Ticking News

A movie star and a controversial filmmaker, Mel Gibson got his start as an action hero in Mad Max (1979), a low-budget thriller which cast him as a grim, leather-clad ex-cop in a barren Australian future. [1]

Mel Gibson ’s looks have certainly helped him develop a largely female following similar to the equally rugged Harrison Ford, but since his 1976 screen debut in Summer City, Gibson has been recognized as a critical as well as physiological success. [2]

Gibson was the sixth of 11 children born to Hutton and Ann Gibson, who were Roman Catholics of Irish descent. [3]

One of eleven children, Gibson didn’t set foot in Australia until 1968, and only developed an Aussie accent after his classmates teased him for his American tongue. [2]

In 1979, Gibson graduated to mainstream cinema with his role as a futuristic warrior in Mad Max, and as a mentally retarded man in love with Piper Laurie in Tim, for which he earned his first Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Actor. [3]

Mel Gibson at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. [4]

His 2004 film about the last hours of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ (starring Jim Caviezel), was a surprise hit but stirred up controversy after critics accused it of anti-semitism. [1]

The film, which also starred Gibson as a horrifically burned teacher harboring a secret, achieved only middling box-office success, though it was considered a well-wrought effort for a first-time director. [2]

Upon his graduation that year, Gibson joined the Southern Australian Theater Company, where he appeared in the title roles of classical productions, such as Oedipus and Henry IV. [3]

Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born on January 3, 1956, in Peekskill, New York, USA as the sixth of eleven children to parents Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Ann Gibson, who was born in Australia and died in December of 1990. [5]

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO (born 3 January 1956) is an Australian-American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. [4]

After a brief hiatus, Gibson returned to the screen with the blockbuster hit Lethal Weapon (1987), playing volatile cop, Martin Riggs, opposite Danny Glover’s by-the-book character, Roger Murtaugh. [3]

Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art. [...] Gibson’s roles in the “Mad Max” series of films, Peter Weir ’s Gallipoli, and the “Lethal Weapon” series of films earned him the label of “action hero”. [4]

Logged in RT and Facebook users can submit celebrity trivia. [6]

Sources:
[1] Mel Gibson: Biography from Answers.com
[2] Mel Gibson Movies
[3] Mel Gibson Biography - Biography.com
[4] Mel Gibson - Wikipedia
[5] Mel Gibson - IMDb
[6] Mel Gibson - Rotten Tomatoes

Results released last week from two studies in which patients with head and neck cancer were injected with the virus alongside anti-cancer drugs reveal that cancers either stopped growing or shrank in almost all recipients. [1]

A new study led by UNC scientists shows that a common cancer drug can activate a viral infection that, paradoxically, can help anti-viral medications eradicate virus-associated cancer. [2]

Is it possible that there are effective non-toxic natural methods in regard to a cancer virus or treatments currently available. [3]

A common virus with the ability to inhibit cancer in humans could lead to new treatments, says Paul Hermonat, Ph.D., the researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) who has been working with the virus for more than two decades. [4]

London, November 7: A Canadian researcher team says that the efficacy of anti-cancer drugs in destroying tumours, or in keeping them in check, may be improved with the aid of a virus called reovirus. [...] His proposition is based on two recent studies wherein patients with head and neck cancer were injected with the virus alongside anti-cancer drugs. [5]

A virus that harmlessly infects most people at some time in their lives appears to help anti-cancer drugs destroy tumours, or at least keep them in check. [1]

Does that mean they don’t work, or does that just mean that we have to be careful with what we say about a cancer virus and nutrients as Maybe, we don’t have to wait for a time in the future to remedy a cancer virus. [3]

The study found, however, that within hours of the injection, infection-fighting immune cells are drawn into the tumor to attack the virus, reducing the treatment’s effectiveness. [6]

The virus, a modified herpes simplex virus, is injected directly into the tumor, where it enters only the cancer cells and kills them. [7]

Using the intravenous method of delivery, they were able to target the main tumor, as well as the tumor cells that had spread from the main mass. [8]

They also found that a chemotherapeutic drug called cyclophosphamide briefly weakens those immune cells, giving the anti-cancer virus an opportunity to spread more completely through the tumor and kill more cancer cells. [7]

The University of Calgary researchers, led by medical oncologist Dr. Peter Forsyth, also discovered the virus can be given intravenously to target invasive tumor cells. [...] The research team first modified the virus by altering one of the genes to make it safer in normal cells, but still able to kill cancer cells. [8]

The cooperative study, conducted by a team of UNC School of Medicine scientists and the UNC Project in Malawi, demonstrated for the first time in humans that a common drug used to treat Burkitt lymphoma can activate infection by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a virus which typically lies latent inside the tumor cells of affected patients. [2]

Sources:
[1] Virus accomplice helps drugs fight cancer - health - 07 …
[2] First clinical evidence of anti-cancer drug triggering viral …
[3] Cancer Virus
[4] Virus Shows Anti-Cancer Potential, Says UAMS Researcher
[5] Virus that improves anti-cancer drugs’ efficacy unveiled …
[6] Study Shows How Cancer Drug Aids Anti-Cancer Virus
[7] Study Shows How Cancer Drug Aids Anti-cancer Virus
[8] Anti-cancer virus kills brain cancer cells

Social security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. [1]

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14th, 1935, creating a social insurance program for retired workers over 65. [2]

The term encompasses not only social insurance but also health and welfare services and various income maintenance programs designed to improve the recipient’s welfare through public services. [3]

The labor force participation rate of men aged sixty-five and over was about 76 percent to 78 percent between 1850 and 1880; thus the retirement rate was 22 percent to 24 percent. [4]

