WASHINGTON — It's the bogeyman of the heated debate about overhauling U.S. health care. Critics charge that revamping the American system will turn the country into Canada , with a nationalized health care system and people dying as they wait for needed services they no longer can get.

New Ipsos-McClatchy online polls find that patients in Canada are indeed much more frustrated by waiting times to see medical specialists than patients in the United States are, and slightly less happy with the waiting times to see their family doctors.

However, they're much more likely to say that they have access to all the health care services they need at costs they can afford.

That split verdict comes as President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are proposing several plans to cover the uninsured and to offer a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies.

While Democrats say that the government insurance wouldn't replace private insurance, critics charge that it will lead inevitably to a Canadian-style plan in which the government takes over health insurance.

Sen. Judd Gregg , R- NH , said recently that a government insurance program being considered here "is a slippery slope to a single payer system like Canada or England have, which inevitably leads to putting a bureaucrat between you and your doctor and inevitably leads to delays, it leads to rationing."

Sen. Mitch McConnell , R- Ky. , this week cited the case of a friend who'd "just lost a friend of his in Canada because the government decided he was too old for a certain kind of procedure, and apparently he didn't have the money or the ability to get down to the United States for quality health care. ...I don't think that's the direction the American people want us to go."

The online polls surveyed 1,004 U.S. adults July 9-14 and 1,010 Canadians on June 5-7 . They aren't scientific random samples, don't statistically mirror the population and thus have no margin of error. Rather, they resemble large focus groups to help see what people are thinking about a particular issue.

On key questions of care and costs, patients in the two countries clearly see things differently.

Asked about seeing their family doctors, for example, 59 percent of Americans said they could see them quickly when they needed to; 52 percent of Canadians said they could.

The difference in opinions magnified when it came to seeing medical specialists, with 47 percent of Americans saying they can see specialists without long waits. That was nearly twice as high as the 26 percent of Canadians who said they could see specialists without long waits.

Looked at another way, 65 percent of Canadians said they had access to all the health care services they needed at costs they could afford; 49 percent of Americans felt the same way.

That difference probably reflects the costs of health care: Patients pay nothing at doctors' offices in Canada .

It also helps explain the fact that Americans see health care differently based on their incomes, while Canadians see it roughly the same regardless of what they earn.

Just 37 percent of Americans who make less than $50,000 a year say they have access to and can afford all the health care services they need, while 60 percent of those who make more say they can get all they need at costs they can afford.

The gap was much smaller in Canada , where 61 percent of those who earn less than $55,000 and 70 percent of those who make more than that said they had access to all the care they needed at costs they could afford.

In both countries, people with chronic conditions are more likely than those without such illnesses to say that they have access to the care they need.

In the United States , 59 percent of those with chronic conditions are satisfied, while 50 percent of those without chronic conditions are satisfied with their access to care.

In Canada , it's 69 percent of those with chronic conditions and 63 percent of those without.

On some questions, patients in both countries saw things virtually the same way, including access to care on weekends when needed.

ON THE WEB

Poll details

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Poll: Americans split on health care as Obama's approval sinks

Health care debate's biggest players turn up volume

Conservative Democrats threaten to block health bill

McClatchy's politics blog, Planet Washington

Isadora Duncan made a great impact on dance costume today. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries she “throws off the corset, bares her limbs, and dances barefoot” (Penrod 13). Duncan began a new look, inspired by the Greeks, of tunics and scarves. This simple costume inspired a new form of dance costume and new ways of moving (Penrod 13). This imitation of the Greek clothing freed the naturally beautiful lines of the human body and movement. This change in costume extended the dancer’s space, and caused the costume to be made to conform to the curves and shapes of the body as much as possible (Art of Production 57).

The amount of make-up used on a dancer depends on the venue, lighting, and the distance of the audience. To enhance the dancer’s face and make it visible from a distance, the face’s bone structure should be emphasized, there should be a space between the eyebrows, and the eyes should stand out. The further away the audience is the bolder make-up required (Cooper 78).

Adult Costumes

Golf is a very old game of which the exact origins are unclear. The origin of golf is open to debate as to being Chinese, Dutch or Scottish. However, the most accepted golf history theory is that this sport originated from Scotland in the 1100s.

