In a dimly lit back room on the second level of the University of Michigan library's book-shelving department, Courtney Mitchel helped a giant desktop machine digest a rare, centuries-old Bible.

Mitchel is among hundreds of librarians from Minnesota to England making digital versions of the most fragile of the books to be included in Google Inc.'s Book Search, a portal that will eventually lead users to all the estimated 50 million to 100 million books in the world.

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With a war raging in Iraq, gas prices going through the roof and the middle class sliding into oblivion, it may seem silly to get worked up over something like octopus twirling. But I know darn good and well that once they take away our right to twirl an octopus, next they’ll be coming for our guns.

So to recap, NHL Commissioner Gay Bettman has said that Red Wings Zamboni guy Al Sobotka will be fined $10,000 if he twirls over his head the octopi that fans toss onto the ice during hockey games at the Joe Louis Arena. The reason, according to NHL spokesman Frank Brown as reported in the Free Press, “matter flies off the octopus and gets on the ice when he does it.” So I decided to put the “matter” matter to the test to see how much, if any, matter flies off a twirled octopus.

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The term “going green” is a common one in motorsports vernacular used to indicate the official start of racing, but the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix is taking it to a whole new level in 2008.

With momentum building for the August 29-31 celebration of family fun and world-class racing on Belle Isle, the Grand Prix isn’t just preparing for the roar of high-performance engines on Labor Day weekend.

Through many of its official partners, including the actual racing leagues competing on Belle Isle -- the American Le Mans Series, the IndyCar Series and the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship, new to the event in 2008 -- the Grand Prix is ready to “go green” like never before with a number of ecologically-friendly initiatives.

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Judging by the turnout Wednesday at the second annual Multicultural Technology and Emerging Sectors Career Fair, experts fear that candidates for tech work in the region are either unskilled, discouraged or just plain gone.

In its first year, 2007, the event in the city's Tech Town district drew 600 job-seekers. But this year, it attracted only about half that number, signaling to organizers and labor experts that Michigan workers have lost hope and quit looking for jobs, don't have the skills they need for high-tech positions or simply have left the state.

"I'm disappointed," organizer Al Berro. "It seems job-seekers have lost hope in Michigan and Detroit. It's like a virus; it's spreading."

Continue reading: The Detroit News

The Detroit River run is legendary among America’s walleye anglers, the kind of place they feature on those Saturday morning, don’t-you-wish-you-could-fish-there TV shows. It’s one of three or four places in North America where an angler who fishes for a week has a realistic chance of catching a 10-pound trophy whose weight would equal a six-fish stringer in most of the country.

Continue reading: freep.com

Also over at the freep:
Fishing for big walleye - Video

Walleye fishing on the Detroit River - Photo Gallery

State government has temporarily pulled out of a federal student loan program because of the credit crunch, ending some benefits for the tens of thousands of students who use the program.

Michigan officially suspended its participation in the Federal Family Education Loan Program on Monday, according to a notice posted on the state Treasury Department's Web site. It already had suspended offering new loans through the Michigan Alternative Student Loan Program, or MI-LOAN.

More than 100 plant agriculture research projects will share nearly $2.5 million in grant funding from Project GREEEN, Michigan’s plant agriculture initiative at Michigan State University (MSU), for fiscal year 2008.

Project GREEEN (Generating Research and Extension to meet Economic and Environmental Needs) is a cooperative effort between plant-based commodities and businesses together with the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, MSU Extension and the Michigan Department of Agriculture to advance Michigan’s economy through its plant-based agriculture.

Continue reading: GRAINNET.com

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the federal government should have authority for now over a Lake Michigan shipwreck that could be the Griffin, a 17th-Century vessel built by the French explorer La Salle.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed a ruling by District Judge Robert Holmes Bell in a dispute between the State of Michigan and the private underwater exploration company that found the wreckage seven years ago.

Continue reading: The Freep.com

It took all of one game into these NBA playoffs for the psychoanalysis of Rasheed Wallace to become a predominant storyline.

