Unhappily Ever After...

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Dream Lovers: 

The Magnificent Shattered Lives 

of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee 

Image via Leo Fuchs

Every night, I hope and pray A dream lover will come my way... For a generation those words evoke memories of a happier, more innocent time, when Bobby Darin electrified America and Sandra Dee was everybody's sweetheart. When they became husband and wife, the marriage looked like the picture-perfect culmination of an American dream. But was it? 

In this intensely personal biography the son of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee goes far beyond the ordinary celebrity bio, revealing the real story behind his parents' shining image - their troubled childhoods, up-and-down careers, brief marriage, and tumultuous lives together and apart. 

Bobby Cassotto was a manic, fast-talking street kid from New York who scratched and clawed his way into the music business. But his charm was fueled by an illness that he knew would shorten his life and the secret scandal of his true mother's identity. 

Alexsandra Zuck the sweet, wispy-thin teenage model from New Jersey who seemed to rise to fame without effort. But Sandra had her own dark secrets: a lifelong obsession with food and dieting, and sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. At sixteen she had never been kissed, and found herself in love with twenty-four-year-old Bobby Darin. 

Image via Lilly Lemontree

Bobby's career was still rising as he restlessly reinvented himself from a pop crooner to an acclaimed actor, music producer, and blockbuster nightclub performer. Twelve years later Bobby was dead, Sandy was beginning a life as a Hollywood shut-in, and America was changed forever.
Now the son and only child of Hollywood's golden young couple reveals the moving truth behind the myth of his gifted, troubled parents – from Darin's career battles, womanizing, and painful secret of his illegitimate birth to Sandra Dee's tortured fight with alcoholism, anorexia, and childhood demons of her own. 

Synopsis via Barnes & Noble 

We Have the Scoop!

Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin Marry

Written by Rona Barrett for MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE – 1961 

Image via Stirred Straight up with a Twist

At 8:30 one morning, the phone rang. Bobby Darin was on the other end. He had just gotten into town from Rome where he had completed Come September for Universal-International. He sounded more excited than I'd ever heard him in the many years we'd been friends.
"Well, are you happy for me?" he cried.
"Happy about what?' I asked, and before he could answer I added, "I'm glad you called,
but why so early?"
"You mean you don't know?"
"Know what?"
"I got engaged last night – to Sandy."
The receiver almost dropped from my hand. I knew I didn't have to ask who Sandy was. She was the beautiful Sandra Dee, who for the first time in her life, had fallen in love with none other than Bobby Darin, one of the most talented, but misunderstood young men in the entertainment industry. The big romance everyone thought was just "publicity" was for real.
No one believed me during the nine weeks Come September was shooting in Italy that Darin and Dee were real a thing. I tried to convince everyone that while on the surface the two seemed to be an incongruous pair, they really had much in common and would fall for each other like a ton of bricks.
Sandra's shy, unassuming, lady-like quality was everything Bobby was looking for in a woman. They were also the qualities – along with her champagne colored hair and big brown eyes – that Bobby's mother possessed.

