What's Old is New: 12 Living Fossils

To navigate the currents of ecological fate, most creatures adapt — but a few have stuck to their evolutionary guns.

Known as living fossils, they lasted for millions of years with barely a change, even as their relatives went extinct or took different paths across the tree of life.

Many are now threatened or endangered. But with some luck and a little help, living fossils will be able to survive the age of humans, too.

The Purple frog, discovered just five years ago in western India, likely escaped detection because it lives underground, emerging for just two weeks during the monsoon season. Distinguished by a pointed snout, it's related to a family of frogs now found only on the Seychelles islands, which split from India 100 million years ago.

Image: WikiMedia Commons

Scientists disagree over whether the frilled shark has survived for 380 milllion years, or a mere 95 million years. Only two living specimens have been found — both off the coast in Japan, in the late 19th century and again in 2007 — but they are sometimes caught accidentally by deep-sea fishing nets.

Video: Xagtho Channel

Until a preserved specimen was found in the Smithsonian in 1975, the 10-footed, lobster-like Jurassic shrimp was thought to have gone extinct 50 million years ago. Living Jurassic shrimp have since been found.

Image: Census of Marine Life

What it lacks in convenient nomenclature, the Siberian Sikhotealinia zhiltzovae makes up for in uniqueness: it's the only three-eyed beetle. Some scientists consider it a forerunner of nearly all winged insects.

Image: St. Petersburg Zoological Institute

Found mostly in Southern Hemisphere rain forests, velvet worms have legs and — unlike other worms — bear live young. Closely related to tardigrades, their legs are hollow and supported by fluid pressure. After a few early adaptations for land, they've hardly changed in 360 million years.

Video: InfiniteWorld

The most widespread of all living fossils, crocodiles have barely changed in the 230 million years since dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Image: Flickr/Keven Law

One of the relatively few mammalian living fossils, duck-billed platypuses have been weird for 110 million years: in addition to their bills, they lay eggs and have venom-filled leg spurs. No wonder they were considered a hoax by early naturalists.

Video: Springbreakwas2short

Its spiraling chambered shell was a symbol of perfection in ancient Greece, and the nautilus has changed little in 500 million years.

Image: Flickr/Ethan Hein

Found commonly on Atlantic beaches, horseshoe crabs are more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions than crabs. Their ancestors evolved in the Paleozoic's shallow seas, and they've evolved only slightly in the last 445 million years. If you see one on its back, flip it over: They can regrow lost limbs, but can't right themselves when tossed in the surf.

Image: Flickr/Chris Howard

Better known as the "Ant from Mars," Martialis heureka is a direct-line descendant of the last common ancestor of all ants — a subterranean forager who wouldn't go above-ground until flowering plants evolved 120 million years ago.

Image: Christian Rabeling

Coelacanth vanished from the fossil record 410 million years ago — and then one was caught in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. A second species was discovered in Indonesian waters in 1999.

Video: Pinktentacle3

Neither a mantis nor a shrimp, the mantis shrimp has changed little in 400 million years. It has the world's most complex eyes, and its prey-killing claw motion is the second-fastest animal motion. To quote mantis shrimp eye researcher Tom Cronin, "Whenever they get into any type of situation, they smash things. You can't pick these up. They're really great animals to have around."

Image: Tom Cronin

3 Charged in International Attack on Banks

Two U.S. men and a Russian face conspiracy and bank fraud charges for allegedly running a successful scheme to compromise online banking and brokerage accounts and help themselves to the cash.

In a 15-month-long caper that ended in December of last year, prosecutors say Alexander Bobnev, of Volgograd, worked with others in Russia to infect U.S. consumers with Trojan horses that let the gang swipe the victims' login credentials.

Bobnev then initiated wire transfers from the hacked bank accounts -- and liquidated stocks from compromised brokerage accounts -- and channeled the money to "drop" accounts in the U.S., according to federal indictments (.pdf) filed last week in Manhattan.

Opening the drop accounts and pulling out the cash was allegedly the job of Aleksey Volynskiy, of Manhattan, and Alexey Mineev from Hampton, New Hampshire, who got to keep a portion of the loot for their efforts, according (.pdf) to the government.