In the 2007 East finals, Wallace’s anger management issues were at the heart of the discussion. So it speaks to his unique personality that very next year it’s Wallace curious, almost chummy, demeanor with the Philadelphia 76ers that has piqued the media’s curiosity.

Continue reading: nba.com

Clint Eastwood's next movie will be filmed in Michigan this summer.

The plan was to shoot the film in Minnesota, but Michigan offers better financial incentives - a 40 percent rebate on production costs with an unlimited cap compared to a 15 percent rebate with a $600,000 cap each year.

Continue reading: WOODTV.com

With the awarding of a demolition contract today by the city, the debate over old Tiger Stadium is shifting to whether to knock down all of the historic ballpark or to save a corner of it.

At the very least, a demolition team is likely to start razing about 75% of the ballpark in May or June, as soon as the contract approved today is signed and the contractors get their effort in place.

But Corktown neighborhood activists pleaded today for more time to raise money for their plan to save a dugout-to-dugout corner of the stadium as a community center and museum.

Continue reading: The Detroit Free Press

Let's face it: Concerts aren't typically what you would consider eco-friendly.

From the gasoline used to transport truckloads of gear between tour stops to the beer cups and flyers that litter the ground at a concert's end, the only "green" usually associated with the concert experience is that funny smell wafting from the guy behind you during the show's climactic guitar solo.

This summer's inaugural Rothbury festival, July 3-6 at the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, Mich., is aiming to change that.

The fest's goal is to create near zero waste, and the festival's organizers are tackling that momentous task by rethinking everything from concert banners to food trays to the transportation of goods in and out of the festival grounds.

Continue reading: The Detroit News

Bioscience company MPI Research will create 3,300 new, Kalamazoo-area jobs - including at least 400 in downtown Kalamazoo - during the next five years, the company announced Tuesday.

In the largest, single job-creation announcement in Southwest Michigan in decades, MPI said it is planning to invest $330 million in new capital in a deal that will breathe new life into two, downtown Kalamazoo Pfizer Inc. buildings that might otherwise have been demolished, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported.

Continue reading: Michigan Technology News

Gov. Jennifer Granholm today announced $41.6 million in state and local taxes for the cleanup of the area slated to become a thoroughbred racetrack this summer.

The money is to be used by the Wayne County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority for development of the Pinnacle Race Course, 240 acres at Interstate 275 near Sibley in Huron Township.

"This project is exciting news for Michigan's sport, entertainment and tourism industries," Granholm said in a news release. "Not only will it create jobs, it will serve as a catalyst to new growth as the Pinnacle Aeropark unfolds south of Detroit Metropolitan Airport."

continue reading: Detroit News

A nonprofit shipwreck group based in Holland says it has located the Hamilton, a two-masted schooner that sank in Lake Michigan in 1873.

Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates says it worked for a year to identify the wreckage, which was found under 275 feet of water off Saugatuck.

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About 8,000 ships have become wrecked in the Great Lakes, according to researchers, and the cold, fresh water keeps them better preserved than those found in oceans.

In West Michigan, the shipwrecks mainly came from the local traffic of lumber schooners or small passenger steamers and vessels in transit from Milwaukee or Chicago to the Straits of Mackinac, shipwreck historian and researcher Brendon Baillod said.

"Storms would tend to blow vessels ashore on the area's stretch of beach," Baillod said.

All of these shipwrecks could be part of a proposed underwater preserve, if a local group is successful in its attempt to get the area established as the West Michigan Underwater Preserve. There are 11 such preserves in Michigan.

Continue reading: mLive.com

Governor Jennifer Granholm is in Michigan's Thumb region to highlight the state's potential as a renewable energy hub.

The governor toured the state's first commercial scale wind farm on Monday.

The Harvest Wind Farm near Pigeon has 32 turbines and can make enough electricity to power more than 15,000 homes.

Continue reading: WOODTV.com