Ice Age

Hockey's roots in Southern California stretch back decades before Wayne Gretzky glamorized the game or the first Mighty Duck quacked in Anaheim. In "Hockey Night in Hollywood," Willie Runquist traced the first organized game here to Feb. 23, 1925, when the Los Angeles Athletic Club defeated the Los Angeles Monarchs, 3-1, at the Palais de Glace, at Melrose and Vermont avenues. Artificial ice there and later in Paramount started a wave of enthusiasm for hockey.

A plant that was frozen in Siberian permafrost for about 30,000 years has been revived by a team of Russian scientists - and borne fruit, to boot. Using tissue from immature fruits buried in fossil squirrel burrows some 90 feet below the surface, researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Pushchino managed to coax the frozen remains of a Silene stenophylla specimen into full flower, producing delicate white blooms and then fruit. The findings, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe what is a record for reviving presumably dead plant tissue - and may provide clues as to what makes some plants hardier and longer-lived than others.

'Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas' Where: Fox When: 8 p.m. Thursday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)

'Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas' Where: Fox When: 8 p.m. Thursday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)

There are so many things going on in "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," what with Scrat getting a girlfriend, Ellie about to deliver a mini-mammoth, Sid contemplating adoption, Diego dealing with age issues and Manny worried about everything, to say nothing of the huge tropical world of dinosaurs that they've just discovered under the ice, you'd think the movie would zoom by in a Paleozoic flash.

A plant that was frozen in Siberian permafrost for about 30,000 years has been revived by a team of Russian scientists - and borne fruit, to boot. Using tissue from immature fruits buried in fossil squirrel burrows some 90 feet below the surface, researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Pushchino managed to coax the frozen remains of a Silene stenophylla specimen into full flower, producing delicate white blooms and then fruit. The findings, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describe what is a record for reviving presumably dead plant tissue - and may provide clues as to what makes some plants hardier and longer-lived than others.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 20th Century Fox, $29.98/$34.98; Blu-ray, $39.99 At times, this third go-round for the prehistoric mammals of the "Ice Age" franchise feels like a sitcom nearing the end of its run. Some characters are settling down and starting families, others are feeling jealous and shut out . . . it's all a bit of a bummer for a kid flick. The movie improves, though, once the titular giant reptiles show up and the "Ice Age" crew discovers a lost world below the ice. The special edition DVD and Blu-ray come loaded with extras, including a commentary track, deleted scenes, interviews with the voice talent and bonus shorts featuring the slapstick character Scrat.

The skull of an ice age giant ground sloth was recently uncovered at a construction site in Riverside County and could be headed for display at the San Bernardino County Museum. The bones dating back 1.8 million years were discovered Nov. 18 on the site of a future Southern California Edison substation as earthmovers flattened the land in a hilly area west of Beaumont, said Rick Greenwood, director of Edison's environment health and safety division. Work in the area was immediately halted.

America's birthday had Hollywood looking overseas as "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" earned more in its international opening than it and "Public Enemies," the weekend's other new film, combined did at home. Twentieth Century Fox's animated feature sold a studio-estimated $148 million in tickets through Sunday in the 101 foreign countries where it launched Wednesday. Given the film's budget of about $90 million, that's an impressive start even before including the more modest $67.

During the last ice age, 25,000 years ago, a man — or woman — painted spotted horses on the walls of caves at what is now Pech Merle, France. Scholars still argue about why. Did this prehistoric Picasso paint in order to faithfully depict his surroundings? Or did he work for some other purpose, perhaps creative or religious? Did spotty horses even exist back then? Until now, researchers had generally thought that wild horses of the period were solid black or bay. Now a new genetic analysis shows otherwise — suggesting that the ancient painter was taking little artistic license.

Christmas loves a franchise — any already beloved thing that it can dress in tinsel and holly or wrap itself around like mistletoe. This year, as every year, it will be especially (and extra-specially) Christmas on television, where most every sitcom and cartoon — and even the odd drama or two — will nod in sincerity or in irony toward the season and its rites and sentiments. And then there are the Christmas specials, which aim to be so especially extra-special that they will be asked perpetually to return in Christmases future.