The professional sport was initially dominated by Scottish then English golfers, but since World War I, America has produced the greatest quantity of leading professionals. Other Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa are also traditional powers in the sport.

Putting Contests

There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dunking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face.

Next morning, all the stones were searched for and if any stone were missing, then the person who threw that stone was believed to be destined to die before next Halloween. In particular, the village of Fortingall in Perthshire, held festivities on Carn na Marbh ‘Mound of the Dead',. This was the focal point of a Samhain festival. A great fire or “Samhnag” was lit atop it each year. The whole community took hands when it was blazing and danced round the mound both sunwise and anti-sunwise. As the fire began to wane, some of the younger boys took burning embers from the flames and ran throughout the field with them, finally throwing them into the air and dancing over them as they lay glowing on the ground.

Halloween Costume

NEW YORK – Kiefer Sutherland's legal troubles for allegedly head-butting a fashion designer in a New York City nightclub are over.
The Manhattan district attorney's spokeswoman said Tuesday that misdemeanor assault charges against the actor are being dropped because the alleged victim wouldn't cooperate with prosecutors.
The star of the Fox TV show "24" was charged in May after designer Jack McCollough said Sutherland head-butted him and broke his nose in a Manhattan nightclub.
Sutherland and McCollough issued a joint statement a few weeks later saying they had resolved their differences. Sutherland apologized to McCollough in the statement.
Sutherland's attorneys declined to comment Tuesday.

LONG ISLAND, Maine – Maine lobstermen have been racing their boats competitively for more than 100 years. You can bet they've never seen a craft — half boat, half car — like the one Steve Johnson has been racing at this year's speed contests.
A 1994 convertible Pontiac Sunbird fastened to the top of Johnson's boat turns heads as he zips along at 50 mph, sitting in a bucket seat and operating controls mounted inside the car. He calls it a "ca'-boat."
Johnson has a history of showing up at the races in outlandish boats, but none that have drawn so many double-takes. "I've had a lot of boats, but I've never had so many photos taken of one before," Johnson said. "Everybody waves. They think it's pretty funny."
Maine lobster boats are built to be sturdy and strong to withstand the harsh waters as fishermen pull their lobster-filled traps from the cold Atlantic Ocean depths.
But lobstermen don't live for work alone, and first began racing for fun, it's thought, about a century ago off the eastern Maine port of Jonesport. Back then, fishermen raced on Sundays — the one day they didn't pull their traps — in sloops powered by the wind, said Willis Beal of Beals Island, whose grandfather was reputed to be among the fastest lobstermen in those days.
The races have since evolved into action-packed contests where boats with souped-up engines roar and scream across the water at speeds of 60 mph and more, leaving roostertails and rolling swells in their wake.
In Jonesport and other fishing ports like Boothbay Harbor, Harpswell and Winter Harbor, spectators line the shores and watch from 100 or more boats that crowd the race course. Like a floating tailgate party, they whoop and holler — cold ones in hand and grills smoking — as lobstermen compete for cash, prizes and bragging rights.
"It's like going out to the stock car races," Beal said.
Boats with names like the Red Baron, the Sopwith Camel, and the Voop became the stuff of legends through the years as they developed rivalries and pushed the limits. These days, the boat to beat is Foolish Pleasure, a Beals Island vessel that holds the all-time speed record of 64.1 mph.
The races aren't just about lobster boats.
Nobody pretends that Johnson's boat is used to pull lobster traps, but he's allowed to race nonetheless in the work boat class. Besides, the races are also about fun and show — and nobody can deny that Johnson fits the bill on those counts.
Johnson, 54, lives in this island town, five miles off Portland, with fewer than 200 year-round residents. He was a lobsterman before opening his boatyard in the 1990s.
Back in the 1970s Johnson first began racing his boats, and since has earned a well-deserved reputation for creativity. He once equipped a lobster boat with a 1,350-horsepower engine that came from a 1942 PT boat — the type used by the Navy in World War II. Another time, the engine he put in his small boat was so big he had to build outriggers on the boat so it wouldn't roll over.
Over a few beers this spring, Johnson and some friends decided it'd be a hoot to make a "ca'-boat."
To make it happen, he turned to an old 26-foot cabin cruiser — reminiscent of the S.S. Minnow from the "Gilligan's Island" TV series — that someone left at his boatyard years ago, and a sapphire-blue Sunbird with a dead engine that a friend offered up.
With a circular saw, he cut off the boat's hull at the waterline, built a fiberglass deck, and chained the car — complete with well-worn tires and a convertible top that goes up and down — on top.
"It's legally registered and we put navigation lights on it, on the stern and on the bow' to make it legal," he said.
Life jackets are stowed under the hood, where the engine used to be. He also took the time to put a fake lobster trap hauler on the side of the boat — but only for show, of course.