The scheme unraveled when the feds cultivated an informant in scheme in Poughkeepsie, New York. In June of last year, the informant gave the gang the routing number for a new drop account to send stolen funds into -- in actuality, the account was under law enforcement's control, and the feds watched as it received transfers of $15,400 and $4,700 from two hacked Charles Schwab trading accounts.

The informant then met with Volynskuy in Manhattan to give him half of the $4,700, according to the indictments.

The three are charged with conspiracy, and Volynskuy faces two additional count of access device fraud for allegedly giving the informant 150 stolen credit card numbers last year to get them programmed onto counterfeit cards.

Across the country in Los Angeles, seven people face charges for a series of bank heists that relied on social engineer attacks aimed at credit card customers of Chase Bank.

In a 44-count indictment (.pdf) handed down Tuesday, Arutyun Sarkisyan, Ara Sarkisyan, Asmik Sarkisyan, Giyosiddin Nizomov, Alexandr Moshkov, Bunyod Sharipov, and Parunak Tukmanyan are charged with phoning Chase customer service to have themselves added to customer charge card accounts from April through July of this year.

They then allegedly used the plastic to run up thousands of dollars in charges at high-end retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, and to pull dozens of cash advances from Los Angeles ATMs at $5,000 a pop. They're charged with access device fraud, bank fraud and identity theft.

Also in California, three naturalized U.S. citizens are accused of setting up a front company to buy third-generation night vision goggles and illegally export them to Vietnam.

Dan Tran Dang, Liem Duc Huynh and George Kgoc Bui allegedly (.pdf) set up a Huntington Beach company called Professional Security for the sole purchase of buying the coveted AN/PVS-7 image intensifiers, made by ITT. The goggles, which retail for about $2,300, are classified as "defense articles" by the U.S. government, and can't legally be exported to Vietnam without a license from the State Department.

From October 2003 to February 2005, the three allegedly ordered at least 55 units from Win-Tron, a U.S. supplier, claiming they were for domestic use only, then smuggled them to Vietnam in their luggage, shipping the head straps and helmet mounts separately in the mail. They're charged with a single count of conspiracy to violate export laws.

In an update to the our murder-for-hire text messaging item, Robin Berry writes in to say she was never friends with convicted plotter Tonia Mullins. Mullins, you'll recall, turned to Berry in a thwarted effort to commission a hit on her Army lover's wife, authoring a string of incriminating text messages that Berry then turned over to the feds. We reported that a confidential informant brought the plot to the attention of police in the first place; Berry says that's her.

"I am not nor have I aver been a friend of Tonia Mullins," she writes. "I turned her in to the police because [neither] she, nor anyone else for that matter, has the right to decide for a baby girl that she no longer needs her mother alive in her life."

Fed Blotter is Threat Level's weekly roundup of computer crime cases in the federal courts. If you've been indicted, or are about to be, please let us know.

Images: Charles Schwab building courtesy TheTruthAbout; AN/PVS-7 courtesy Federation of American Scientists

By Kevin Poulsen December 05, 2008 | Categories: Fed Blotter

An Injection of Hard Science boosts the Prognosis for TV Shows

Photo: Dexter's Michael Hall (left) and Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston play characters steeped in scientific fact.

Emmy winner Bryan Cranston and three-time nominee Hugh Laurie bring unquestioned acting chops to their roles as quirky men of science in Breaking Bad and House.

So do Emmy-nominated Michael Hall, who plays a police blood-splatter expert (and serial killer) on Dexter; ditto for CSI's rubber-gloved forensics geek Bill Petersen and for Simon Baker, who portrays a quack-debunking champion of observable fact in this fall's most popular new TV series, The Mentalist.

But these prime-time A-listers might be neither rich nor famous were it not for the role played by nasal granuloma, Heller's Syndrome, the Riemann hypothesis, directional analysis and scores of other esoteric methods drawn from the annals of weird science.

It's no fiction: Scientific fact has usurped science fiction as TV's favorite inspiration for prime-time story lines. And to keep everything on the up and up, show writers and producers are hiring scores of researchers and technical consultants to get the science straight.

