Brothers And Sisters

A month after Zac Sunderland, at 17, became the youngest person to sail around the world by himself, his younger sister has announced plans to try to break that record. Abby Sunderland, who will turn 16 in October, is hoping to embark on a nonstop, unassisted voyage in November aboard a 40-foot cruising vessel, and complete the trip in about six months. First, however, she will have to land a sponsor to help cover the $350,000 cost of the odyssey. "I've been wanting to do this since I was 13, and when I was 13 there was nobody doing this," she told the Associated Press.

Joe Shipp is speaking almost 15,000 miles from his home in Los Angeles and about as far from the Pacific 10 Conference basketball drama as a man can get. Shipp, 27, is playing for the Perth Wildcats in Australia's National Basketball League. He is playing so far from home because of his love of basketball more than for the money and the pace of his voice quickens and his low tone suddenly resonates when he speaks of a game that will take place tonight in Tempe, Ariz.

CINCINNATI -- Thirty-five minutes after workouts are finished -- and the vast majority of his teammates have departed the Cincinnati Bengals practice field -- Carson Palmer continues throwing to his young receivers. They're rookies, so, at times, Palmer actually must coach them. Here's how you run a route, he might say. Here's how you catch the pass I'm throwing. Here's how we do things in Cincinnati. Across the field, Jordan Palmer is working just as hard.

LAS VEGAS -- This week Antonio Margarito had a long talk with his brother, as he does before every big fight. The two boxers chatted about everything and nothing, the way close brothers do when one's scared and the other's worried. And there'd be nothing unusual about any of this if not for the fact that Antonio Margarito's brother Manuel has been dead for eight years, shot in the back of the head in his Tijuana home. "I'm always thinking of him," Margarito said.

Mark Gold, the esteemed marine scientist and president of Heal the Bay, knew it was only a matter of time before his older brother, Jonathan Gold, the equally esteemed Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, would pick up a set of chopsticks and commit the ultimate act of fraternal betrayal. "From his perspective, if you've already eaten Jamaican goat penis, what's wrong with whale?" Mark asked.

Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said last week they have discovered why in a find that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory. The instinct evolved naturally and cannot be taught, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of UC Santa Barbara wrote in their report in the journal Nature. They tested 600 volunteers, asking them all sorts of questions jumbled together so they would not know what was being studied.

The parents of Rafael and Juan Manuel Marquez were no different from most in their lesson giving: Say your prayers, resist the dead end of gangs and drugs, think positive. The difference was getting that message to stick in the poor Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa, where the brothers navigated violent streets surrounded by gang members, drug dealers and other "bad people," as Juan Manuel called them.

Susan Diamond and her older brother Jared have been part of the intellectual and cultural scene in Los Angeles for decades. He's the much-admired geography professor at UCLA and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Guns, Germs and Steel." She's the veteran journalist who's better known as the former Los Angeles Times consumer reporter S.J. Diamond. Now Susan Diamond has written a crime novel, "What Goes Around," just published by William Morrow.

OWEN WILSON'S Australian cattle dog, Garcia, is happily curled up around the actor's feet. Under normal circumstances, such a picture of familial bliss would suggest that all is right with the world. But on this sunny Santa Monica afternoon, Wilson's feet are firmly planted beneath a table at the Huntley Hotel's Penthouse restaurant. And, apparently, even movie stars don't get to take their dogs to lunch. "You want me to take the dog away?"

When a team wins the Stanley Cup, tradition calls for the captain to accept the historic silver trophy, hold it aloft and skate down the ice in a victory procession. But when Scott Niedermayer did the honors after leading the Ducks to a clinching victory over the Ottawa Senators at the Honda Center on Wednesday, he decided to break with tradition. Niedermayer handed the Cup to his brother and teammate, Rob, to start the parade. At which point, Scott got a little misty-eyed. Rob downright cried.