Surprise! Ashton Kutcher Has a Twin Brother

The Kutcher Twins, Michael and Ashton (Tom Vickers/Splash News)

A number of roles come to mind when you hear the name Ashton Kutcher: "Punk'd" host, Demi Moore's 15-years-junior husband; "Dude Where's My Car?" thespian; Kelso from "That '70s Show;" former Hollywood gadabout; and now, of course, Charlie Sheen's replacement on "Two and a Half Men."

One role that might not come to mind, however, is the one Kutcher was born into: that of a twin brother.

Ashton's fraternal twin, Michael, currently lives in their home-state Iowa raising his 7-year-old son and selling retirement plans. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy from a young age, Michael's life has been a bit more difficult than his brother's.

"I was the kid with the big Coke-bottle glasses, the hearing aid," Michael Kutcher told Details magazine in 2008. "There was a lot of teasing, a lot of the normal mean stuff."

Although known for pulling elaborate, embarrassing practical jokes on celebrities, Ashton protected his twin against the bullying of other kids. Michael said he was a model brother in many ways, including seeing Michael through a heart transplant at age 13. Having suffered for some time from a heart muscle disease, one day, Michael's heart stopped.

"Ashton never left my side," Michael told People of his brother's devotion through the procedure. "He showed me the love one brother has for another."

One successful heart surgery and twenty years later, Michael isn't looking to replicate Ashton's fame. He has, however, tiptoed into the spotlight as a lobbyist for Reaching for the Stars, an organization that works on behalf of children with cerebral palsy.

"Being Ashton Kutcher's brother, it gives me the opportunity to be that voice, and I realize that I needed to use the opportunity to help others," he explained during his first trip to Washington, D.C. last year.

US military builds a mini-Skynet

By: Trent Nouveau

The US military has confirmed that it is conducting "basic research" related to hierarchical machine perception and analysis.Potential applications are likely to include visual, acoustic and somatic sensor processing for the detection and classification of objects or activities.

"The quantity of data available to DoD commanders and analysts from new sensor platforms with improved resolution and range poses tremendous challenges," explained DARPA spokesperson Tony Falcone.

"This [information] must be quickly and correctly analyzed, currently by highly trained human operators. As sensor capabilities expand, sophisticated, powerful machines with the ability to replicate, and even surpass, human perceptual capabilities will be required."

According to Falcone, such advanced requirements have prompted DARPA to carefully study recent machine learning "breakthroughs" in the context of its Deep Learning program.

"[Remember], the human visual system uses six layers of cortical processing, in addition to all of the preprocessing done by the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus. [But] the neural net-based machines we use today generally [only] have two or three layers.



"[Now], Deep Learning isn't a biomimetic program, but if we believe that biological systems exhibit an economy of complexity, this suggests that we need to go deeper and have more layers; we are just beginning to understand how to do that."

Indeed, as Falcone notes, Deep Learning research could eventually allow neural-nets to achieve "human-level or better" analysis of  and other sensor modalities. 


"Deep Learning should enable commanders to make more informed decisions faster by ensuring that subtle, yet critical correlations that may exist in very large collections of data are uncovered, explored and analyzed. 



"The result is that data sources are being used more effectively, yielding greater confidence in the reliability of the information on which subsequent command decisions are made," he added. 

Cause of death still unknown for Celina Cass

Celina Cass

CONCORD — It could be weeks before authorities know for certain what killed Celina Cass, the missing Stewartstown girl whose body was found Monday in the Connecticut River.

A Tuesday autopsy of the 11-year-old's body has not determined the manner and cause of Cass' death, homicide prosecutor Jane E. Young said.

Young said the crucial rulings won't be made until results of toxicology tests are received.

Young, a senior assistant attorney general, said such tests usually take four to six weeks, but authorities are trying to hurry the process as much as possible.

The death continues to be investigated as suspicious, said Young, who would not discuss whether police have a suspect or person of interest in the case.

Dive teams found Cass' body Monday at the PSNH Canaan Hydro Station.

The location is about a half-mile from Cass' West Stewartstown home.

Cass' body was found almost a week after her family said they had last seen the girl, at 9 p.m. July 25, in her room on the computer. Her family reported her missing the following day.

