played the comedian’s teenage daughter, Lauren Pearson. That series ran for three seasons, 30 episodes overall, and launched her star. I used to watch this show. It was the only show that would watch during the summer months on TBS.

In Under the Radar Magazine, Jennifer Lawrence said “The Bill Engvall Show, I’m so grateful for it,” she said, “ I had so much fun on that show, and we all became like family. It funded my indie career, so I could do the movies that I want.”

Engvall knew from the star that she’d be a star.

“Of my favorite scenes that I did on that show, one of them was with Jennifer. I go back and watch it every once in a while,” he told Kentucky’s MetroMix last year. “We had a scene where she was mad at me and I had to go in and apologize to her. We had that nice dad-daughter moment. I remember (thinking), ‘This girl’s good.’ She’s got it; she’s got what it takes. I think she’ll be holding that statuette before she’s done.”

While still working on Engvall, Lawrence landed her first film lead, in 2008′s The Poker House, as a teenager growing up in a troubled household in poor, 1970s Iowa. She won Best Performance at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

“I was young. I hadn’t done anything else and so everything that I read I wanted to do,” she said about the film in a 2009 interview. “But now that I’m older and actually have a point of view and I can see what an amazing, brilliant script it is and how it grabs you and it has teeth and it’s real and it’s ugly and all the things that aren’t usually appealing really appeal to me.”

She starred in another lauded domestic drama that year, “The Burning Plain”, playing a troubled teenager who accidentally murders her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, then moves toMexico. Charlize Theron played the older version of her character.Lawrence won the Marcello Mastroianni award for emerging actors at the Venice Film Festival.

The prizes, of course, would only get bigger. She wowed in her role in Winter’s Bone, playing Ree Dolly, a tough-as-nails teenager fighting for survival in the mountain towns ofWest Virginia. It was a harrowing role and an impressive lead for someone that was just 19-years-old when it shot. It was a small independent movie, but its rise at Sundance – and it got her an Oscar nomination. She was on the road to stardom.

Her next movie that put her on the map was X-Men: First Class, as blue mutant Mystique. When I watch this movie on the big screen I did not recognize her from the start, but her character was a young superhero and the movie was great.

And so here she is, she is set to star in what could be a record box office draw, already amassing millions of new fans — but some have known about her for years. And I am a fan of hers.

The Hunger Games is now playing world wide tonight, please check your listing for time and date. Come early to get a sneak preview of Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 and stay to watch the movie.

Shannon Magrane it was her One Sweet Day

Since Jermaine, Jones left American Idol due to outstanding warrants and an arrest last year, he was let go by the executive producers of the show. So if you want to be on American Idol, you better have a clean record, it looks like American Idol does  background check on their contestants when competing on the show. Maybe he could try out the X-factor or America’s Got Talent.

I think American Idol executives did the right thing of letting him go, but the wrong thing to broadcast of what he did and the crime he did. Is this American Idol or American Most Wanted? They should not broadcast at all, let Ryan Seacrest sing for a chance or let Ryan Seacrest do a magic act and pull Julienne Hough out of a hat to fill in the gap, eventually they put more commercials, better for me; I was doing dishes during that time, and I walked my camel.

Shannon Magrane surprised me, and the judges were impressed by her singing with “One Sweet Day” by Mariah Carey. If she can keep this up, she will be in the top ten or maybe the top 2, eventually she went home. And it was a tearful good bye that she will miss the show. Since she is still in Hollywood maybe some record producer was watching the show and wanted to give her chance to live out her dream as a singer. Oh well, I did vote for her. She will be missed.

The X-Factor: Stacy Francis went home and Astro needs an Attitude check.

Is that a rock song when they sang on Wednesday night performance? Apparently, the contestants sang their rock songs and some of the songs either were a soft-rock, pop-rock, and reggae-rock. It was good and great performance from all the contestants. If you did your share and voted for favorite your favorite would have stayed.

I thought. Leroy Bell would have gone home tonight, but he was safe. His song choice wasn’t right his next perform would have been a better.

Contestants who were safe were:

Leroy Bell

Lakoda Rayne

Chris Rene

Melanie Amaro

Rachel Crow

Josh Krajck

And Drew.

The bottom two were Stacy Francis and Astro. Francis knew she was the bottom two and sharing the stage with Astro. Francis sang “Amazing Grace” and it was amazing, one of her good performance last night.

