According to the Guardian, Bonnie Wright will be on the judging panel for the Observer Ethical awards. The awards present prizes in various categories, some are decided by public vote and others by the judging panel.
Readers will vote on Best Local Retailer, Best Online Retailer, Campaigner of the Year and Politician of the Year. Bonnie and the other judges will decide who wins Ethical Kids, Big Idea, Conservation Project, Grassroots Project, Ethical Business and Fashion & Accessories.
The ceremony will take sometime in June and it is unknown whether Bonnie will attend the actual event.
A new promo video for the 20th season of The Simpsons has made it’s way online. It has a clip of Dan in the recording studio saying how much of an influence The Simpsons had on his life.
As I’ve reported in the past, invisibility cloaks could become a reality in the future. There is another new article online today.
In the absence of a magnetic field, such nanoparticles would simply float around in the water, but if a field were introduced, the particles would self-assemble into chains whose lengths depend on the strength of the field, and which can also attract one another to form thicker columns.
The chains and columns would lie along the direction of the magnetic field. If they were oriented vertically in a pool of water, light striking the surface would refract negatively – bent in way that no natural material can manage.
This property could be exploited for invisibility devices, directing light around an object so that it appears as if nothing is there, or be put to use in lenses that could capture finer details than any optical microscope.
Matt and Tom Felton participated in an interview that aired yesterday on BBC Radio One, can be heard in the middle of the show from 1:06 to 1:17, via the BBC iPlayer.
Here are some snippets:
Tom Felton: We’ve only shot certain parts of [“Deathly Hallows”], so it is actually impossible to say what to look forward to because we haven’t done half of it, but I know the nice thing from a lot of people’s perspective is that usually – well, for the last ten years – we’ve left it “dot dot dot,” to be continued, whereas now, finally, they have the ability to say, “right, this is it, this is the ending.” I hate to say it, but people are dying around you, and it’s something that hasn’t happened in the last ten years of school and now, all of a sudden, you’ve got all these characters that have been there for nine years who are no longer there. […] The severity of the whole thing’s kicked up a notch.
Matt Lewis: There’s no fat suit this year, that much I can tell you. They got rid of the fat suit and it’s good for Neville this year, actually. Again, I’m not going to give too much away, but we’ve had some really cool stuff. The set’s kind of like a set from “Saving Private Ryan” that we’re working on, like D-Day.
Tom Felton: It’s epic and again, without revealing too much, Matt has some fantastic stuff. It’s heroic, I’d even go as far as saying it’s heroic. Heroic and even iconic.
Scholastic has posted a new interview with James and Oliver Phelps, who play Fred and George Weasley.
Q: In the films you guys speak in unison. Does that ever happen in real life?
James: It kind of came across because of that. In the films that happened because Oliver said something and I just cut him up to carry on pretty much exactly what he was saying. And Alfonso [the director of Prisoner of Azkaban] said, “I like that. Let’s put it in.” So he literally got the script, crossed a load out and mixed it all up and it came from there. So I guess we do. I don’t know why. Probably been around each other too much.
Q: Have you managed to take any of the props as souvenirs?
Oliver: A few may have found their way into my bag. We were on tour for the Half-Blood Prince and I was going through one airport. I took my laptop out of my bag and I found a puking pastie. And the [security] dude who was working was like, “What’s that?” And I was like, “. . . puking pastie?” And he says, “What does that do?” “It makes you sick.” “Why have you got that?” And I said, “You’re not gonna believe me if I told you.”
Q: Can you tell us any secrets about some of the stars in the film?
Oliver: [laughs] I think Rupert’s [Rupert Grint who plays Ron Weasley] math skills are something to be desired, especially if you’re playing him at a sport. We play a lot of golf and table tennis, and it’s amazing when you finish playing a hole of golf. “It was six Rupe.” And he’ll say, “No it was a four. It was a four!” And he’ll start inventing new rules like, “Oh I’m allowed to throw off the tee on every nine holes,” or something. James: Alan Rickman [who plays Severus Snape] his deep voice and everything and the kind of character he plays, you’re quite intimidated. But he’s such an outgoing and funny guy!