Inside the car, Johnson installed a GPS, a VHF radio and marine controls between the seats where the gear shift once was. Otherwise, it looks like a normal car with a speedometer, wiper and light controls, and a radio/tape player under the dash. The odometer reads 100,959 miles. The key is in the ignition.

Demonstrating his contraption, Johnson takes hold of the steering wheel and revs the engine. The steering wheel is connected through a hydraulic system to a pair of 200-horsepower outboard motors.

The bow lifts, the engines growl and water sprays behind the stern as he gives the boat some gas. As it turns out, this boat was built for more than just show — it's also got serious speed. In the season's first two races, he topped out at close to 50 mph.

The Sunbird rides smooth across the water, almost like going for a Sunday drive. In fact, Johnson has done just that — taken his wife, Lynn, out for a leisurely Sunday ride across the bay, their black Lab, Hunter, in the back seat, oldies music playing on the tape player.

When Johnson showed up at the season's first race in Boothbay Harbor, Jon Johansen's jaw dropped. Johansen, president of the Maine Lobster Boat Racing Association, said the Sunbird has been the talk of the races this summer.

Johansen even put a photo of it on the front page of his monthly newspaper, Maine Coastal News, leaving two other boats behind during a race last month.

"My front page says, 'What the Hell's That?'" Johansen said. "That's what everybody says when they see it."

Johnson's already trying to figure out how he'll outdo the Sunbird in future races.

"Next year," he said, "maybe it'll be a school bus."

On the Net:

http://www.lobsterboatracing.com

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Citibank says it will continue accepting California IOUs for another week.
It announced Friday that it was extending the deadline to July 24 after previously saying it planned to stop accepting the state's registered warrants.
The move gives individuals and businesses receiving the IOUs more time to cash them as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers try to break an impasse on the state's $26.3 billion shortfall. California began printing IOUs earlier this month to conserve cash, sending them to thousands of state contractors and vendors.
Friday also marked the second of three furlough days this month, keeping most state offices closed.
Meanwhile, a state children's health insurance program was scheduled to stop enrolling new clients. It would be the first time the Healthy Families program has done so since it started in 1997.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Most state government workers are staying home for the second time this month while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers work to close California's $26.3 billion budget deficit.
Without a balanced spending plan, the state was operating in a lopsided manner as the recession drags down tax collections. The projected deficit amounts to more than a quarter of the state's general fund, and to conserve cash, the state has begun issuing IOUs to contractors and government workers are being furloughed three days a month.
A state-sponsored children's health insurance program planned to stop enrolling new clients Friday, the first time that the Healthy Families program has done so since it started in 1997. And at least one more major bank was scheduled to stop accepting the state's IOUs.
California's budget impasse brought rebuke Thursday from state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who warned that further delays on resolving the state deficit will threaten the state's ability to build schools, highways and levees.
Lockyer said the state's recent credit-rating downgrade could jeopardize its ability to secure financing for infrastructure projects, which would hurt businesses, local governments and ultimately, taxpayers.
"Give Californians and the world a pleasant surprise for once: Balance the budget now, and get back to the work of getting our state back to work," Lockyer said in a statement.
It was not clear if a meeting would be called Friday. The governor didn't meet with Democratic lawmakers on Thursday.
Schwarzenegger is in disagreement with state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, over how the state should repay $11 billions to schools once the economy recovers.
The Democrats said Schwarzenegger could guarantee future money for schools with a statutory change. But the governor's administration disagreed, saying such a change would require voter approval.
Education advocates prefer to get the repayment pledge in writing because they feel the governor hasn't always made good on his promises. Back in 2005, the administration agreed to repay $2.9 billion to public education after the state's largest teachers union accused Schwarzenegger in a lawsuit of taking school funding and refusing to pay it back.
"Our position is that there should be some legislative clarification on what's owed and when it will be repaid to schools," said Sandra Jackson, a spokeswoman for the California Teachers Association, considered one of the most influential forces in California politics.
Republican legislators said they wanted to concentrate on the current problem — the funding shortfall for the fiscal year that began July 1 — rather than future scenarios.

