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Seducing the Demon, the latest book by novelist Erica Jong, received a bad review in The New York Times this past Sunday. In the past, Jong says she would have curled up in bed and thought about changing careers. But now she says that perhaps she could learn something from a critic's harsh words.

At least four emergency air packs issued at the Sago Mine failed to function, says West Virginia coal miner Randal McCloy. The lone survivor of the Jan. 2 disaster, in which 12 miners died, detailed the failures in a letter to the families of those who died after an explosion trapped them underground.

In the 1970s, Gwen Roland decided to live off the land — and water — in the Louisiana swamp. She and her partner lived on a houseboat they built themselves; they had no electricity and no running water. Roland chronicles those years in her book Atchafalaya Houseboat.

Leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Commitee are proposing that the Federal Emergency Management Agency be eliminated. After investigating the response to Hurricane Katrina, the committee releases a draft report recommending the creation of a new National Preparedness and Response Authority to replace FEMA.

A new National Academy of Sciences report finds that transportation accidents involving nuclear waste pose minimal risks. The academy recommends further study of scenarios involving long-duration fires or terrorist attack, and it points out another issue the government needs to address: public fear.

Experts confirm that a cluster of trees found by a scientist hiking near Pine Mountain, Ga., are in fact American chestnut trees. But researchers say they have no idea how the trees escaped a blight in the early 1900s, which experts thought had wiped out the entire U.S. population of the trees.

As a child, Jane Hamill thought Barbie was the ultimate in cool. Now a fashion designer in Chicago, Hamill realizes her belief in a doll was a belief in her own skills, creativity and ability to succeed.

Ninety percent of Netflix customers get their DVDs within a day of shipping. But a move by Netflix to thwart its own seamless system to save money on high-volume customers has landed the rental firm in court.

The life of Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei has inspired a musical work. "The Starry Messenger," composed by Glenn McClure, debuts Saturday night in upstate New York. The project was inspired by Dava Sobel's book Galileo's Daughter.

Michele Norris says she's had enough of chatty dolls, singing globes and anything else with a talking microchip. All those annoying playthings make her wonder: Why are toys so loud?