truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

University of Maastricht (Netherlands) researcher David Levy told the Web site LiveScience.com in October that he believes robots will be so highly developed by the middle of this century that a few people will even begin to marry them: "Once you have a story like, 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo(politan) magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon." (Georgia Tech researcher Ronald Arkin added that perhaps robotic children could be used to satisfy pedophiles enough to keep them away from human children.)

While European and American TV and film producers take great care to have their dialogue dubbed into foreign languages via voices that are appropriate for each actor, the dubbing in Poland continues to be done by "lektors" males with smoking-seasoned voices who speak the dialogue of all the characters in a story in the same pitch. The trick, according to an October Wall Street Journal dispatch, is "speaking so smoothly that viewers forget that Paris Hilton sounds like a Polish Johnny Cash." One experiment using six different actors for the cast of an episode of "Friends" bombed with viewers, and the next week, the lektor returned.

While European and American TV and film producers take care to have dialogue dubbed into foreign languages using voices that are appropriate for each actor, the dubbing in Poland continues to be done by "lektors" males with smoking-seasoned voices who speak the dialogue of all the characters in a story in the same pitch. The trick, according to an October Wall Street Journal dispatch, is "speaking so smoothly that viewers forget that Paris Hilton sounds like a Polish Johnny Cash." One experiment using six different actors for the cast of an episode of "Friends" bombed with viewers, and the next week, the lektor returned.

Residents of small fishing villages in northern Newfoundland have for centuries been "mumming" at Christmastime, in rituals described in an October academic journal article by University of Missouri- Columbia researchers. Mummers disguise themselves, go to neighbors' houses, and threaten violence, at which point the neighbor must guess the visitor's identity, and, if all goes well, refuse to be scared. Supposedly, the ritual induces trust by both parties, as the visitors show their good hearts by failing to actually beat anyone up, and the host shows trust by his passivity. Fortunately, the researchers conclude, mumming continues today only on a "small scale."

Residents of small fishing villages in northern Newfoundland have for centuries been "mumming" at Christmastime, in rituals described in an October academic journal article by University of Missouri-Columbia researchers. People disguise themselves, go to neighbors' houses and threaten violence, at which point the neighbor must guess the visitor's identity, and, if all goes well, refuse to be scared. Supposedly, the ritual induces trust by both parties, as the visitors show their good hearts by failing to actually beat anyone up, and the host shows trust by his courage and passivity. Mumming, the researchers conclude, continues today only on a "small scale."

Bahadur Chand Gupta bought an old Airbus 300 and now offers weekly sessions in Delhi in which any of the 1 billion Indians who have never flown before can sit on a genuine (though disabled) airliner, listen to pilot announcements ("We are about to begin our descent into Delhi"), and be served by flight attendants. Said one customer (who paid the equivalent of about $4), "I see planes passing all day long over my roof. I had to try out the experience."