Most state agencies, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, will be closed Friday but state prisons, hospitals, police and firefighters were operating, along with and parks and jobless centers. Healthy Families, which offers reduced-cost medical coverage to low-income children, was scheduled to close to new enrollment.

Advocates fear as many as 570,000 children would be denied access to health coverage.

"Every possible opportunity must be taken advantage of and every avenue must be exhausted before taking the drastic and devastating step of denying health care to children," said Wendy Lazarus, founder of The Children's Partnership, in a statement.

Friday also marked the last day Citigroup Inc. planned to accept IOUs after extending the deadline by one week.

Bank of the West and some credit unions have said they will continue to accept IOUs but JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. and other major banks have already stopped honoring California's warrants.

BETHEL, N.Y. – Welcome to middle age, Woodstock Baby — if you're really out there.
The babies reportedly born at the Woodstock festival 40 years ago remain the most enduring mystery from that chaotic weekend that defined a generation. Depending on the source, there was one birth on that patch of upstate New York farmland between Aug. 15-17, 1969. Or two. Or three. Or none.
There is some tantalizing evidence. Singer John Sebastian is captured on film announcing that some cat's old lady just had a baby, a kid destined to be far out. A couple of surviving eyewitnesses say there were births. The concert's medical director told reporters at the scene there were two births: one at a local hospital after the mother was flown out by helicopter; the other in a car caught in the epic traffic jam outside the site crowded with more than 400,000 people.
But no one has come forward with a credible public claim of giving birth to a Woodstock baby or being born there. No one has produced proof that it happened. If babies were born at Woodstock, they have lived their lives ignoring — or unaware of — the fact that reporters and researchers have been on their trail for decades.
"I've searched, I've spoken to the doctors and nurses from the main hospitals that were there," said Myron Gittell, who wrote the new medical history, "Woodstock '69: Three Days of Peace, Music, and Medical Care."
Like many before him, he found nothing.
"Almost statistically, you'd think if there are a half-million people, and half of them were women, and 95 percent of them were of childbearing age, and fertile, and active. Just statistically, someone would have had to pop a baby."
Problem is: No one has been able to dig up a birth record.
Rita Sheehan, town clerk for Bethel, which hosted the concert, said there is no local birth certificate on record. Still, it's possible the birth was recorded in one of the surrounding towns. Gittell says there were births recorded in neighboring towns in that period, but the records are sealed under state privacy laws. There's no way to check whether the birth mothers were locals or out-of-towners (the likely pool of Woodstock Moms).
That leaves a few eyewitness accounts, like that of Gladys Devaney, who was a member of the volunteer ambulance corps in nearby Liberty. She answered an ambulance call to a tent at the festival and saw a young woman in labor. Her overriding concern then was that other medical workers took her stretcher as they rushed the woman away. But Devaney knew labor when she saw it.
"I heard her screaming," Devaney said. "I didn't get a good look at her, she was thrashing."
Devaney never found out whether they took the young woman to a waiting helicopter or somewhere else.
Elliot Tiber, the subject of Ang Lee's new movie, "Taking Woodstock," tops Devaney. He says he helped deliver a baby that weekend.
Tiber, who has a reputation for being a raconteur, said the woman gave birth at his parent's hotel near the site, which — like the entire area that weekend — was mobbed. The woman wore a leather jacket, came in on a motorcycle and just flopped down.
"I see she's starting to give birth," Tiber recalled. "It was like the quote from `Gone With the Wind': `I don't know nothing about birthing no babies, Miss Scarlet' ... I was screaming, just screaming. Everybody was standing around stoned saying, `Yeah, groovy!' They thought it was cool."
Tiber said the baby was taken away, though the mother came by in a cab a few weeks later with her baby in a blanket. He didn't get any names. He never heard from them again.
After four decades, the Woodstock baby trail has gotten colder. The young people who packed into Woodstock are retirement age now. A number of the emergency and medical workers involved, including the concert's medical director, Dr. William Abruzzi, are dead. And if a baby was born onsite, there are curious gaps in the record.
Press accounts at the time mentioning the births did not provide names. Abruzzi wrote an exhaustive account of the event in which he tallied six pages of medical incidents over the three days (11 rat bites, 16 peptic ulcers, 707 drug overdoses, among them). The paper, now in the collection of the Museum at Bethel Woods, the onsite museum, does not mention a single childbirth.