"We try to make sure that all the science is real, that it's researched and that everything in the show could actually happen," says Cyrus Voris, an executive producer for CBS' crime-fighting biophysicist drama Eleventh Hour (pictured, right). "In some ways, it's much easier to make shit up. When you have to make it real, you're holding yourself to a much higher standard."

Why is real science so hot on prime time? Some of the credit goes to the late Michael Crichton. Ever since he introduced clinically-correct doctor speak to the airwaves with medical drama ER, story lines on science-heavy television shows have been bumping up references to astrophysics, neurobiology, quantum mechanics and other topics ripped from the headlines of obscure scholarly publications.

The geek-friendly ER, which wraps its 15-year run in May, launched a spawn of pop culture/propellerhead crossovers that engage TV viewers' brainwaves even as they're being entertained by age-old soap-opera machinations. For an increasingly tech-savvy generation of couch potatoes, factually flimsy plot details simply don't pass muster.

Science Faction on Prime Time:

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
9 p.m. EST Thursdays on CBS
Since its 2000 debut, the granddaddy of crime-scene dramas has spawned a morgue full of direct spinoffs and imitators.

Big Bang Theory
8 p.m. EST. Mondays on CBS
The babe/geek dynamic drives this college-kid sitcom, but between the punch lines, the string theory references are 100 percent correct. David Saltzberg, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, checks scripts for accuracy.

Numb3rs
10 p.m. EST Fridays on CBS
Gary Lorden, chairman of the math department at the California Institute of Technology, serves as technical adviser for this drama about a crime-solving math whiz.

Dexter
9 p.m. EST Sundays on Showtime
Crime-scene investigator Kimberlee Heale, who studied forensic technology at Cal State Fullerton before going to work for the Orange County Sheriff's Department in Southern California, advises Dexter producers to ensure authenticity in the details. For example, paper, not plastic, is the material of choice for storing evidence, she told the Los Angeles Times. "Plastic is a no-no," she says. "It traps air inside and the DNA will eventually degrade."

Breaking Bad
10 p.m. EST. Sundays on AMC
Actor Bryan Cranston immersed himself in chemistry to make his portrayal of a meth-dealing former science teacher more accurate.

Eleventh Hour
10 p.m. EST Thursdays on CBS
A Princeton prof and a former NASA researcher help give this show its scientific heft.

House
9 p.m. EST Thursdays on Fox
Woven into this hospital drama's character conflicts is a weekly demonstration of the scientific method, as Dr. House and his compatriots sift through evidence before figuring out how to treat patients' bizarre symptoms.

The Mentalist
9 p.m. EST Tuesdays on CBS
Contrary to TV's supernatural Medium and Ghost Whisperer, the so-called mentalist (Simon Baker) is a former charlatan who relies on meticulous observation rather than psychic powers to solve crimes.

ER
10 p.m. EST Thursdays on NBC
"Stat!" became a household term after viewers embraced esoteric medical references in this ground-breaking series. "ER was clearly a watershed," says House writer David Foster.

Fringe
10 p.m. EST Tuesdays on Fox
The show's outlandish story twists include loads of real science, with clues in a recent episode tied to the Fibonacci sequence of numbers.

To make sure their shows ring true to prime-time couch potatoes, TV producers routinely hire scientists to vet scripts for accuracy. Princeton University professor of particle physics Andrew Bazarko reviews Eleventh Hour subject matter ranging from autism and cloning to the hallucinogenic effects that can result from licking the skin of a certain type of toad.

And the show's considerable science chops don't stop there: Writer-producer Andre Bormanis conducted NASA-funded research in physics and astronomy, then earned a master's degree in space policy at George Washington University before getting into show biz as a science consultant for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In researching his upcoming cryonics-themed episode of Eleventh Hour about deep-freezing dead people, Bormanis got on the phone with a pro.

"I spoke to a chemist at Los Alamos in some detail about endothermic reactions," he says. "There's a little bit of a stretch involved in what you see on screen but I wanted to make sure the explanations were credible. I hope people who are familiar with chemistry and cryonics as a science will see this episode and say, 'Yeah I believe somebody could come up with that sort of a thing.'"