However, Astro thought he owns it. He thought he was the best until he was at the bottom two. From the beginning of the show when it premiered his attitude was slowly coming out.  His rap songs were originally, and he could sing anything with rap. I am not a big fan of rap music, but they are other rap artists who are great and been in the business longer than him.

Astro came out and almost refused to play along with the whole Survival Song script. “I really don’t think I should perform. I think it’s unnecessary,” he said. But then Reid talked him into it, saying he’d come too far to give up. And so Astro rapped his way patchily — heartbreakingly, I thought — through “Never Can Say Goodbye.” His rapping was not good.

They could have let him go, and Astro can take the lesson the hard way. Make him think what happened.

Reid chewed Astro out — “You acted a little bit like a quitter and it upset me,” he said, but then threw his chips his mentee’s way anyway, opting to send Francis home. Later, he and Astro’s mother would have a serious career making decision and his attitude.

Stacy Francis was better, even though her song choice wasn’t the right match. If people remember from American Idol, the pioneer of talent show and the previous winners from the show, the song choice is the key to succeed.

Nicole Scherzinger, who was Fancis’s mentor, predictably chose to save her and send Astro home. If Paula did the same thing send Astro home. Simon would have agreed and send Astro home too. Stacy Francis would have another week to redeem herself that she is in it to win it.

Cowell zeroed in on Astro alone, telling him, “I don’t like your attitude right now.”  He made him uncross his arms and look him in the eye, and he tried to get him to say that he’d behave better if he landed in the same spot again in the future. Cowell went so far as to mention Astro’s beloved mom.

That’s when a tear trickled down Astro’s cheek, reminding us that this swaggery performer full of blustery bravado was just a little boy — a sad, disappointed kid from Brooklyn, who’d put his all into the competition despite being sadly separated from the very mom for whom he’d written the tribute that put him on the “X Factor” map. He believed this show would take him (and his family) somewhere, and it had let him (and them) down. The voters didn’t like him, and he was hurt.

“I don’t want to perform for people who don’t want me here,” he said, understandably injured.

Though Astro is still a child, Cowell reminded him that he was expected to behave like a grownup. “You know what the rules are,” he said.

In the end, though, Cowell saved Astro and sent Francis home. He did not want to do it but he did.

Who did have the lowest vote, probably Astro. Francis would have been saved.

If Astro performs well next week, please don’t vote for him. His attitude get’s in the way and he’s too young and immature.

Hurricane Irene Bad Girl

Hurricane Irene was a bad girl and did she dodge the bullet? No. People lost their lives in the storm. An 11-year-old Virginia’s boy crushed when a tree fell on his home, which was devastating. People losing power in Virginia and North Carolina, luckily my house had power, and the trees are in the back yard were still standing. And some people bought generators for they could watch the porn channel instead of news marathon. Then my power was out, and I missed it, for a couple of hours. The dark is no fun. I did not know my house was haunted. I saw a couple of ghosts in my house, and it was chasing me – it was my parents dressed up ghost in flower printed bed sheets.

What can we learn from past Hurricanes? Stay off the roads, when we get floods and there’s a gushing wave of water coming down the streets, and we think we can out run it by running or driving away fast in our vehicles, there is no chance we can survive. A gushing of water is faster than us, and it can flood the streets. Forget about the milk from the store or the sugar we need across the street. Stay safe.

And there’s no chance when the water level is down, and we can see our car, and we think it can start. It’s flooded. Literally, it’s flooded and the costly repair bill. Uh –Oh!  Better get Maaco.

This is my pet peeve. Why do people go out surfing when there’s hurricane coming, and the waves are big? I can’t go to Hawaii and catch the big waves there; my local beaches have waves too – well not that big. I rather see a giant mega shark jumping out of the ocean and swallow one of the swimmers. Sorry I was watching the Syfy network. I got tired watching the local news marathon. Debbie Gibson and Tiffany battled it out which sea creatures are better – Only in My dreams!

The news reporters, I like the way they tell us what happened in real time, there’s was one reporter on my local channel on  WAVY TV -10, his name is Andy Fox, and he was giving the report of the wind speed at Cape Hatteras. He could not stand up straight or even perpendicular in the hurricane-force winds it was like a wind tunnel. It was hilarious to watch.  You can watch it here and subscribe for it. I bet the WAVY TV 10 got great ratings for this segment and Andy Fox too. He’s a great reporter, and he should stay on WAVY –TV 10.  At least, he had fun. Some reporters were in water. I was waiting for something to grab them and pull under – but she was attractive. I don’t want to see that happened. I have a crush on the reporter now like my local news.