"It could be one of those myths that grow out of major events," said Bethel museum Director Wade Lawrence. "It could be like the story of the New York State Thruway being closed. It wasn't."

Maybe the best argument against a Woodstock baby is that no one in the past four decades has stepped forward to publicly and credibly claim they were born or gave birth at Woodstock. There is a theory that neither mother nor child particularly want Woodstock to define their lives, and have chosen to keep their distinction a private matter.

But it bears saying as the 40th anniversary of Woodstock approaches. If you are a Woodstock baby or a Woodstock mother, please consider contacting The Associated Press at woodstockbaby"at"ap.org.

People have been looking for you.

"Amateur Barbarians" (Scribner. 416 pages. $27), by Robert Cohen: With the bills piling up and the specter of layoffs at work, graduate school has never been more appealing. Chuck all the grown-up decisions and compromises and burrow into distant, interior landscapes too remote for questions about gas prices and 401K plans. Answer just the questions you choose to hear, without having to commute.
Maybe, though, the grad student spending the better part of his day in the coffee shop is fantasizing about stealing off with the harried suburbanite's minivan, watching the latest procedural crime drama on TV, packing the kids' lunches and setting the alarm to do it all again the same way the next day.
This is the "Freaky Friday" premise of Robert Cohen's new novel, "Amateur Barbarians." Instead of parental and teenage angst, Cohen gives two middle-aged men glimpses of the lives they each had long avoided.
Teddy Hastings is the principal of a New England middle school. A brother's death and a health scare send him headlong into a series of tragicomic downfalls that break every one of his routines.
Most men might find a new outlook after a holiday weekend in jail because of a photography class assignment gone awry, but Teddy finds himself still on a treadmill. Literally, he's running on a treadmill in his basement, and figuratively, he's not making any headway in his search for transcendence. It turns out that asking, "Is this all there is?" while running on treadmill doesn't lead anywhere.
Perpetual grad student Oren Pierce has spent a lot of time pondering such big questions. When all that thinking and indecision bore him, he makes what seems like the most radical leap: Accepting a teaching job at Teddy's school. Teddy's wobbling propels Oren to interim vice principal, and the former student is surprised to find he likes the imposition of order on his days.
Oren's ascent from prolonged adolescence to humbled adulthood takes him from an empty apartment to puttering around a colleague's vacant house, then into a relationship with Teddy's wife.
Teddy remains unaware that Oren is playing dress-up with his life, as his increasingly impulsive behavior sends him on a hasty trip to Africa.
His terror at missing out on something big in life is lightened with Cohen's humor. This is a mid-life crisis comedy without the cliche of a sports car and a coed girlfriend. It's more like a video of two spastic gerbils, one flailing as he tries to jump off his wheel while the other one raises a tentative paw to give that same wheel a spin.
Cohen's pacing repeatedly drops in on Teddy and Oren mid-dilemma. The men ask "how did I get here?" but not at the end of their respective journeys. The question comes in a coach airline seat, at a stop light — somewhere between here and there, revealing in fits and stutters the way we make the big decisions. There's less planning and more dodging than sometimes we like to acknowledge.

Health Insurance Quote

The contract should be considered to include any other agreements, written or oral, that confer rights, create obligations, or create benefits on the part of either or both parties. Ideally, the contract should contain an ‘Entire Agreement’ clause that assures there are no undisclosed written or oral side agreements that confer rights, create obligations, or create benefits on the part of either or both parties. If such rights, obligations or benefits exist, they must be factored into the tests of reasonableness and significance.

The contract should not contain arbitrary limitations on timing of payments. Provisions that assure both parties of time to properly present and consider claims are acceptable provided they are commercially reasonable and customary.

