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Longtime fans have speculated for years, but a producer of the upcoming Xena: Warrior Princess reboot has confirmed: Xena is gay in the new series. In a post on Tumblr, the reboot’s screenwriter and executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach confirmed that Xena (played in the ’90s by Lucy Lawless) would finally fully explore the not-so-subtle lesbian relationship she had with her sidekick Gabrielle (played in the original series by Renee O’Connor). “[T]here is no reason to bring back Xena if it is not there for the purpose of fully exploring a relationship that could only be shown subtextually in first-run syndication...

Actor Lucy Lawless and seven other Greenpeace protestors have pleaded guilty to unlawfully boarding a ship after appearing in the Auckland District Court this morning. The group originally faced burglary charges but those were today withdrawn. Lawless and seven activists carried out a four-day protest aboard oil drilling ship the Noble Discovery in February. The group were arrested and charged with burglary. The eight defendants have been granted bail and will reappear on September 14. Outside court today Lawless said she was not sure if the impending conviction would affect her ability to travel with her job. “I don’t believe...

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All hell broke loose today as astronomers began openly debating the definition of "planet" at the general assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague, Czech Republic. About 100 planetary scientists — and just as many interested onlookers from other disciplines — met to discuss the definition that was proposed earlier this week (see our August 16th story and Robert Naeye's blog) and that is scheduled for an up-or-down vote among all 2,500 attendees at the assembly next Thursday, August 24th.

Not for the first time, but with new urgency in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) impaneled a committee to define both the word "planet" and the status of Pluto. Our committee -- seven in number, like the planets of old -- met at the Paris Observatory in late June and reached a unanimous agreement. In short: A planet is a body in orbit around a star (as opposed to orbiting another planet) and big enough for gravity to make it round. The full text of our proposed definition is being released today, to be discussed by astronomers from around...

Xena, unofficially called the 10th planet, is the second-most-shiny known object in the solar system, new observations show. Scientists are scrambling to explain where Xena got its sparkle. Some suggest that it might have enough heat to belch methane, despite being in the coldest region of the solar system. The new notion of Xena arises from Hubble Space Telescope images that were released this week. The images reveal that Xena, the most distant known object in our solar system, isn't quite the big shot that scientists had thought it was. The chilly outpost's diameter—2,384 kilometers—makes it about 5 percent larger...

Close window Published online: 1 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060130-7 'Tenth Planet' found to be a whopperLarge size of 2003 UB313 fuels debate over what is and isn't a planet.Mark Peplow 2003 UB313 and its moon - currently nicknamed Xena and Gabrielle - take time off from their sword and sorcery shenanigans.© W. M. Keck Observatory The recently discovered 'tenth planet' of our Solar System is substantially larger than Pluto, astronomers have found. For many, the discovery that object 2003 UB313 is about 3,000 kilometres across will remove any doubt that it deserves to be called a planet. "Since UB313...

LOS ANGELES - Scientists say they have confirmed that a so-called 10th planet discovered last year is bigger than Pluto, but that likely won't quell the debate over what makes a planet. The astronomers who spotted the icy, rocky body — informally called UB313 — had reported only a rough estimate of its size based on its brightness. But another group of researchers has come up with what is believed to be the first calculation of UB313's diameter. By measuring how much heat it radiates, German scientists led by Frank Bertoldi of the University of Bonn estimated that UB313 was...

Scientists are over the moon at the W.M. Keck Observatory and the California Institute of Technology over a new discovery of a satellite orbiting the Solar System's 10th planet (2003 UB313). The newly discovered moon orbits the farthest object ever seen in the Solar System. The existence of the moon will help astronomers resolve the question of whether 2003 UB313, temporarily nicknamed "Xena," is more massive than Pluto and hence the 10th planet. A paper describing the discovery was submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on October 3, 2005. "We were surprised because this is a completely different type of...

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The astronomers who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the Earth's solar system have made another intriguing announcement: it has a moon. While observing the new, so-called planet from Hawaii last month, a team of astronomers led by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology spotted a faint object trailing next to it. Because it was moving, astronomers ruled it was a moon and not a background star, which is stationary. The moon discovery is important because it can help scientists determine the new planet's mass. In July, Brown announced the discovery...

There are some lines of William Cowper inscribed on the plinth of the bronze statue of Boadicea near Westminster Bridge in central London: "Regions Caesar never knew/Thy posterity shall sway." The words have never been truer. Hollywood has four films in development about the British warrior queen. One of them, Warrior, is being produced by Mel Gibson, partly with money from the proceeds of his film The Passion of The Christ (a rare example of fundamentalist Christian money backing a project with a pagan heroine). Along with a DreamWorks project called Queen Fury, Paramount's Warrior Queen and another called My...