Mrs. Cassotto had been everything to her son Walden Robert Cassotto – a young man who considered himself a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. His mother's death on February 12, 1959 left him with an emptiness no woman could fill. And then he met Sandy.
And, while everyone imagined the darling of the cinema world, Sandra Dee, would fall in love with a typical ivy-leaguer, it was obvious to those who knew her well that it would be an "earthy" man who would be the first to conquer her heart.
It was this very quality that started their relationship off on the wrong foot. His arrogance, a word often used by the press to describe Bobby, made Sandra dislike him at first. But in true fairy-tale tradition, she fell in love with him. For the more she was with him, the more she realized that these publicity tags were nothing more than a facade and that underneath his slick surface was an extremely intelligent, humane, sincere and loving young man.
From almost the very moment he met Sandy, Bobby fell hook, line and sinker. But in the back of his mind he wondered what chance a guy like himself had with a girl like Sandra Dee – the brightest young star in Hollywood.
But if you know Bobby, you know determination and persistence are two traits he's never lost. The seemingly insurmountable odds against the romance, odds that would have discouraged many other young men, didn't stop him. He held fast. Eventually Mary Douvan, Sandra's mother, let go of her reins and their romance blossomed.
It wasn't, however, till the last week of their nine-week location in Rome that Sandra fell in love with Bobby.
"When I found out she loved me, it was one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me. Yes, we discussed marriage in rather general terms, and we knew before I left for New York that we would become engaged. We didn't know exactly when, though. Time was the most important element. I had to go to California for business reasons and Sandy wanted to stay in New York a while before she went to the Coast to do Tammy Tell Me True. It was on the plane from Rome to New York that Bobby decided to take the big step.
"When I landed at Idlewild Airport," he went on, "I went immediately to some jeweler friends and got a ring for Sandra. I didn't know when I'd give it to her, or even if she'd really accept it or what. All I knew was that I loved her and that she just had to be the girl for me. Without her, life would be meaningless."
Sandy was due to arrive in New York on Sunday, November 20th, at 5:00 p.m. Bobby had to be in Los Angeles by 9:00 a.m. on Monday for a business appointment he couldn't postpone. That meant he had to take a midnight flight from New York several hours after Sandy got back.
He cabled Sandy in Rome before she boarded her plane and told her he'd meet her at the airport with a limousine. (And of course, the ring!) That way they'd have about five hours together before Bobby's plane departed.
When Sandy arrived at Idlewild, neither she nor Bobby wanted to go back to New York City – not just yet! So Bobby asked the driver to take them for a long ride.
"In the car," said Bobby, "I was as nervous as an expectant father. I was so excited, I forgot which finger the engagement ring went on." He kept staring at Sandy's hand. Finally, he brought up the subject of rings. Unaware of what was in store for her, Sandy held out both hands and casually said the left one gets the engagement ring. Bobby looked down at her left hand. On the third finger was a diamond and pearl ring her mother had given her.
"I wondered how in the devil I'd get the other ring off her finger and get mine on. So, I asked her if I could look at her ring."
At that moment, a thought flashed through Sandy's mind – perhaps he was going to keep the pearl ring so he could find out her ring size. But she figured she was wrong when he held her hand in his, and gently slipped the ring back on her finger. For almost two minutes Sandy said nothing. Finally, Bobby took his hand away from hers and it was only then that she saw the beautiful three-and a-half carat, emerald, cut diamond.
"Oh, my God, oh, my God," gasped Sandy.
Tears sprang from her eyes and Bobby kissed her tenderly. Back at the airport, when the initial shock was over, they giggled like two little children discovering life's secret-the secret of love.
Careers -- the same careers that brought Bobby and Sandy together – brought an end to the happiest day of their lives. They kissed good-bye and the future Mrs. Darin drove off to New York City, and her mother – while Bobby flew to Hollywood.
"I'm the happiest guy in the whole world," Bobby said as he excitedly tried to fill me in on every detail when I saw him.
"I feel like a different person. So many things have happened to me, I just can't begin to tell you, Rona."
"When are you getting married?" I asked.
"We haven't thought about it. Believe me, it was the biggest step I've ever taken just giving her the engagement ring. Now that that's done, we'll see when the other will happen."
"Well, don't you have any idea?" I persisted.
"No," he said very gently, when we decide to get married, we"ll just up and do it."

Image via Born in the Wrong Decade

And that's exactly how it happened! In a surprise ceremony, Bobby and Sandra were married at 3 o'clock in the morning, on December 1, at the home of Donny and Sheila Kirshner, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They didn't plan it that way – but Bobby just looked at Sandy, and Sandy looked at Bobby and they decided it was silly to wait even one minute more! 
Don Krishner made a phone call to a close friend of his who is a judge, and who got out of bed in the middle of the night to marry them. Only a few friends were there: Don and Sheila, Dick Behrke and his wife Mickey, Ellen Lord (whose husband, comic Dick Lord, was away on tour) and Bobby's sister and brother-in-law. Right after the ceremony, the newlyweds were driven to the airport and boarded a jet  and off they flew – to Los Angeles, and to their future, together!