Similarly, Lie To Me, an upcoming Fox series about so-called deception experts, gets its reality check from behavioral scientist Paul Ekman, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. And Fox medical drama House employs Harvard-trained doctor-turned-writer David Foster to come up with stories that pit a contentious crew of medicos against a weekly barrage of bizarre medical afflictions.

"House is all about the evidence and the logical piecing together of the puzzle to see what it adds up to," Foster explains. "That's the scientific method."

Crime Time

Crime dramas, a TV staple since Dragnet jumped from radio to the small screen, have also flourished due to an injection of hard science.

In 2000, former Las Vegas carhop Anthony Zuiker created a show that thrust lab techs and their microscopes into the foreground. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation captivated viewers who'd become fascinated with DNA evidence during the O.J. Simpson trial, and a slew of forensic-themed shows soon followed, including Miami- and New York-based CSI spinoffs, plus Cold Case, Cold Case Files, Body of Evidence, Forensic Files, Forensic Investigators, Cracking the Case, The New Detectives, The FBI Files and Autopsy. Showtime's killer serial-killer show Dexter often delves into the tales told by squirts and sprays of blood left behind at crime scenes.

CBS' Numb3rs, which revolves around crime-solving math genius Charlie Eppes (played by David Krumholtz), goes straight to the academic well to keep the science credible: Co-executive producers Cheryl Heuton and Nick Falacci live just down the street from Caltech's campus in Pasadena, California.

"When we started doing our research, we decided, why not use reality instead of just making it up?" Heuton says. "We wanted to get it right by talking to mathematicians about the initial ideas and then adjusting them to make it more real."

Sometimes, science can be too real for prime time.

House's Foster based an upcoming episode about a woman who ages at an accelerated rate on a case he read about in The New England Journal of Medicine. That publication also inspired his 2006 toothpick catastrophe story line.

"I read about this case where a woman swallowed a toothpick that poked a hole in her intestines," he says. "One woman swallowed a toothpick and it wound up puncturing her heart. That was too far-fetched even for me. Some things that happen in real life may be true but they are not actually believable. It's too crazy for television."

Science on the Fringe

How crazy is too crazy? Ask mad scientist Walter Bishop (played by John Noble, pictured right) Even his outrageous experiments, as featured on Fox sci-fi series Fringe, are grounded in real-world R&D. Consultants Rob Chiappetta and Glen Whitman pull from an archive of several hundred science and technology articles to make sure the scripts accurately reflect cutting-edge developments.

Fringe co-creator J.J. Abrams says some of the truly bizarre scenarios on his show benefit from a solid grounding in reality.

"The weird thing about our show is that a lot of the stuff is at least in the realm of possibility," Abrams told reporters this fall. "It's not sci fi -- it's just sci."

Referring to recent reports that Duke University researchers have invented an invisibility shield, Abrams says, "We're living in this incredibly advanced period of achievement where every week we see, hear or read about some potentially horrifying scientific breakthrough. That keeps pushing our almost-quaint notions of science fiction to a different place."

Sometimes the science spills over onto an actors' own research. Prepping last year for his Emmy-winning performance as a chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer, Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston took a crash course in laboratory procedure.

"I shadowed a USC professor who introduced me not only the nomenclature I'd long forgotten, but also this very intimidating elements chart," Cranston jokes. "Why is iron 'FE'? It makes no sense!"

After his Chemistry 101 sessions, Cranston suggested tweaks to series creator Vince Gilligan. "I told him, 'You'd never boil those chemicals in an Erlenmeyer flask. We've been discovering things along the way."

Photos courtesy Showtime, AMC, CBS, Fox, NBC

Ultrazoom Pocket Cam Sports Leica Lens, WiFi Connect

Serving up a hefty helping of stainless steel and Leica glass, the TZ50 seals its ultrazoom dominance with integrated WiFi for straight-to-the-web image transfers (from your nearest T-Mobile hot spot). Panasonic gives aperture- and shutter-priority modes the heave-ho to make room for the company's Intelligent Auto function. Luddites and camera snobs may whine about the loss of manual controls but can console themselves with the consistently terrific images.

