In James Cameron's fantasy films, like "Avatar" and "The Abyss," the unexplored is splashed in color and fraught with alien danger. But on his dive to the deepest place on Earth, reality proved far different: white, barren and bland.

Yet otherworldly — and amazing.

"I felt like I literally, in the space of one day, had gone to another planet and come back," Cameron said Monday after returning from the cold, dark place in the western Pacific Ocean, seven miles below the surface. "It was a very surreal day."

Cameron is the first person to explore the deepest valley in the ocean since two men made a 20-minute foray there more than half a century ago. He spent about three hours gliding through the icy darkness, illuminated only by special lights on the one-man sub he helped design. That was only about half as long as planned because his battery ran low.

This deepest section of the 1,500-mile-long Mariana Trench is so untouched that at first it appeared dull. But there's something oddly dark and compelling about the first snippets of video that Cameron shot. It's not what you see, but where it puts you. There is a sense of aloneness that Cameron conveys in the wordless video showing his sub gliding across what he calls "the very soft, almost gelatinous flat plain."

"My feeling was one of complete isolation from all of humanity," Cameron said.

It may not have looked all that dramatic and, in a way, Cameron was "doing exploration with training wheels," said Andy Bowen, who heads the deep submergence lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

But it was an amazing start.

The images "do lack the visual impact of highly colorized 3D spectacular representations of the ocean," Bowen said. But there are still "dramatic discoveries to be made."

The minute-long snippet, released by trip sponsor National Geographic, is just a coming attraction. Cameron will keep diving in the area, some 200 miles southwest of the island of Guam, where the depth of the trench is called Challenger Deep. And he's already filming it in 3D for later viewing.

To Cameron, the main thing was to appreciate just being there. He didn't do that when he first dove to the wreck of the Titanic, and Apollo astronauts have said they never had time to savor where they were.

"There had to be a moment where I just stopped, and took it in, and said, `This is where I am; I'm at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?'" Cameron told reporters during a conference call.

"I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating," Cameron said.

He also realized how alone he was, with that much water above him.

"It's really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realizing how tiny you are down in this big, vast, black, unknown and unexplored place," the "Titanic" director said.

Cameron said he had hoped to see some sort of strange deep sea creature that would excite the storyteller in him, but he didn't.

He didn't see tracks of small primitive sea animals on the ocean floor, as he did when he dove more than five miles down several weeks ago. All he saw was voracious shrimp-like critters no bigger than an inch. In future missions, Cameron plans to bring "bait" — like chicken — to set out.

Cameron said the mission was all about exploration, science and discovery. He is the only person to dive there solo, using a lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger. He is the first person to reach that depth — 35,576 feet — since it was initially explored in 1960.

There had been a race to reach the bottom among rich and famous adventurers. Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, has been building his own one-man sub to explore the ocean depths. Cameron's dive was "a fantastic achievement," Branson told The Associated Press.

Branson said he hoped to be the first to explore a different deep-sea location, diving later this year to the deepest part of the Atlantic, the Puerto Rican trench, which is only five miles from his home. Just shy of six miles deep, the area has not been explored yet.

Branson also hopes to join Cameron in a tandem dive of solo subs. "Together, we'll make a formidable team," he said.

While Cameron's dive was far longer than that of U.S. Navy Capt. Don Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard 52 years ago, he didn't reach the trench walls because he was running low on battery power. He said he would return, as would the sub's Australian co-designer, Ron Allum.

"I see this as the beginning," Cameron said. "It's not a one-time deal and then moving on. This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier."

"To me, the story is in the people in their quest and curiosity and their attempt to understand."

The trip to the deepest point took two hours and 36 minutes and started Sunday afternoon, U.S. East Coast time.

His return aboard his 12-ton sub was a "faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent," according to National Geographic, which sponsored the expedition. Cameron is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.

The only thing that went wrong was a hydraulic failure that kept Cameron from collecting rocks and critters and bringing them back to land.

Science like this takes time, but Cameron is committed to doing it, said Woods Hole's Bowen, who ran a program that sent an unmanned sub to the same place in 2009.

"The reality of exploring such an environment is that at times it can be very boring; exploring these environments isn't always about some dramatic highly visual discovery," Bowen said. "The scientific process is exhausting and sometimes it takes a significant amount of sweat, if you will, to uncover secrets."

Cameron did sweat — and shiver.

When the 6-foot-2 Cameron climbed into the cramped sub, his head hit one end and his feet the other. It was warm outside because it was near the equator; it was toasty inside, temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit, because of the heat given off by the sub's electronics. It felt "like a sauna," he said.

But as he plunged into the deep, it grew cold inside the sub as the waters outside dropped to around 36 degrees, he said.

The pressure on the sub was immense — comparable to three SUVs resting on a toe. The super-strong sub shrank three inches under that pressure, Cameron said.

"It's a very weird environment," he said. "I can't say it's very comfortable. And you can't stretch out."

___

Online:

Deepsea Challenge: http://deepseachallenge.com

Branson's Virgin Oceanic: http://www.virginoceanic.com

____

Follow Seth Borenstein at http://twitter.com/borenbears

As if you needed more proof that Brazilians are awesome.

The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. Then came a stunning reversal of fortune: cutthroat competition from Japanese firms in the 1980s and a seismic shift to the digital technology it pioneered but couldn't capitalize on. Now comes a wistful worry that this icon of American business is edging toward extinction.