Text via BobbyDarin.com

Readable full-size image via Charm and Poise

In Remembrance of Sandra Dee

Image via Last FM 

 Sandra Dee, the perky blonde famous for her lead role in the teen comedy Gidget and marriage to pop singer Bobby Darin, died Sunday February 20, 2005 in Los Angeles. She was 62.
Born Alexandra Zuck on April 23, 1942 (some sources say 1944) in Bayonne, New Jersey, her parents divorced shortly after her birth and her mother primed her for a career in show business. In fact, her mother constantly lied about Dee’s age in order to give her an early start. When Dee entered second grade, at The Professional Children’s School, a school whose flexible curriculum was conducive to child performers, she was only four years of age. Dee made her modeling debut in Girl Scouts Magazine, which enabled her to eventually sign with a modeling agency.
By age 12, Dee was working on television commercials, when she was discovered by producer Ross Hunter. He had seen the young actress and thought she was well suited for the big-screen, so he convinced Universal Studios to give Dee a contract. When she was signed to her first film, Sandra Dee was the name the studio gave her.
Her film debut was in a more-modern interpretation of “Little Women” in Until They Sail (1957), as the youngest of four sisters. The young actress was then signed to two more films, cast in teen movies opposite John Saxon – the Vincent Minnelli directed romantic comedy, The Reluctant Debutante (1958) and the drama, The Restless Years (1958). Dee won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer later that year.

Dee would experience a banner year in 1959, appearing in five different movies. The beach movie, Gidget, starred Deeas a young girl who discovers surfing and love during an adventurous summer. The movie was successful in making Dee an instant favorite of audiences everywhere. Dee would light up the screen in another sweet romance, opposite teen “hunk” Troy Donahue, A Summer Place. She also played the daughter of Lana Turner in director Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, a powerful remake of the1934 Claudette Colbert movie, centered on the trials and tribulations of race-relations and mother/daughter relationships. By the end of the year, Dee was on the minds of many a teenage boy.
However, it was her romance in Italy, while shooting Come September (1961), which grabbed the most publicity. Most likely breaking few boys' hearts, she fell in love with one of her co-stars, teen singing icon Bobby Darin. After a one-month courtship, the couple married in Elizabeth, N.J., on December 1, 1960. The two later starred together in 1962’s If a Man Answers and 1965’s That Funny Feeling.
Although Universal Pictures had successfully crafted Dee into the perfect teen queen, she only appeared in one film during 1960. Universal soon saw the departure of the ever-popular Debbie Reynolds from the Tammy film franchise and Dee was requested to take over the role as the cute Tammy Tyree. But Tammy Tell Me True (1961) and Tammy and the Doctor (1963) didn't fare all that well at the box-office.
Dee was one of the top ten box-office draws during her heyday, yet she realized, ultimately, that she was not bringing the same crowds. there was a good chance sje would be dropped by Universal.
“I thought they were my friends,” she said in a 1965 interview with the AP, referring to her former bosses. “But I found out on the last picture that I was simply a piece of property to them. I begged them not to make me do it, but they insisted.”
She found herself in A Man Could Get Killed (1966), a silly jewel caper starring James Garner. With her shaky marriage to Darin dampening her teen appeal, Dee was indeed dropped by Universal. Then, Darin and Dee went separate ways in March 1967. However, he remained the love of her life long after their divorce. Dee continued to work sporadically.

Dee made an independent film Rosie! (1967), starring with Rosalind Russell, but her movie career was fading fast. In 1970, she starred with Dean Stockwell in a mediocre adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story The Dunwich Horror before deciding to call it quits.
Despite Dee’s departure from film, she found it quite amusing that the 1978 movie Grease, with its song “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” which poked fun at Dee’s wholesome personality, aided in renewing her popularity among a new generation of moviegoers.
Dee played her last film for the silver screen, in Lost (1983), but received little notoriety from critics and audiences.
Dee’s marriage to Darin was chronicled in Kevin Spacey’s devoted biopic of Darin, Beyond the Sea (2004), in which she was played by Kate Bosworth.

- John L. Gibbon

Text via Film Buff on Line 

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Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue 1959

Image via Gutbrain Records 

Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue 1999

Image via FanPop

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Largely unrelated but interesting nevertheless...

Internet Debris

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NOTHING posted here is mine! 

Internet Debris does not claim rights 

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No copyright infringement is intended.

Due to getting more of a life, from now until further notice, Internet Debris posts will be reduced to 3 per week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

- The Management

Playback: 130-year-old sounds revealed

December 15, 2011 by Dan Krotz

National Museum of American History curator Carlene Stephens examines a glass disc recording containing the audio of a male voice repeating “Mary had a little lamb” twice, made more than 100 years ago in Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Lab. 

