It’s a tale that’s long in tooth. But based on X-ray and other analysis of specimens trapped in the LaBrea Tar Pits and elsewhere, a researcher says that a million years ago, there was an equality of the sexes. Sort of. And among saber tooth tigers. The long extinct cats gave up their gender equality secret: They were roughly the same body and tooth size, offering excellent evidence that in life, they did not operate, say, as modern lions might with big bodied males dominating smaller females and operating in prides. The saber tooths, the study suggests, had a more equal male-female thing going on back in the day, the research suggests. Meow.

X-ray, other analysis shows male-female size similarity of extinct saber tooth tigers

From USC

Hey, for some folks, the leotard-clad Richard Simmons does the trick, and popular electronic games have proven that they can get couch potatoes up and moving for exercises of a sort. But can hunks of metal get grandma and grandpa moving and shakin their stuff? A Trojan researcher will try to find out under a new grant whether 70 volunteer subjects, 20 of whom are 60 or older, will be more motivated to exercise in response to a specially developed robot, um, in person and in the metal, as opposed to just watching the nifty engineered character on a video. "Socially assistive robotics" already had developed systems to help human caregivers with autistic children or adult stroke victims. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will test them as part of a nine-grant, $1.85 million program that also will include studies of health-related technologies that include electronic floor pads that aim to get participants to get up and dance or cell-phones equipped with breath-testers to help smokers snuff out their bad habit. Yes, the video of the robot has appeared here before but since it’s the core element of the grant, an encore appearance:

New grant will let experts learn how well robot gets couch potatoes up and exercising

This will be a weekend of cinematic celebration of works from the Land of the Morning Calm, as the folks in Orange have embarked on a major global outreach and snagged a partnership resulting in the new Pusan West Film Festival. That deal with one of Asia’s more significant movie showcases, which is highly popular among the young in the Far East and spotlights new films and first-time directors, will bring a dozen Korean films for three days of screenings. Prominent filmmakers from Korea also have been invited to Southern California and there will be special honors for director Park Chan-wook, who is well-known for his popular works that display his careful eye and a brutal subject matter. He also will conduct a master class.

New partnership with Pusan International Film Festival brings top Korean talent west

Said it before. Worth saying again: Los Angeles is a great visual capital of the planet and there’s plenty of proof around with photography of motion, grace and history on exhibit:

In Little Tokyo, there will be a Saturday afternoon reception and signing of a new book that chronicles the war-time work of a major but unsung figure in the chronicling Japanese-American life: photographer Hikaru Carl Iwasaki. He’s the lone shooter still alive and was the only Nikkei photographer involved in the peculiar push by the U.S. government to persuade the country to re-accept Japanese-Americans after they were unjustly interned during World War II. He was sent nationwide to document ordinary, even plebian life but managed, as author-scholar Lane Ryo Hirabayshi (he of the Asian American Studies program at UCLA) argues, to elevate that effort and to capture a bittersweet and fleeting glimpse of an ugly part of American history. Iwasaki joined in this post-war public relations push after also documenting the internment, working alongside more acknowledged photographers like Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. At a time when the posts made them princes of the photo world, he went on to be a bureau chief for the now defunct Life Magazine and then a colleague at Sports Illustrated of shooters like Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer (see below). The reception and book signing is free and open to the public with museum admission.

*He’s also a Denverite, the dad of my best friend from childhood onward.  

A visual recollection of the World War II internment’s aftermath

In West Los Angeles, two, side-by-side exhibitions recapture the painful and poignant path, the "Road to Freedom," pursued by African Americans to win civil rights in the U.S. from 1956 to 1968. More than 35 photographers contributed the 170 displayed works, some of which never have been shown before and all of which are supplemented with recordings of speeches and music, as well as archival documents and artifacts that aim to put in context what amounted to arguably one of the most important movements of the 20th Century. In a companion display, photographer Eric Etheridge captures 40 key figures from the civil rights movement, documenting how they looked then and in portraits of them as seniors.

‘Road to Freedom,’ exhibit of top photos of civil rights movement, opens

‘Breach of Peace’ portrays civil rights leaders then and now

Before there was 24/7 cable TV, HDTV, slow mo, instant replay and the
array of modern technologies that dominate the displays of modern
athletics, the thrill of sports and the exulation in victory or the
grief of defeat all got caught — or it didn’t — depending on the
immaculate skills and talents of a determined cadre of shooters. In
particular, the photographers of Sports llustrated raised the act of
chronicling popular pasttimes into art, as is shown in the Century City
display of the always arresting work of Walter Ioos and Neil Leifer.
This display not only captures the breadth, depth and quality of their
joyous labors, it also uses technology to transport sports nuts back to
the mesmerizing moments that have made fun and competition a cornerstone
of contemporary life. The exhibit is available for viewing online, but even the best monitor fails to do justice to these terrific photos.

Photo: Muhammad Ali / Neil Leifer

Sports as art: the work of Walter Iooss, Neil Leifer