The main part of the program is sometimes abbreviated OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) or RSDI (Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). [5]

The United States did not enact a national retirement program until 1935. [1]

Social Security is a social insurance program that is primarily funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA). [...] In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. [5]

France adopted in 1905 a program of voluntary unemployment insurance and in 1928 made insurance plans for old age and sickness mandatory. [3]

In the 1950’s Social Security coverage was extended to groups not included in the original program: farm workers, domestic workers, self-employed people, members of the armed forces and some state and local government employees. [2]

If birth rates remain low and if people continue to live longer, then the obligations to people who will retire in twenty-five years will be large relative to the income of the working population at that time. [1]

Payments to current retirees are financed by a payroll tax on current workers’ wages, half directly as a payroll tax and half paid by the employer. [5]

The initial FICA tax rate was 1 percent of the first $3,000 of wage income paid by both parties. [1]

The original Social Security Act (1935) and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs. [5]

Before the establishment of social security, workers pursued a range of strategies to prepare themselves and their spouses for old age’relying primarily on the market and the family. [4]

Sources:
[1] Social Security - Wikipedia
[2] Social Security (US) - News - Times Topics - The New York Times
[3] social security: Definition from Answers.com
[4] Social Security: West’s Encyclopedia of American Law (Full …
[5] Social Security (United States) - Wikipedia

The volcano has experienced more than 200 eruptions since then, although most are moderately small. [1]

Mount Etna (also known locally as Mongibeddu in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian) is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. [2]

Mount Etna (or Aetna, also known locally as Mongibello) is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily (Italian Sicilia), close to Messina and Catania. [3]

Eruptions can cause lava flows, hot ash flows, mudslides, avalanches, falling ash and floods. [4]

Mount Etna is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily, part of southern Italy. [5]

A lateral crater of the 2002-2003 eruption near the Torre del Filosofo, about 450 metres below Etna’s summit. [6]

Activity was almost continuous in the decade following 1971, and in 1983 an eruption that lasted four months prompted authorities to explode dynamite in an attempt to divert lava flows. [7]

This caldera has been almost entirely filled by subsequent lava eruptions, but is still visible as a distinct break in the slope of the mountain near the base of the present-day summit cone. [8]

Mount Etna has repeatedly erupted over the centuries, most violently in 1669, when the lava flow destroyed villages on the lower slope and submerged part of the town of Catania. [7]

In November 1999 there was Strombolian eruption and mild vulcanian activity in Bocca Nuova crater. [9]

A very large lava flow from an eruption in 1918 led to the first destruction of a town since the 1669 eruption. [5]

Eruptions from Voragine at the summit of Mt Etna volcano began on 22nd July 1998 and produced an eruption column 9 km high. [...] Lava fountaining and flows lasted a few hours before a fissure opened downslope in a SSE direction, between 2400 and 2200 altitude. [9]

It is the largest active volcano in Europe, currently standing about 3,326 m (10,910 ft) high, though it should be noted that this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21.6 m (71 ft) lower now than it was in 1865. [8]

It is the largest volcano in Europe, currently standing about 10,991 ft (3,350 m) high, though it should be noted that this varies with summit eruptions (the mountain is 71 ft (21,6 m) lower now than it was in 1865). [2]

Sources:
[1] Mount Etna Volcano, Italy: Map, Facts, Eruption Pictures
[2] Mount Etna : Sicily Guide, the travel source to Sicily
[3] Mount Etna
[4] MOUNT ETNA
[5] Mount Etna - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[6] Mount Etna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[7] Mount Etna: Definition from Answers.com
[8] Italian Visits - All about Italy - Mount Aetna or Mount Etna
[9] Mt Etna Volcano Eruptions, Italy - John Seach

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is at its lowest in the history of Bankrate’s survey. [1]

In addition to mortgage loans for home purchases, there are also other loans available for various purposes that use the home for collateral. [2]

Home loans, real estate, mortgage payment calculator and advice. [3]

Many homeowners may be unable to refinance mortgages under a proposed federal regulation. [4]

Mortgages default every day in the world and they are just a normal part of the business for mortgage lenders. [2]

Therefore, a mortgage is an encumbrance (limitation) on the right to the property just as an easement would be, but because most mortgages occur as a condition for new loan money, the word mortgage has become the generic term for a loan secured by such real property. [...] A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan. [5]

By understanding the requirements to get a mortgage after a bankruptcy and by carefully rebuilding your credit standing, you can apply for a loan and buy a home. [6]

Mortgage interest rates are determined by credit history strength, the number of points you pay, the size of your down payment and the type of loan program you choose. [2]

All credit decisions will vary based upon your loan request and credit profile and are determined independently by each lender with whom you are matched. [7]

Use our calculator to find out your estimated monthly payment in advance: Enter the loan amount, interest rate, and length of mortgage. [6]

We can help you find a local auto dealer, research car makes and models, and compare auto loan quotes from competing providers. [7]

Traditional mortgage down payments have always been 10 to 25 percent of the total purchase price of the property. [6]

Let’s hope that doesn’t change this fall when the borrowing limits for conforming loans are scheduled to be reduced, throwing more people into the market for jumbo home loans. [3]

Hard money loans provide financing in exchange for the mortgaging of real estate collateral. [5]

Sources:
[1] Refinance | Mortgage Loan Refinancing | Bankrate.com
[2] Mortgage Information, Mortgage Refinance Information …
[3] Mortgages | Mortgage Interest Rates - Interest.com
[4] Bankrate.com: Mortgages
[5] Mortgage loan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[6] Mortgage101.com
[7] Lending Tree