Friday Snippets and Soundbites

• The Iditarod began in Alaska this week. The Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race covers more than 1,150 miles across mountain ranges, frozen rivers, dense forest, tundra, and coastline. The trail runs from Anchorage to Nome. When the race is run on even years, the participants take the northern portion of the historic Iditarod trail, mushing through towns like Galena, Ruby, and Nulato. When the year ends in an odd number, the race takes the southern portion of the trail, racing through the towns of Iditarod (now a ghost town), Anvick, and Grayling. For more information on the Iditarod, visit the official Website or go here.

• MTV has refused to air Gnarls Barkley's latest video and it has nothing to do with sex or violence. Instead, MTV nixed the video because it failed the Harding Test, guidelines established to prevent TV images from triggering epileptic seizures. The video, which includes a cameo by Justin Timberlake, also includes various strobe effects.

• It happens once in every 200 million births, and it happened this week. Identical triplets were born in Long Island, New York this week. Their mother and father had used in-vitro fertilization to have children and only implanted one embryo. It, in turn, split in half, then one half split again. The boys weighed in at nearly identical weights (around 4 lbs.) and are named Logan, Eli, and Collin. (Aside: Ec's editor is also a twin, though not identical. She is a fraternal twin, and her brother, Jason, is 2 minutes older. That doesn't stop people from asking if they're identical, though. Think about it.)

• Ec wants to hear from you! We need to hear your voice in the letters section of the magazine, in “Student Blog,” and “dispatches: an ec blog.” Get to writing! Also, take our March poll.

• According to Chinese officials, Beijing is the place to be if you have to go. They're claiming that with more than 5 thousand public bathrooms, the capital city has the most public toilets of any city in the world. Read the story here.