In the early 1880s, three inventors—Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, collectively making up the Volta Laboratory Associates—brought together their creativity and expertise in a laboratory on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C., to record sound. In one experiment, Nov. 17, 1884, they recorded the word “barometer” on a glass disc with a beam of light. This disc and about 200 other experimental recordings from their laboratory were packed up for safekeeping, given to the Smithsonian and, with a few exceptions, never played again.
In 2011, scholars from three institutions — National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell — came together in a newly designed preservation laboratory at the Library of Congress to recover sound from those recordings made more than 100 years ago. Using high-resolution digital scans made from the original Volta discs, they were able to hear the word “barometer.”

• Audio file: Barometer

• Audio file: To be or not to be

• Audio file: Mary Had A Little Lamb

• Audio file: 11th day

The museum’s collection has about 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made, including the 200 from Bell’s Volta lab. A reflection of the intense competition between Bell, Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner for patents following the invention of the phonograph by Edison in 1877, these recordings, along with supporting documents, were offered to the Smithsonian by each inventor in his lifetime.Experimental physicist Carl Haber of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working in a newly designed preservation laboratory at the Library of Congress, analyzes audio extracted from Smithsonian provided recordings made more than 100 years ago in Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Lab. Photo: Rich Strauss, Smithsonian“These recordings were made using a variety of methods and materials such as rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass, as the inventors tried to find a material that would hold sound,” said Stephens. “We don’t know what is recorded, except for a few cryptic inscriptions on some of the discs and cylinders or vague notes on old catalog cards written by a Smithsonian curator decades ago.”
Now, through a collaborative project with the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the mystery of what is on these recordings is being unraveled. To date, the team has successfully submitted six discs—all experimental recordings made by the Volta Laboratory Associates between 1881 and 1885—to the sound recovery process.
The recordings in the museum’s collection are in fragile condition due to their age and experimental nature. Until now, the technology to listen to the recordings without damaging the discs and cylinders was not available. The noninvasive optical technique used in this project to scan and recover sounds was first studied by Berkeley Lab in 2002–2004 and installed at the Library of Congress in 2006 and 2009. The process creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. This map is then processed to remove evidence of wear or damage (e.g., scratches and skips). Finally, software calculates the motion of a stylus moving through the disc or cylinder’s grooves, reproducing the audio content and producing a standard digital sound file. For more information, visit http://www.irene.lbl.gov .
Recovering sound from the six Volta discs is the first step in an ongoing project to preserve and catalog the museum’s early recording collection and to provide increased access to the collection and its contents for both the academic community and the public. The content of the recordings, studied in conjunction with the innovative nature of the physical discs and cylinders, provides insight into a variety of topics—from the invention process of these well-known 19th-century labs to speech patterns of the late 19th century.
This project has been made possible with funding from a variety of sources. The National Museum of American History received a special preservation grant from the Grammy Foundation and support from the museum’s Jackson Fund. The museum is looking for additional funding to continue the examination of other recordings in its exceptional collection. The Institute of Museum and Library Services provided funding to Berkeley Lab through a grant to further develop the optical scanning technology and bring it into use in support of collections and special projects around the world.

Text and photos via PhysOrg.com

And there's more...

Team uses high-tech optical technique to pull sound from 125 year old recordings

December 28, 2011 by Bob Yirka 

  

Alexander Graham Bell

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have succeeded in using 3D optical scanning technology to effectively lift the voices from 125 year old recordings created by researchers working in Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta laboratory. The recordings were made on various media as researchers tried to improve the sound quality of Thomas Edison’s recently invented phonograph.
Bell, made famous by his invention of the telephone, was working with a team of researchers in his Volta laboratory in the 1880’s in Washington D.C. and as a precaution against having his ideas stolen by competing teams, periodically sent samples of the results of his and his team’s efforts to the Smithsonian Institute, also in Washington, for safe-keeping. Unfortunately, devices to play the recordings were not sent along as well, which meant the recordings sat unheard in storage for a century and a quarter.
Now however, thanks to a special optical scanning technique, those voices can once again be heard. Restoration specialists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell working with digital conversion specialists and museum curators, used a hardware/software system called IRENE/3D, to first take high resolution images of the spinning discs and then to remove errors introduced by damage to the discs or cylinders. They then finished by mimicking a stylus as it moved over the media, on a computer, reproducing the originally recorded voices. Using such a system, the early recordings can be played without anything actually touching the original media, which could conceivably be damaged in the process.

