Can SXSW deliver big break?

In the frenzy of South by Southwest, even standouts like The Flaming Lips feel the need to stand out. Now consider that problem while surveying the 2200 mostly unknown bands packing Austin for the marquee week of the trendy festival that blends the famous and nameless, headlined this year by Green Day, Dave Grohl, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks and Snoop Lion (perhaps still better known as Snoop Dogg).

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Why Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Needs Saving

Shark humor has its time and place, but not when I’m snorkeling somewhere called Shark Bay. At the Heron Island Research Station, a laboratory on the teardrop-shaped atoll 45 miles off Australia’s east coast, the suntanned, chirpy station manager gives a parting wave to the three students who are taking me out for my first look at the legendary corals of the Great Barrier Reef

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