Bad science papers can have lasting effects. Consider the 1998 paper in the journal the Lancet that linked autism to the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. That paper was fully retracted in 2010 upon evidence that senior author Andrew Wakefield had manipulated data and breached several proper ethical codes of conduct.

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Asia's oldest hotel chain has waded into the debate on the slaughter of sharks for their fins by taking the Chinese delicacy off its menus.
From January, diners won't be offered shark's fin products at the luxury Peninsula Hotels chain, due to a decision by its owners, the Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels group.
"By removing shark fin from our menus, we hope that our decision can contribute to preserving the marine ecosystem for the world's future generations," the group's chief executive officer Clement Kwok announced in a brief press statement.

A federal court has refused to dismiss David LaChapelle's copyright claim against pop singer Rihanna over a music video with scenes allegedly copied from several of LaChapelle's images. The ruling, by the US District Court in New York City, means the photographer's claim can now go to trial.

LaChapelle filed suit in February, alleging that some scenes from the video for Rihanna's hit single called "S&M" are rip-offs of sadomasochistic images he has created and published over the years. According to LaChapelle's claim, Rihanna asked various directors to create a "LaChapelle-esque video" for "S&M," and provided a story board for the video actually included prints of some of LaChapelle's photographs.

In its pre-trial ruling, the court ruled that LaChapelle made a plausible claim for infringement because the video appeared to copy protectable elements of his images, according to the judge. (Protectable elements exclude the idea and subject matter, but include factors that contribute to the originality or expression of the subject: sets, wardrobe, lighting, camera angle, mood, etc.)

IS THE tide turning against shark’s fin soup? Conservationists certainly hope so. On September 22nd in Shanghai WildAid, a charity, launched a campaign to persuade Chinese people to give up eating the delicacy. Celebrity support for the bid was provided by Yao Ming, a Chinese basketball star, and Sir Richard Branson, a British business star. In California, meanwhile, a ban on the sale, trade and possession of sharks’ fins has been passed by the state senate, and awaits only the governor’s signature to become law.

When infidelity hit Tiger Woods two years ago, sponsors couldn't run away faster from the once endorsement king. He lost Gatorade, Gillette, Tag Heuer, Buick and Accenture, and the only thing we've seen Tiger pushing lately besides Nike is a Japanese pain rub, but that's all changed with the latest announcement that Rolex is back with Tiger after parting ways in 2002, a partnership that started in 1997 when Woods turned professional.

Bath salts and synthetic marijuana -- two popular designer drugs, formerly available at a head shop near you -- are already illegal under both federal and Washington state law. The state's ban, however, was a "temporary emergency" measure enacted in April. But today, the Board of Pharmacy moved to not only permanently outlaw the substances and their active ingredients, but also a broad swath of related chemicals that, in some instances, haven't even been invented yet.

On the afternoon of April 22, Army medic and two-tour Iraq veteran David "Doc" Stewart gunned down his girlfriend Kristy Sampels and fatally shot himself on I-5 just south of Tumwater after a state trooper pulled him over for speeding after a lengthy chase. Hours earlier, Stewart's 5-year-old son Jordan was asphyxiated with a plastic bag over his head at the family's home in Spanaway. Investigators discovered a jar of Lady Bubbles "bath salts," a powerful stimulant chemically similar to methamphetamine and snorted like cocaine, in Stewart's pocket. Yesterday, toxicology results from the Thurston County Coroner confirmed that both Stewart and Sampels were high on the drug at the time of their deaths.

A former federal cop assigned to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia admitted stealing $2.4 million in "error" coins.

William Gray, 64, of North Wildwood, N.J., admitted in federal court that he took the $1 presidential coins, all missing edge lettering, and sold them to a California coin dealer. Gray pleaded guilty to theft of government property and income tax evasion, said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

 

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (KTLA) -- "Austin Powers" actor and former mixed martial arts fighter Joseph Hyungmin Son was convicted Thursday of torture in the Christmas Eve gang rape of an Orange County woman.

Son, 40, was arrested Oct. 7, 2008 on charges related the 1990 incident.

He was already in custody for an unrelated vandalism charge and was linked to the 1990 crime when he gave a DNA sample to authorities following a probation violation.

Here's a photo I took of my dive buddy, Josh Smith, on the wreck of the Capilano - sunken off of the coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. A group of close friends and I had a fantastic time diving three stunning wrecks in the emerald waters of British Columbia during this particular excursion. After the trip, John Rawlings and I collaborated on a story about those shipwrecks. He primarily focused on the history of each wreck and I provided a narrative of our dives and the present-day condition of the wrecks, doing our best to connect the past with the present. We both contributed photos. Here's a link to the full article: Diving the Shipwrecks of Vancouver Island, Canada.

a projected $1 billion national program dubbed Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques — kicks off today at Logan International Airport and will be put to use in Terminal A on Aug. 15. It requires screeners to make quick reads of whether passengers pose a danger or a terror threat based on their reactions to a set of routine questions.

But security experts wonder whether Transportation Safety Administration agents are up to the challenge after an embarrassing string of blunders — including patting down a 95-year-old grandmother in Florida and making her remove her adult diaper and frisking a 3-year-old girl who screamed “stop touching me” at a checkpoint in Tennessee.

It’s the story of an America that has transferred its allegiance to spectacle, to pseudo-events, that no longer can determine what is real and what is illusion, that confuses how they’re made to feel with knowledge, that confuses propaganda with ideology, and that’s exceedingly dangerous. All totalitarian societies are image-based societies, and that’s what our society has become.