 Enlarge

Image credit: LBLUsing the technique, the team was able to hear human voices reciting Shakespeare, or reading from a book or newspaper. It’s not known if any of the voices heard is actually Bell, but historians believe Volta Laboratory only had three inventors: Bell, Bell’s cousin Chichester and Charles Sumner Tainter. Thus it seems possible that one or more of the voices is his.

An example of an extracted audio file.

Another attractive feature of the IRENE/3D system, which was developed at Berkley nearly a decade ago, is that it is able to scan discs made of various materials. In the case of the discs from the Smithsonian, some were made of wax, others of glass, with would have required developing unique individual players if each was to be actually played to hear what was on it.
Thus far the team has succeeded in reproducing the recordings on six discs, but have many more to work with as the Smithsonian has some 400 such discs and cylinders from Volta Laboratory and several others.

Text and photos via PhysOrg.com

Mind where you're going: Skateboard controlled by brainwaves moves wherever you think it should

Thinking of getting somewhere in a hurry? A new gadget from mobile app studio Chaotic Moon Labs proves that the future of travel is only limited by the imagination.

A skateboard, aptly named the Board Of Imagination, takes commands directly from the rider's brainwaves and transfers them to and 800-watt motor that propels the board forward.

Think of a destination, and how fast you would like to get there, and the Board Of Imagination will take off - hitting a top speed of around 30mph. If you think that's too fast, it will slow down.

Scroll down for video

Heading down the road: Chaotic Moon Labs' general manager Whurley (just Whurley) shows off the Board Of Imagination, which is controlled by the rider merely thinking about travelling

The secret is in special software in an onboard Samsung tablet with Windows 8 - and a natty headset that monitors and interprets brainwaves. Footage on Youtube of the board being put through its paces is mind-blowing.

The general manager of Chaotic Moon Labs, who refers to himself simply as Whurley, shows that he has mastered the art of thinking his way from Point A to Point B.

So far, he's the world's leading pilot of the board, but it's clear that there could be skaters thinking themselves all over the place in no time at all.

Chaotic Whurley and Chaotic Moon Labs' Philip Wheat stand behind skateboard, which has been pimped with some serious software and an on-board Samsung tablet

Mind control: Mr Wheat connects Whurley to the board via the Emotiv EPOC, a neuro-signal acquisition and processing headset. The headset wirelessly connects to software which drives an 800-watt motor

And away he goes: Whurley demonstrates the board's handling skills, seemingly taking off of its own accord and hitting respectable speeds as it is put through its paces. The tablet can be seen at the front of the board

He likens the process to imagining yourself pulling yourself along with a rope. If you 'see' the destination in your mind, and how fast you want to get there, the Board Of Imagination's gadgetry will do the rest.

The whole concept started with the perhaps hastily named Board Of Awesomeness. 

That gadget used a Samsung tablet and an adapted XBox Kinect to analyse hand movements and convert it into commands for the motor.

Power of the mind: A read-out on the portable tablet plots the rider's brainwaves and transfers them into commands for the Board Of Imagination's motor

Complex information: Whurley says calibrating the rider's brainwaves and the software is a simple - and painless - process

The new version uses a wireless Emotiv EPOC headset, a high-resolution neuro-signal acquisition and processing device. 

In an interview with CNet, Whurley explained: 'The headset sends the signals from the rider's brain to [the tablet] via a USB connector that comes with the headset. From there, software on the board interfaces with the electric motor via a "phidget", which is basically a plug-and-play, low-cost USB sensing and control unit.'

Apart from being able to balance, the only other form of training is marrying your brainwaves to the computer software.

Board Of Awesomeness! Specs for the original design, which used an XBox Kinect device to 'read' hand movements. The new Board Of Imagination scans brainwaves

Whurley said: 'the headset is trained to the rider - in this case me - so that after some practice with just a computer a profile of the way the rider "thinks" is made. That profile can then be loaded on the board. Since every brain is different, you can't really have one profile to rule them all.'

