KATMANDU, Nepal — A man who is only 22 inches tall left his home country of Nepal on Sunday in a quest to be recognized as the world’s shortest man.
Khagendra Thapa Magar is traveling to Europe to campaign for the Guinness World Record title. He applied to London-based group for a place in the record book in October, soon after turning 18, but said he has not received any response.
Magar’s family initially filed a claim when he was 14, but it was rejected because he was not an adult and there was a chance he might grow.
They say doctors in Nepal have not been able to explain why Magar is so small.
The current record is held by He Pingping of China, who is 29 inches tall.
Motion picture academy honors filmmaking ‘nerds’
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Forty-five men you’ve probably never heard of were honored with an Academy Awards ceremony of their own that recognized scientific and technical achievements in moviemaking.
The engineers behind the latest in ambient occlusion, digital intermediate processing, sub-pixel offsets and micro-positioning platforms were celebrated at a Saturday night gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and hosted by a very unscientific Elizabeth Banks.
The 36-year-old actress joked that she would “read — yet not fully understand — our journey through the scientific and technical awards.”
Wearing a sparkling white gown and standing in front of four giant Oscar statues, Banks presented 15 plaques and certificates to scientists from Germany, Sweden, Austria, England, New Zealand, Hungary, Denmark, Japan and the United States.
The men were honored for developing systems to improve color on film, advancing performance-capture technology, creating new means to light actors in computer-generated scenes and building high-tech scanners used in modern filmmaking.
Banks called the Sci-Tech ceremony “a great reminder of everything that goes into the finished product we see in movie theaters.”
‘Hurt Locker’ takes six prizes at UK film awards
LONDON — Britain’s love of the underdog triumphed Sunday as intimate war drama “The Hurt Locker” beat 3D spectacular “Avatar” to take six prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards.
Kathryn Bigelow won the best-director battle with James Cameron, her ex-husband and director of “Avatar,” for her intense depiction of a bomb-disposal squad in Iraq.
“It means so much that this film seems to be touching people’s hearts and minds,” Bigelow said.
Both films had eight nominations for the British awards, considered an indicator of possible success at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles next month. “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” have nine Oscar nominations each.
“Avatar” won awards for production design and visual effects for its vivid vision of a distant moon populated by a blue-skinned species called the Na’vi.