England need nine wickets on final day

A India 286 and 80 for 1 (Dravid 34*, Laxman 32*, Broad 1-12) need 378 to beat England 474 for 8 dec and 269 for 6 dec (Prior 103*, Broad 74*, Ishant 4-59)
Smart stats Matt Prior’s century is his sixth in Tests and fourth in home Tests. He averages 45.40 in 66 innings, but 48.75 in 41 innings batting at No.7.
Prior’s average of 45.40 as a wicketkeeper is the third-highest among wicketkeeper-batsmen who have scored at least 2000 runs in Tests (only matches where they have played as wicketkeepers).
The 162-run stand between Prior and Stuart Board is England's best for the seventh wicket in Tests against India. Prior and Broad have been involved in a century stand on each of the last three occasions they have batted together.
Prior and Broad are now second on the list of English seventh-wicket pairs with the highest aggregate partnership runs.
Prior’s strike-rate of 85.83 in his century is the fourth-highest strike rate for an English batsman in a 100-plus knock against India.
Broad’s 74 is his seventh half-century in Tests and first against India. In the seven previous innings he has batted, he has scored a century, two fifties and three ducks.
Ishant Sharma picked up his ninth haul of four wickets or more. Four of his top six innings bowling performances have come in away Tests.
Harbhajan Singh picked up just one wicket in the match conceding 218 runs. It is the seventh occasion that an Indian bowler has gone on to concede over 200 runs while picking up just one wicket in the match.
The number of overs India will have to face in the fourth innings is the highest for them in Tests since 1980. The previous highest in the period is 109.4 overs at Lord’s in 2002 when India lost by 170 runs.
Ruthless England came down hard on wounded and battered India, first through Matt Prior’s century and then through a probing 27 overs, to end up needing nine wickets on the final day. India, though, had fingernails dug in at the edge of the cliff. Forced to bat at Nos 2 and 3 respectively, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman were made to look ungainly, but they batted out 131 deliveries between them in the final session of the fourth day. Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar were not available to bat in their usual positions because of injury and illness respectively.
Those tuned into the match would have known that the real game on the fourth day would begin some time in the final session, when England – effectively 193 for 0 at the start of the day – would declare to leave India four sessions to bat, give or take. The journey to that point proved fascinating though. Ishant Sharma, a rhythm bowler, found his groove against a surprisingly circumspect batting line-up, reducing England to 62 for 5 and incredibly bringing an Indian win into the faint edge of the frame.
Prior and Stuart Broad then introduced India to reality, all but ruling out their chances of winning with a 162-run seventh-wicket stand. Prior summed up the England team’s attitude when he began attacking, scoring a century at a strike-rate of 85.83, although defensive fields meant he hit only five fours and a six. And Broad could do no wrong. After his unbeaten half-century, he took a wicket in the first over of a spell for the third time in this match, removing Abhinav Mukund, who once again looked solid before he sighted Broad.
Until Prior and Broad counterattacked, India did decently in the absence of the injured Zaheer Khan. It helped that England were in their shell at the start of the day even though the ball hardly swung then. During that period Praveen Kumar dismissed Alastair Cook for a rare single-digit score, and Andrew Strauss fell to his second ordinary sweep off Harbhajan Singh.
The next hour belonged to Ishant. No matter where this matches goes, the spell of 5-3-4-3 he bowled just before lunch will hold significance for the rest of the series. For starters he let Kevin Pietersen know that he was not be bullied. In the first innings, Pietersen had put Ishant completely off his line and length by walking across and towards him. Today Ishant welcomed him with a bouncer, got extra bounce and the glove. Then followed the two quintessential Ishant wickets. Ian Bell got one that left him against the angle, taking the edge. Two wickets in one over. Two overs later, Ishant got one to move in sharply to Jonathan Trott, against the slope, and hit the top of off. That ball would have got greats out.
Sixty-seven runs came in 26 overs before lunch, for the loss of five wickets. Post lunch, India weren’t as aggressive. They didn’t begin with Ishant, who had bowled 11 overs in the first session. When they reintroduced Ishant, he got Eoin Morgan with a short ball that did the batsman in for pace.
Prior, though, didn’t inhabit the shell his team-mates had. Faced with his aggression, India backed off a bit. The fielders wilted. Prior exploited the in-and-out field well. Every time he got room he drove emphatically, anything straight was punished into the on side, and potentially the biggest blow was a meaty sweep into Gambhir’s elbow at short leg, minutes before tea. The batsman had to go to the hospital for an x-ray, and came back just before stumps with news that there was no fracture.
Prior had broken India’s spirit, though. Post tea, he and Broad went into Twenty20 mode, scoring 95 runs in 12 overs. Ishant’s earlier resurgence now seemed just a minor blip. India took off their tired specialist bowlers, no longer making an effort to make England bat as long as possible. Dhoni brought himself on, making Dravid, due to open the innings in a matter of minutes, keep wicket.
That didn’t seem to affect Dravid’s concentration when he walked out after Prior’s century heralded the declaration. The openers saw off eight overs, but Broad came on to dismiss Abhinav in a fashion similar to the first innings: played on.
Like with Abhinav, England tried a repeat dismissal with Laxman, keeping their fine leg square and bowling into his ribs. Laxman pulled two boundaries along the ground. England didn’t have a first-innings dismissal for Dravid to go by. Still they did well enough to him. Chris Tremlett and Broad especially bowled superb outswingers. While the two applied themselves, there was some luck involved too, as there invariably is in such situations: they were beaten 15 times between them.

