There really isn't anything specific you can do to acclimate to substandard air quality," said Darryl Seibel of the US Olympic Committee. "From a training point of view, there's nothing we've found that an athlete can do without risking their health and well-being."

The US teams expect Beijing's air to reach a "safe and suitable standard for elite competition," Seibel said in a telephone interview from Colorado Springs, Colorado, home of the US Olympic Training Center. He did not think athletes would need to wear activated carbon filtration masks, as US coaches advised in a newsletter article in 2006, and as US triathletes did on a visit to China last year.

But he did not rule anything out. "Until we arrive at the games in August, there's no way to predict what the air quality will be."

It is likely to be hot and humid.

City paramedic bike team to receive grant tomorrow

The Baltimore Fire Department is receiving tomorrow a $7,125 grant to help support the agency's paramedic bicycle team, the city announced today. Money will be used for portable radios.

The bicycle team was established in 1999 after celebrations at the Inner Harbor drew tens of thousands of spectators and made it difficult for bigger ambulances to reach people in need.

"As the number of large city events increases, so has demand for Bike Team services," Acting Fire Chief Gregory Ward said in a statement. This year, the bike team is assigned to 11 downtown events expected to draw a total 1.5 million people.

The name says it all – Justin Kredible performing in St. Louis

Justin Kredible's vigorous mix of comedy and magic has quickly established him as one of America's premiere performers. As a regular guest on the 'Rachael Ray' show and a crowd favorite at colleges and events around the country Justin lives up to his recent title of "Entertainer of the Year 2007" from Campus Activities Magazine.

Justin began performing at the age of twelve.

Photographer combines unlike elements for surprising results

The artist also lobbies for "an amazing bird or spider, monkey or shark, jaguar or deer" to spice up her work.Reading those online shout-outs is enough to intrigue most art lovers. But the elements are made all the more powerful in Small's work as she combines the mundane and the magnificent in her engrossing photos."Usually how a picture comes to be is that I'll find two different subjects that are very distant from each other and every separate," said the artist. "I just decide that I want to put them in the same space and see what happens."Cedar Valley residents can check out the results of those quirky unions starting Monday at Wartburg College's Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery in Wartburg. We guarantee it's the only photo show in town to highlight a nude ballet dancer prancing through the living room of an elderly woman.

Literary arts: Solid foundation laid

For anyone desirous of a single volume for the study of Emancipation in Jamaican history, there is currently no better book. Thirteen 'heavyweight' intellectuals tackle the subject and yet there is no significant overlap. Indeed, every contribution enriches the reader.

Emancipation is the watershed experience of Jamaica as a slave society for centuries. Political independence is secondary because freedom is first for fulfilment of meaningfulness in life. What 1962 meant in essence was that the achieving of meaningful living became ours to decide and shape and achieve.

Rupert Lewis says this beautifully as he concludes his excellent exposition of Garvey's words immortalised lyrically by Marley: 'Emancipate yourself from mental slavery'. Lewis makes it clear that "issues of justice and economic opportunities for our people ...

Clinton lacked coherent game plan for after Super Tuesday

I also believe Obama takes himself a little too seriously and has a difficult time acknowledging his vulnerabilties. I view him as extremly righteous compared to Hillary and if Obama wins the nomination he will internalize these hard hits poorly.

Curt Cavin: IRL & Formula One Q&A

But as you know, the only path for oval-track Americans now is NASCAR, and that pains a lot of us.

Question: Any further news on Jon Herb? I heard he planned to race on at least four ovals for his Racing Professionals team. (Matt Fryer, Leeds, UK).
Answer: I havent spoken with Jon in a while, but IRL officials expect him to run a limited Indy-car schedule this season.

Question: Im curious as to how you think Juan Montoya is going to do this year. It seems no one wants to really talk about him, but for the first time since the first Brickyard 400, I'm interested in a NASCAR story. He won in CART against all the big names, trounced the Indy field in his only start, and won the Monaco GP which Mario Andretti could never do. I've picked him to win Daytona (if they don't shove him into the wall) and I think he'll win in his first year.

An artist's conception of BepiColumbo in orbit around Mercury

Few space propulsion technologies have generated as much recent interest as the ion engine. This weekend, the ESA announced it will it an advanced ion thruster to propel an upcoming probe to study the planet Mercury. The mission is named BepiColumbo after Giuseppe Columbo, a pioneering scientist in the study of Mercury. It will launch in 2013 and arrive six years later. BepiColumbo will be the ESA's first mission to the hot regions of the solar system well inside the Earth's orbit. While approaching Mercury, the spacecraft will have to endure extremely hot temperatures on its sun-facing side, and extremely cold temperatures on the side facing away from the sun. One of the primary goals of the mission is to discover whether pockets of water ice exist on Mercury's cold, shadowed side. The ion engine will be built by Astrium, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS).

Now you see it, now you don't

In 1927, the German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle that bears his name. The principle, when translated from physics into English, states that the very process of observing and measuring something changes it, thereby making its accurate measurement ultimately impossible.Consider the profundity of this. OK, done with profundity? Now let's consider television.HBO recently launched a new series called "In Treatment" that seeks to re-create a therapist's actual therapy sessions with the patients that he sees over the course of a week. This is the American version of the show that is a huge hit in Israel. If you lived in a tiny country surrounded by nations who hated you, you'd love therapy too.Psychotherapy is the epitome of a private act. It occurs behind closed doors with no witnesses other than the principals themselves.