The problem with the board is that users really do have to keep their minds on the job at hand. If you start thinking about lunch, or chores you might have to do when the ride ends, the ride might end a lott sooner and more abruptly than you'd plan.

Sounding like a man speaking from painful experience, Whurley said: 'We quickly realised that we would have to find a way to handle distraction. While we did the best we can to compensate, it will always be an issue for most riders.

Text and images via The Daily Mail 

Now, something from the Cheery News Department.

Prof Stephen Hawking: 

Man faces nuclear Armageddon 

and must colonise space.

Mankind faces nuclear Armageddon and must build colonies on Mars and beyond, Stephen Hawking has said.

Professor Stephen Hawking in his office at University of Cambridge Photo: Sarah Lee/Science Museum
 By Matthew Holehouse
"It is possible the human race could become extinct but it is not inevitable. I think it is almost certain that a disaster, such as nuclear war or global warming, will befall the earth within a thousands years," Professor Hawking, the Cambridge University cosmologist and theoretical physicist said.
"It is essential that we colonise space. I believe that we will eventually establish self-sustaining colonies on Mars, and other bodies in the solar system, although probably not within the next 100 years.
"I am optimistic that progress within science and technology will eventually allow humans to spread beyond the solar system and out into the far-reaches of the universe," he said.
Professor Hawking was answering questions submitted by listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme to mark his seventieth birthday.
But if man should meet alien life on its journey into space, the consequences for humanity could be grave, Prof Hawking warned.
"The discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would be the greatest scientific discovery ever. But it would be very risky to attempt to communicate with an alien civilisation.
"If aliens decided to visit us, then the outcome might be similar to when Europeans arrived in the Americas. That did not turn out well for the Native Americans."
He said did not believe the results of the CERN experiments which appeared to show particles travelling faster than the speed of light - in defiance of the known laws of physics.
"Einstein's theory of relativity predicts that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Thus if the Opera experiment is correct, and neutrinos do travel faster than light, then relativity theory is wrong.
"However, I don't believe the Opera results, because they disagree with the detection of neutrinos from supernova SN 1987A."
Bursts of neutrinos detected in 1987 from that stellar explosion suggested neutrinos travel at the same speed of light. If CERN's experiment is correct, they would have been detected on earth years before the light from the explosion was seen on earth, physicists believe. Instead, they arrived within hours of one another.
A listener from Lagos asked Hawking, Britain's most celebrated physicist, whether there "was a time when there was nothing."
"The origin of the universe can be explained by the laws of physics, without any need for miracles or divine intervention," replied the professor, who uses a speech synthesizer due to his debilitating Motor Neurone Disease.
"These laws predict that the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing in a rapidly expanding state. It's called inflation, because it's like the way prices go up at an ever increasing rate. Time is defined only with the universe, so it makes no sense to talk about the time before the universe began. It would be like asking for a point south of the south pole."

Text and image via The Telegraph 

Sheep and Deer Fall in Love

Obviously, the deer was camera shy because that's a brown sheep in the photo.

An inter-species romance apparently has taken root in an animal park in southwestern China. Changmao the male sheep and Chunzi the deer are reportedly now inseparable, at Yunnan Animal Park.

Staff at the animal center posted a question on their blog about the ethics of allowing the relationship to continue. They can’t reproduce, so the inclination seems to be to not separate them. One of the animal keepers there said, “The sheep and the deer have been in love with each other since last year.” (Source: Google News)
Inter-species mating has been thought of by some as simply animal blunders, but it might be part of an evolutionary process which sometimes produces hybrid animals that are capable of reproducing.
“A growing number of studies has been presented as evidence that two animal species can combine to produce a third, sexually viable species in a process known as hybrid speciation. Newly identified examples include both insects and fish.” (Source: NationalGeographic)
A hybrid ‘wholfin’ resulting from the mating of a female bottlenose dolphin and a male false killer whale, lives in a Hawaiian marine park. She actually has given birth to several calves. However, two of them died prematurely.

Baby Wolphin

Some grizzly and polar bears have also been mating, and produce hybrids called grolar or pizzly bears.

Via Care2   

Spooky Reading

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What lies beneath...

Image via Fuzzy Dave 

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