DENVER – A former Colorado Department of Revenue supervisor says love for her ex-boyfriend led her to steal $11 million in unclaimed tax refunds from the state.
The ex-boyfriend, Hysear Randell, is on trial in Denver this week on charges of theft, forgery, computer crime and racketeering.
On Wednesday, Michelle Cawthra testified that she deposited unclaimed tax refunds and other money in Randell's bank accounts over two years by forging documents and creating fake businesses. She said she frequently used computer passwords of other workers so she wouldn't be detected.
"I did things I don't think I otherwise would have done had I not been in love with him," she testified.
Randell, who is married, is accused of using the money to pay for delinquent child support, land deals, diamond jewelry, cars and business ventures.
Aside from some jewelry and trips, Cawthra, 32, said she didn't benefit from the money she stole.
Defense lawyer Scott Reisch said Randell, 42, thought the money was coming from a Cawthra family trust fund. He argued Cawthra tried to use the money to lure Randell away from his wife, Trudy Randell, who is accused of helping create bank accounts for the scheme. She has pleaded guilty to theft but has not yet been sentenced.
Cawthra said she didn't have a trust fund. She said she tried to get Randell to leave his wife but said he knew the money was coming from the state.
Cawthra is serving a 24-year prison term after pleading guilty to racketeering. She testified as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that could help reduce her sentence.
Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney, said authorities recovered $49,000 in assets when Randell was arrested and have found and frozen another $700,000 in assets.
___
Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com

A little Saharan lizard "swims" through desert sands by undulating its body in a series of wave-like motions, a new study finds.

The sandfish (Scincus scincus) is a small lizard typically about 4 inches long that is native to the Sahara desert.

The lizard has a long, wedge-shaped snout it uses to quickly burrow into the sand. Its body has flattened sides and is covered with smooth, shiny scales. Its legs are short and sturdy, with long, flattened toes and a tail that tapers to a point.

Researchers at Georgia Tech built a 7-inch by 8-inch by 4-inch deep glass bead-filled container through which they could monitor the lizards' movements with high-speed X-ray imaging.

After the lizards dove in, they placed their limbs at their sides and made a wave-like motion with their bodies that propelled them like a snake, but beneath the surface rather than on top .

"When started above the surface, the animals dive into the sand within half a second. Once below the surface, they no longer use their limbs for propulsion - instead, they move forward by propagating a traveling wave down their bodies like a snake," said study leader Daniel Goldman.

The animals used the same motion no matter how dense the material was, but, unexpectedly, they swam faster in more closely packed material.

And the faster the sandfish propagate the wave across their bodies, the faster they move forward. They can at speeds as fast as 6 inches per second (0.33 mph).

This speed allows them to escape predators and the desert heat, as well as quickly ambush prey that they detect from vibrations.

"The results demonstrate that burrowing and swimming in complex media like sand can have intricacy similar to that of movement in air or water," Goldman said. The results of the study are detailed in the July 17 issue of the journal Science.

Understanding how the sandfish move could reveal how other small burrowing animals, such as worms, scorpions and snakes, can transform the landscape in their burrowing.

It could also help engineers build sandfish-like robots that can travel through similar environments.

'If something nasty was buried in unconsolidated material, such as rubble, debris or sand, and you wanted to find it, you would need a device that could scamper on the surface, but also swim underneath the surface," Goldman said.

The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Video - See The Sandfish 'Swimming'
Lizard News, Images and Information
Video - Lizard Push-ups
Original Story: Lizard Swims Like Snake Through SandLiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) –
India and Pakistan agreed on Thursday that continuing dialogue was the only way forward for the two rival nations, the two prime ministers said in a joint statement after a meeting.

Thursday's talks were the third high-level meeting between the two Asian neighbors since last year's Mumbai attacks that derailed any rapprochement.

India said the Mumbai assault was carried out by Pakistani militants who must have had help from Pakistani security agents. Pakistan has denied any involvement by state agencies and says it will prosecute militants suspected of involvement. "Both prime ministers recognized that dialogue is the only way forward," said the statement after Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani met his Indian counterpart Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process," the statement said after the meeting on the sidelines of a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The statement described talks as "cordial and constructive" and said the two premiers covered the whole range of bilateral relations "with a view to charting the way forward" in ties.

