why wy?

good old new paper has an interesting story about a 2000-year-old date palm growing again, there's a sense of hope in that something practically fossilised can grow again.
The bbc has beethoven on tap - ok, for download - today, and more files in a fortnight I think.
Head to boing boing for pictures of a urinal too pretty to piss in, and animated fish developing emergent behaviour. On my way to school today, I saw a flock of birds just flying in circles. It was amazing, the way the light glinted off them and made them disappear at certain angles, and then they reappeared.
And one of the best star wars comments comes from a seven year old, on watching the old trilogy for the first time:
"So, does this mean that R2-D2 is really the main character in Star Wars?"