WIRED Big, bright 3-inch LCD. 9.1-megapixel resolution. 10X optical zoom lens goes wide to 28 mm. Shoots HD video at 720p and 30 fps.

TIRED WiFi and HD video are $100 premium over otherwise identical TZ5. Supports uploading to Picasa only. All that metal adds up to a hefty load.

• Camera Resolution: 9.1 megapixels
• Optical Zoom: 10x
• Digital Zoom: 4x

• Style: Ultracompact, Wireless
• Media Format: MultiMediaCard, SD Card
• Manufacturer: Panasonic
• $450 • panasonic.com

  8 out of 10

ESPN's Virtual Playbook

Using an XBox to dramatize reality

By Brett Zarda Posted 12.05.2008 at 2:13 pm 0 Comments

The Virtual Becomes Real: (See it bigger!)

With each iteration, the Madden video game has inched a little closer to reality. Now reality is starting to embrace the virtual. ESPN has introduced the EA Sports Virtual Playbook in its NFL coverage this season by using green-screen technology to bring life-size Madden 3D players into the studio. We dive into the inner workings.

For several years a part of ESPN's coverage consisted of middle-aged anchors standing in the studio and demonstrating specific skills, formations, or schemes expected in a key match up.

"It used to be just Tom Jackson and the other guys playing flag football. It was four guys in their suits who were in their heyday 20 years ago," said an EA spokesman. "This gives a whole new reality."

That whole new reality allows the anchors to run through specific motions and schemes with the actual players of interest, while they critique and comment on their motions.

In the week before the show, producers request situations with specific players from the EA campus in Orlando, Florida. The engineers in Orlando then create that situation using the Madden 3D engine, down to the specific spin move, stunt move, or swim move using nothing more than the game you play every Saturday night. An EA employee will literally start up Madden '08, pick the appropriate teams, call the relevant play, and pull the trigger or press the appropriate button on the controller to move the player accordingly.

"We have all those moves at our disposal. If it's Mario Williams doing a swim move then there's a player with a controller in his hand using the certain buttons to create that motion," said Jason Parker, a software engineer with EA. "If you want the quarterback to roll out of the pocket, we rely on the actual human player to make the quarterback do that."

What's recorded though is not the video footage, but the code dictating the three-dimensional data on each player in the game. That same data is stored internally on your XBox, allowing gamers to watch instant replays from any angle and at any speed. That file is then sent to the next step in the process.

Two off-the-shelf XBoxes are linked up to two standard in-studio cameras. The play is then started in the XBox, and the players appear in the studio using basic green-screen technology which allows the anchors to look at various TV screens to see where the players are located. But where the Virtual Playbook extends beyond the weather maps on your local news is how the in-studio cameras interact with the virtual players. If a producer wants to zoom in on the left hand of a player, the in-studio cameraman merely looks at his screen (which is showing the superimposed composite image) and zooms towards the virtual hand. The camera position data is transmitted to the XBox, allowing an immediate zoomed-in view of the virtual hand. The cameras essentially become oversized XBox controllers, allowing complete seamless freedom to the producers without any additional effort. The anchors can pause, rewind, and spin around the players as if they were real.

Currently the producers need to choose the plays they want analyzed days in advance. The potential to analyze a key move or play in a game from that day would bring another level of reality to the system. There are also plans to ditch the XBox and run things off of a PC which would allow even better resolution of the virtual players. The collaboration is part of a larger focus by EA to take their technology out of the game and bring it into reality. Think the inverse of the classic tagline, "If it's in the game, it's in the game."

Hussman Funds Weekly Market Comment-

Ambiguous Conditions Warrant Moderation

Stocks Set to Rally

Obama's spending plan, signs of an automaker bailout help boost world markets and put Wall Street in a positive mood.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- U.S. stocks were set to open sharply higher Monday, lifted by President-elect Barack Obama's plan to boost the economy and signs that Detroit's automakers would stay out of bankruptcy.

"The market now is rallying on hopes that we can begin to stave off massive layoffs in the auto industry," said Peter Cardillo, analyst for Avalon Partners.

At 8:55 a.m. ET, Dow Jones industrial average, Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were higher.

Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets will open when trading begins in New York.

On Friday, stocks rallied despite the Labor Department's worst monthly job report in 34 years, showing a loss of 533,000 jobs in November and bringing the total to 1.9 million lost jobs so far this year.

"You can't lose jobs at this rate for very long," said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. "At this point, you have to become an optimist, or you have to become a super pessimist and say that were headed for a Great Depression."

The job losses have continued into December. On Monday, Dow Chemical (DOW, Fortune 500) said it would cut 5,000 jobs, equaling 11% of its workforce, and close 20 plants.

Stimulus hopes: Over the weekend, Obama pledged to invest in infrastructure, energy programs, and school construction projects to get people working and build a stronger economy.

"We understand that we've got to provide a blood infusion to the patient right now to make sure that the patient is stabilized. And that means that we can't worry short term about the deficit," he said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"We've got to make sure that the economic stimulus plan is large enough to get the economy moving," Obama said.

Big Three: Signs of a deal that would keep General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Ford (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler out of bankruptcy court - at least through the end of March - also lifted sentiment.

Congressional Democrats and the Bush White House had reached an agreement in principle to provide stopgap support for the U.S. auto industry, congressional and industry sources said late Friday.

While the money is less than the automakers were asking for in testimony before Congress, the package is designed to keep them operating so that the new Congress and the Obama administration will have at least a couple of months to draft and pass a longer-term solution.

General Motors stock surged more than 20% in pre-market trading, and Ford jumped about 15%.

World markets: Expectations that governments worldwide will keep introducing measures to stimulate their economies helped boost investors' mood worldwide.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rallied 8.7% and Japan's Nikkei finished the session 5.2% higher. In European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was up more than 5% in morning trading, while the DAX in Frankfurt and the CAC in Paris were up about 7%.

Money and oil: Oil rose $2.95 a barrel to $43.76. The dollar gained versus the yen but slipped against the euro and the British pound. To top of page

Tribune Toast, NY Times Next?

alleyinsider.com) -- Tribune was toast the moment Sam Zell loaded it up with $13 billion of debt. That it is now considering bankruptcy, therefore, comes as little surprise. (Read this early prognosis from Alan Mutter if you doubt that sane industry observers saw this coming).

More startling over the past year has been the collapse of the New York Times (NYT). The New York Times Company has a $400 million debt payment due in five months, and management has not yet explained how it plans to meet this. The company is nearly out of cash, its operations are now burning cash, and its attempts to sell assets have, so far, been unsuccessful.

As we noted a month ago, the New York Times Company now has a negative current net worth: Over the next year, it will be required to shell out more than twice as much cash as it has on hand. The New York Times' long-term assets and liabilitities, meanwhile, are roughly equal: The value of the Red Sox stake and corporate headquarters approximately offset the company's long-term debt, pension plan, and other liabilities (at least according to their carrying values.)

The New York Times has an untapped $400 million credit line that could be used to meet its obligations over the next year, but we would be surprised if its banks were not looking for some way to renege on this. The company's most easily saleable asset is probably About.com, which might fetch up to $500 million (a year ago, it would have fetched a lot more--just like everything else NYTCo owns). The sale of this asset would buy the company some breathing room.

We imagine that the New York Times's cash situation is top of mind in its executive suites (we certainly hope it is, anyway). Specifically, we assume Janet Robinson and Arthur Sulzberger have a plan for dealing with the $400 million deadline. So could we maybe trouble some of the crack reporters in the New York Times newsroom to calls upstairs to figure out what it is?

(We will confess that we have occasionally wondered when the New York Times will begin covering its own situation. The potential bankruptcy or default of one of the world's most famous newspapers is a big story, especially here in New York. If the paper doesn't start covering this story soon, someone might accuse it of not being objective!)