During the last ice age, 25,000 years ago, a man — or woman — painted spotted horses on the walls of caves at what is now Pech Merle, France. Scholars still argue about why. Did this prehistoric Picasso paint in order to faithfully depict his surroundings? Or did he work for some other purpose, perhaps creative or religious? Did spotty horses even exist back then? Until now, researchers had generally thought that wild horses of the period were solid black or bay. Now a new genetic analysis shows otherwise — suggesting that the ancient painter was taking little artistic license.

Searching across the Tibetan plateau, paleontologists have discovered a species of woolly rhinoceros that may be an ancestor of the great ice age beasts that roamed the plains of North America, Europe and Asia. The Coelodonta thibetana fossil dates to about 3.7 million years ago, about a million years before other known woolly rhinos. The findings, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science , lead researchers to believe that before the ice age began, the chilly Tibetan highlands may have served as an evolutionary cradle for cold-hardy mammals whose descendants thrived in the glacial times that followed.

The next 11-year cycle of increased sunspot activity, scheduled to begin around 2020, may be delayed for a couple of years and have a reduced magnitude — or it may not occur at all, researchers said Tuesday. Three different lines of evidence suggest that the sun, which is expected to reach its maximum sunspot and magnetic activity in the current cycle sometime in 2013, might even enter a prolonged quiet period similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, a 70-year stretch from 1645 to 1715 in which virtually no sunspots were observed.

"Rio," a 3-D animated film about tropical birds, should soar to the top of the box office this weekend. The movie, with feathered protagonists voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway, is expected to gross $35 million to $40 million in its first weekend, according to people who have seen pre-release audience surveys. The weekend's other new wide release, the horror film "Scream 4," is likely to collect about $27million. "Rio," the latest release from 20th Century Fox-owned animation company Blue Sky Studios, cost about $90 million to produce after tax incentives.

For Universal Pictures, all it took was some puny yellow minions to tackle the giants of animation. The studio's movie "Despicable Me," about a villain who enlists an army of yapping subordinates to assist in his nefarious deeds, has racked up $118.4 million in 10 days at the box office, granting Universal something that has long eluded it: a family-friendly animated blockbuster. Such a windfall represents a turning point for the General Electric Co.-owned studio, which has lagged behind rivals Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios in establishing a foothold in the increasingly popular genre of digitally animated movies.

20th Century Fox's high-profile stare-down with exhibitors over who would pay for digital 3-D glasses to go with "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" has been settled. But the issues underlying the dispute will almost certainly flare up again. Fox, which had initially threatened to make theater owners bear the costs, has agreed to pick up the tab, according to several people familiar with the matter. The glasses are supplied by RealD, a Beverly Hills company that provides 3-D technology to theaters.

"Ice Age," an animated tale set in prehistoric times about a saber-toothed tiger, a sloth and a wooly mammoth who team up to return a human baby to his parents, easily froze out the competition by debuting with $46.3 million--the best March opening of any film and the third-best animated opening ever behind "Monsters, Inc." and "Toy Story 2."

Russians love Shrek. And Russians love the acorn-obsessed squirrel Scrat from "Ice Age." But Russians aren't showing a lot of love for Buzz and Woody. "Toy Story 3," released June 18, has been a blockbuster success in the U.S. and most of the other countries where it has opened, racking up $244 million in ticket sales domestically and more than $100 million in foreign nations, including more than $34 million in Mexico. But the Pixar Animation Studios sequel has posted surprisingly frigid box-office results in Russia, one of the hottest international markets for movies, especially for animated films.

Zorro leaves his mark at mission Zorro, the legendary masked crusader who pulled off Robin Hood-like deeds in Old California with the flick of his sword, has returned to his old haunt. A new exhibit at Mission San Juan Capistrano highlights many famous Zorros — Douglas Fairbanks, Tyrone Power, Guy Williams and, most recently, Antonio Banderas — with costumes and props from films and the vintage TV serial. Also on display is the original "pitch book" that persuaded Walt Disney to produce the TV show based on the Zorro character.