The Blender 1.7

By Rachel Campbell

Saturday, January 7, 2006 2:05 AM CST

Invasion comes alive The latest exhibit at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium takes the maxim "if you can't beat `em, join `em" to heart, showcasing the Great Lakes' harmful invasive species.

"These species are not inherently bad," said consultant David Lodge of the University of Notre Dame's Center for Aquatic Conservation. "They're just in the wrong place."

Asian carp, round gobies, and other such species populate the exhibit, which explores some of the 170 foreign plants and animals that have thrived locally to the point of upsetting the area's delicate natural balance. Zebra mussels, for example, are considered so hazardous that Shedd staffers opted to showcase replicas instead of the real thing.

Still, the exhibit is a permanent one, so as storage technology improves over the years the Shedd may consider showcasing invasive and dangerously ubiquitous entities like live zebra mussels, white people, Coldplay, Mariah Carey and Google.

City reportedly living up to Algonquin name Baltimore was named the fittest city in America by Men's Fitness magazine this week, news Baltimore residents reacted to "with shock, bewilderment or outright laughter," the Associated Press reports.

"I think it's probably the most mis-fit city in America," resident Charisse Bailey said, eating fried red snapper on thick white bread, french fries and drinking a beer. Vegetarian Tremonteria Morgan agreed, telling reporters, "We don't eat well at all. We eat a lot of fried foods - fried chicken and soul food. For myself, I have to search high and low for a health food place. We have a lot of obesity here in our city."

Still, Men's Fitness editor Neal Boulton defends the choice, saying the survey is far from scientific and based on factors like access to health care, public park space, air quality, number of fast-food restaurants and city planning and leadership.

"Baltimore is a paragon of urban renewal," he said. "That's why it's the fittest city, that's why it's the comeback city." Baltimore is followed on the list by Honolulu, Virginia Beach, Va., and Tuscon, Ariz., with Milwaukee, just a few hours away from America's fattest city, Chicago, coming in as the fifth-fittest city in the nation; proving that "far from scientific" is used in media vernacular to mean, "seriously, man, that day? We were messed up. I still can't find my socks."

Resistance is futile Motorola Inc. announced Friday its plans to sell Web-enabled cell phones that feature Google-access buttons on their keypads, the AP reports, in addition to other improvements. "Many of our customers have been asking for mobile devices integrated with their consumers' favorite online search services," said Scott Durchslag of Motorola's Global xProducts. "Our relationship with Google provides an opportunity for us to offer a high-quality mobile search experience - one familiar to and loved by millions of users across the globe." This development is but a drop in the Google bucket, which recently includes Google Video, Google's $1 billion deal with Time-Warner's AOL, Google's classified-ad service, Google Base, Google's stock increases, Google's keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show after that of Google-wary Microsoft Chairman Bill Google, rumors of a Google-based Google, Google's Google, Google, Google Google Google Google.

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