2008 Asian Beach Games

About a month ago in Bali, Indonesia, the inaugural 2008 Asian Beach Games came to its conclusion. Intended to promote sports and culture, the games (held every two years) encourage tourism, support local economies and allow host countries like Indonesia to present a more global face to the world. The 2008 games brought 6,000 athletes to compete in 71 events in 19 sports. Sports included well-known games like beach volleyball and triathlon, and some sports better known to asians, like sepak takraw, kabaddi and pencak silat. The next Asian Beach Games are scheduled to be hosted by Oman in the year 2010. (25 photos total)

Daiki Masuda of Japan dives out of the water in the swim leg of the men's triathlon on day nine of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Mertasari Beach on October 26, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

2

Athletes prepare in the water before the start of the Men's Triathlon on day nine of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Mertasari Beach on October 26, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

3

Andi Edinata of Indonesia comes out of the water during the Men's Triathlon on day nine of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Mertasari Beach on October 26, 2008. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

4

A cauldron burns above a statue during the Opening Ceremony of the First Asian Beach Games at Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park on October 18, 2007 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia. The games continued through October 26, 2008. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

5

Balinese dancers perform during the Opening ceremony of the first Asian Beach Games at culture in park Garuda Wisnu Kencana in Bali, Indonesia, Saturday , Oct. 18, 2008. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) #

6

The Indonesian team in action against Myanmar during the men's beach sepaktakraw on day six of the Asian Beach Games at Sanur Beach on October 23, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images) #

7

Dragon Boats sit at the docks before the start of the Dragon Boat Races on day two of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at West Suwung on October 19, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

8

The Indonesian men's team competes in the 1000m Dragon Boat grand final on day two of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at West Suwung on October 19, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images) #

9

Eddy Ratno Haji Abu Bakar and Mohd Khairul Bahri of Brunei perform in the Double Men's Final of the beach pencak silat on day five of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Tanjung Benoa Beach on October 22, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Mark Dadswell/Getty Images) #

10

Nga Latip of Vietnam competes against Ria Puspita Sari of Indonesia of Singapore during the women's beach pencak silat on day three of the Asian Beach Games at Tanjung Benoa Beach on October 20, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images) #

11

Hoiriyah of Indonesia competes during the Mistral OD class windsurfing on day four of the Asian Beach Games at Serangan Island on October 21, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images) #

12

A Japanese surfer competes during the team surfing challenge on day six of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Kuta Beach on October 23, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Mark Nolan/Getty Images) #

13

Faisal Al-Balushi of Oman kicks a goal in the match bewteen Oman and United Arabic Emirates during the Beach Soccer on day six of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Mertasari Beach on October 23, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

14

Athletes compete in the men's 60kg body building competition on day three of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Kuta Beach on October 20, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

15

Rosmadi Bin Abd Ghani of Malaysia tries to kick the ball past Phakpong Dejaroen of Thailand beach sepak takraw match on day seven of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Sanur Beach on October 24, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

16

A competitor prepares to launch during the paragliding competition on day five of the Asian Beach Games at Timbis on October 22, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images) #

17

Participants compete in the paragliding distance flying style in Jimbaran during the first Asian Beach Games 2008 on the resort island of Bali on October 22, 2008. (SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP/Getty Images) #

18

Alexandra Turichsheva of Kazakhstan signals to her partner in the Women's Beach Volleyball on day four of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Sanur Beach on October 21, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

19

A Yemeni player serves during the Pool C match between Indonesia and Yemen in the Beach Volleyball competition on day three of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Sanur Beach on October 20, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Mark Nolan/Getty Images) #

20

A competitor flies above the ocean during the paragliding competition on day seven of the Asian Beach Games at Timbis on October 23, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

21

A competitor flies over the ocean during the paragliding competition on day seven of the Asian Beach Games at Timbis on October 23, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) #

22

Chinese player Gong Yan prepares to launch the ball to Thailand during the women's beach handball final at the inaugural Asian Beach Games 2008, in Sanur on October 25, 2008. (SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP/Getty Images) #

23

Jittapa Tubjan Jitadech Akul of Thailand is tackled by India during their beach kabaddi match on day five of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Nusa Dua Beach on October 22, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. India won the match to win the gold medal. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

24

A competitor in action during the paragliding competition on day six of the Asian Beach Games at Timbis on October 23, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) #

25

A pilot in competition during the paragliding event on day four of the 2008 Asian Beach Games at Timbis on October 21, 2008 in Bali, Indonesia. (Mark Nolan/Getty Images) #