Free Republic

The Da Vinci Code and Mission: Impossible actor, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, was staying at the holiday home of Gallic pop star Johnny Hallyday in St Bart's when he took a turn for the worst on Wednesday morning. Witnesses described how he slumped on to the wheel of his hire car. "All of a sudden he appeared gripped by a fever, breaking out into a cold sweat and feeling nauseous," said one. Reno's wife, Zofia, alerted emergency services and doctors immediately decided to have him evacuated by plane to the CHU Fort-au-France hospital on the nearby island of...

Like the masterless samurai for whom it is named, the protein Ronin chooses an independent path, maintaining embryonic stem cells in their undifferentiated state and playing essential roles in genesis of embryos and their development, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers who reported on this novel cellular regulator in the current issue of the journal Cell. Three proteins - Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog -- had previously been considered the "master" regulators of embryonic stem cells, but "Ronin could be as important as these three," said Dr. Thomas Zwaka, assistant professor in the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine (STaR) Center at...

Yesterday morning at 10am in the well-to-do area of Tokyo’s Nishi Azabu, a member of one Yakuza gang (the Yamaguchi-gumi, 山口組) shot and killed a very senior member (a 幹部 or kanbu, which roughly translates to “director”) of another Yakuza gang (the Sumiyoshi-kai, 住吉会) on the side of the main road between Roppongi and Shibuya, all in broad daylight. This has lit a match of dangerous and lethal proportions, escalating a rift that has been brewing in Tokyo for some time now, starting the much feared “Yakuza war” in central Tokyo, that many have been predicting since the end of...

GREEN RONIN TO PUBLISH TESTAMENT CAMPAIGN SETTING Biblical Era to Come to Life for d20 Fans January 16, 2003—SEATTLE, WA: This April Green Ronin delves into the past with Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era. Part history, part mythology, Testament is the d20 System campaign setting that's both instantly familiar and yet unlike any game world you have ever experienced. "I conceived this product as an alternative to the current crop of fantasy worlds," says Green Ronin President Chris Pramas. "Really, how many more vaguely Tolkien-esque fantasy settings do we need?" Veteran RPG and computer game designer Scott Bennie...