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Norway attacks

The Unanswered Question

Norwegians try to make sense of the terror attacks that killed 94 people on Friday, many questions remain unanswered: Were the attacks the work of a lone gunman? Police say Anders Behring Breivik, who has admitted responsibility for the bomb and gun attacks, claims to have acted alone. Investigations are continuing into unconfirmed reports.

 

Were the attacks the work of a lone gunman?

Police say Anders Behring Breivik, who has admitted responsibility for the bomb and gun attacks, claims to have acted alone. Investigations are continuing into unconfirmed reports of a second gunman on the island of Utøya and possible connections between Breivik and far-right international groups. The police chief, Sveinung Sponheim, said they were “not at all certain” whether Breivik had acted alone. “That is one of the things that the investigation will concentrate on.” But so far, no evidence has emerged implicating anybody else and police say they have no other suspects at present.

Batman Re-Union

Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar

Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar Reunite for 'Batman' Panel

"Batman as a Bright Knight or The Dark Knight,"West offered during the panel honoring the 45th anniversary of the "Batman" TV series on Friday at Comic-Con 2011. West was joined by his former co-stars Burt Ward (who played his trusty sidekick, Robin) and Julie Newmar (who played Catwoman).

West discussed how he scored the role -- "I was hired to play Batman because they saw a commercial I'd done for Nestle's Quik," West recalled, "and they said, 'This is the turkey to play him" -- as well as the specific appeal that the series held for him. 

Ward, meanwhile, discussed how he was injured while filming the series' famous scene when the Batmobile comes roaring out of the Batcave exit and hangs a sharp left. "On one of the takes, my door flew open; I grabbed the gear shift and broke my pinkie finger," Ward revealed. "They said, 'We have to get you to the hospital... but we have to get the shot first." 

 Newmar, however (the first of three actresses to play Catwoman on the series), was considerably more satisfied with her Catwoman costume. "Well, if you wear black, it takes 15 pounds of your body," Newmar offered. "When you put on the heels, which were four inches, it takes what -- five pounds per inch off of your body?"

While the trio was quick to note how much they enjoyed filming the series together, West did hint at some degree of tension with one of the series' numerous guest stars. "Oh my God, there were so many of them -- about 120 -- and I enjoyed working with all of them except one."

Despite heavy prodding from the crowd, West declined to identify the object of his ire. Apparently, that's one for the Riddler to puzzle over. 

 

 

Mila Kunis Cast Her Body Double For ‘Friends With Benefits’

Upsetting news for Mila Kunis lovers

It has been reported that the sultry actress has used a butt double in “Friends With Benefits" the derriere has been fake. It is fairly standard in Hollywood to hire stand-ins for stars who are skittish about flashing naked body parts on camera; whats's unusual, however, is when stars get a full say in casting their own stand-ins, as Kunis did for “Benefits.”The 27-year-old hottie co-stars alongside Justin Timberlake in the sex-charged romantic comedy, hitting theaters Friday. The title gives away the premise: two friends decide to introduce casual sex into their relationship, complications ensue, you know the rest. 

As for Kunis’ Rear Replacement,  can’t be helped but recall the outrage over her “Black Swan” co-star Natalie Portman’s use of a dance double in the ballet thriller. That scandal has since died down - thank goodness, it was getting out of hand - so now we can focus solely on brainstorming inoffensive word substitutes for “butt.” Scratch that: we’ll just go with butt.