Pakistan is keen to revive the five-year-old "composite dialogue," a process to cover all disputes between the two.

"Prime Minister Singh said that India was ready to discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues," the statement said, adding that both countries agreed to cooperate in fighting terrorism.

(Reporting by Rina Chandran and Alastair Sharp, writing by Edmund Blair; editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

NEW YORK – Although Maxwell took a few years off from the music industry, recording an album was never far from his mind, chiefly because his die-hard fans were always there to pepper him with questions about his return.
"When is the album coming out?" was the refrain Maxwell would get from those anxiously awaiting the follow-up to his last multi-platinum effort, 2001's "Now."
With the release of "BLACKsummers'night," which debuted at No.1 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart and released to near-universal positive reviews, he won't have to answer that anymore, at least for a while.
"I can't believe no one is gonna ask me that question," he said. "That's the question I've heard for the last seven years. ... Now that's over and I'm just happy people, my cousins and family members went and got it."
In a recent interview, the 36-year-old talked about his return, future collaborations and how his comeback is affecting his romantic life.
AP: Was there a fear that you wouldn't be as relevant when you returned?
Maxwell: The fear is always there. I don't take it for granted. It's like I'm only filling a spot that somebody else had. It's gonna be a baton that I'm gonna have to pass on and I'm more than willing to do so because I don't believe it's meant to be mine. I'm not the guy who needs to be the guy all the time, everyday. But definitely you have a fear that people will be like ... 'Good to have you back but now we have Drake or we have this or that.' I'm pleasantly surprised and grateful.
AP: Your CD is part of a trilogy, and the subsequent CDs will be released in 2010 and 2011. Do feel like the other two CDs will have to be altered just because every second, everyday our lives and emotions change?
Maxwell: Hopefully with the topics and with what I've written and what I've experienced I think they'll be able to stand the test of time. "Pretty Wings" was written not lyrically but musically in 2002. Just before we release (the others) I'll probably go back to the studio and tweak things here and there.
AP: I know the first single "Pretty Wings" is about your last relationship, but have you been able to be date now that the CD is out and you're on tour?
Maxwell: I'm trying. I met somebody and there's a lot of feeling there but it's tough to try to juggle it with a career. That's kind of why I wanted to wait too. I want to have relationship. I got to meet girls who didn't even know what I did and thought it was funny. "Oh, that's cute. That's what you do? Cool, anyway" To be honest with you I kind of like it. It's good to be respected but I don't want people to think like, "Oh my god, he's like a rocket scientist."
AP: Have you considered growing back your hair (his full Afro was his signature look for years)?
Maxwell: (Laughs) I probably will. Thank God I can. That's the one cool thing, there's an option. I'm kind of happy. I've got some of my friends who have lost their hair. I'm just grateful there is an option.
AP: What's been the biggest growth you've seen in yourself since you debuted in 1996?
Maxwell: I actually can accept love a lot easier. I don't question it so much. I'm not suspicious as much. I was pretty suspicious. Especially when you start to have celebrity around you, you don't know if people really like you or if they've got stars in their eyes or whatever. I'm much more trusting. I feel a lot more permanent especially with the time away and coming back.
AP: Will the other records have any collaborations?
Maxwell: You know, it's funny. I did something with Nas for one song help somebody and that's gonna find its way into the world eventually so we'll probably do things and add to the album just to keep people kind of coming back to it. You have to keep it fresh but you know I'm not a heavy on a featuring kind of album. I'm old school. I'd love to do a duet. I'd love to do something with Sade. She's someone I'd love to do a song with. I just love her.
AP: Have you heard anything about the CD she's working on?

Maxwell: I blogged about it and urged people to keep their ears to the ground for it. That's the record I'm waiting for. She is Sade, you know?

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has told a war crimes court his band of rebel fighters were trained in Libya to avoid atrocities as they swept into the country in a 1989 revolution.
Taylor is on the witness stand for the third day at his trial for allegedly commanding rebels during Sierra Leone's civil war.
He has pleaded not guilty to 11 war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.
Taylor told the Special Court for Sierra Leone on Thursday that for his 168-strong force to seize power in Liberia it would have needed the support of the local population.
Prosecutors say rebels backed by Taylor in Sierra Leone used terror tactics including systematic amputations to force the population's support.