Trumpeted as earthy in flavor and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee's unique taste.

Stomach turning or oddly alluring, this is not just one of the world's most unusual specialty coffees. At $1,100 per kilogram ($500 per pound), it's also among the world's priciest.

For now, only the wealthy or well-traveled have access to the cuppa, which is called Black Ivory Coffee. It was launched last month at a few luxury hotels in remote corners of the world -- first in northern Thailand, then the Maldives and now Abu Dhabi - with the price tag of about $50 a serving.

The Associated Press traveled to the coffee's production site in the Golden Triangle, an area historically known for producing drugs more potent than coffee, to see the jumbo baristas at work. And to sip the finished product from a dainty demitasse.

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But turkey contains about the same amount of tryptophan as chicken, beef and other meats.

If Thanksgiving drowsiness is not about the main course, what is responsible? It may have more to do with the side dishes.

To understand, we first need to digest a little food chemistry.

To start, we get tryptophan and other essential amino acids from all the protein in our diet, not just from meat. These amino acids swim through the bloodstream, nourishing our cells.

Brain cells convert tryptophan into a chemical called serotonin. This neurotransmitter helps regulate sleep and appetite and high levels of serotonin are associated with calm and relaxation.

But tryptophan and other amino acids can’t access brain cells on their own—instead, teams of proteins transport amino acids across the blood-brain barrier.

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Compounding their low turnout rate — a scant 7 percent in the 2008 U.S. presidential race, according to the non-partisan Overseas Vote Foundation — is the mystery surrounding their voting habits. Do most Americans living abroad skew towards Democrats or Republicans? No one knows for sure. In U.S. politics, a field dissected at the molecular level by highly paid strategists, the data is conspicuously absent.

“Across all expatriates, how many get the ballot and how many mail it back in, yes, that number might surprise some people as being insufficient,” said Ross Feingold, 38, the Hong Kong–based Asia chair of Republicans Abroad. “But we do have people who go to extraordinary efforts to their ballot in.”

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The man of the house, Sokha, recently returned after nearly two years in captivity. His home is just as he left it: barren with a few dirty pillows passing for furniture. Slivers of daylight glow through cracks in the walls. The family’s most valuable possession, a sow, waddles and snorts beneath the elevated floorboards.

Before his December escape, Sokha (a pseudonym) was the property of a deep-sea trawler captain. The 39-year-old Cambodian, his teenage son and two young nephews were purchased for roughly $650, he said, each through brokers promising under-the-table jobs in a fish cannery.

There was no cannery. They were instead smuggled to a pier in neighboring Thailand, where they were shoved aboard a wooden vessel that motored into a lawless sea. His uncle had fallen for the same scam five years prior and escaped to warn the others. But Sokha told his son, then just 16, that this venture would turn out differently. He was wrong.

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But there are a few rules of thumb. In their self-proclaimed "holy war" to carve out the world's newest Muslim state on the Thai-Malaysia border, jihadis consider soldiers, cops, Buddhist monks, government teachers and their Muslim collaborators as fair game. Backpackers partying just a short distance up the coast are left alone.

But less mercy is offered to a different sort of tourist: Malaysian men, many fellow Muslims, border-hopping into insurgents' turf for paid sex. Now, after a bloody Sunday night bombing spree in their favored brothel town, Malaysia's government is warning its men to stay away.

Shortly after sunset on Sept. 18, in the gritty Thai border town of Su-Ngai Golok, a series of explosions erupted on a busy lane lined with hotels, food stalls and karaoke joints.

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More important: This time the guys wake up in Bangkok the day before Stu's wedding, a location that is presented as some sort of wacky alternative to their previous Las Vegas excursion. If these guys had watched any movie about Americans partying too hard in foreign countries, they'd know that Thailand is literally the worst place in the world to do this.

With that in mind, we created a list of films featuring stupid American tourists getting into hot water abroad. We can only hope one of these guys has seen "Brokedown Palace"; otherwise "The Hangover II" may take a much darker turn than its predecessor.

Of course, we didn't have space for every movie, so leave your favorite American-in-a-foreign-country thriller in the comments.

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Seriously, the real answer is almost nothing. Except that these two films are the most recent winners of the two most prestigious awards in international cinema -- the only ones that teenagers with movie cameras from Borneo to Omaha bother to fantasize about -- and the distance between them offers us a portrait of the diversity, and perhaps the schizophrenia, of global movie culture.

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Fighting raged at key points on the Thai border, wounding at least 10 people on both sides of the frontier as stray shots fell into Thai territory.

The clashes underlined Myanmar's vulnerability to unrest even as it passes through a key stage of the ruling junta's self-proclaimed "road map to democracy." The country has been ruled by the military near-continuously since 1962, and rebellions by its ethnic minorities predate its independence from Britain in 1948.

In the heaviest clashes, Karen rebels reportedly seized a police station and post office Sunday in the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy. Sporadic gun and mortar fire continued into Monday afternoon. More fighting broke out further south for one hour Monday at the Three Pagodas Pass, said local Thai official Chamras Jungnoi, but there was no word on any casualties.

Thai officials said late Monday that fighting had quieted and government troops had regained control of Myawaddy.

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Fighting raged Monday at key points on the frontier with Thailand, leaving at least 10 people wounded on both sides of the frontier.

In the heaviest clashes, Karen rebels reportedly seized a police station and post office Sunday in the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy. Sporadic gun and mortar fire continued into Monday afternoon. More fighting broke out further south for one hour Monday at the Three Pagodas Pass, said local Thai official Chamras Jungnoi, but there was no word on any casualties.

Groups from Myanmar's ethnic minorities who make up some 40 percent of the population had warned in recent days that civil war could erupt if the military tries to impose its highly centralized constitution and deprive them of rights.

"There have been at least 10,000 refugees who have fled to Thailand," said Col. Wannatip Wongwai, commander of Thailand's Third Army Region responsible for security in the area. He said Myanmar government troops appeared to have retaken control of Myawaddy, and the rebels of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army held just a few positions on the outskirts of the town.

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My question, in short, is this: If you could do anything, or go anywhere, what would you do?

I'm in this position, but it's not all great. What's that saying? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

I'm almost 30. I spent much of my 20s in depression, and then I worked my butt off for some time in therapy, and I feel I'm on top of it. I'm not depressed anymore. That's a nice feeling. But because of how much energy and focus that took, I haven't spent my 20s doing much else. No career to speak of, just a list of temp jobs and weird detours that I would stay in long enough to get OK enough at, before leaving.

Last year, I decided to finally go overseas, something I've wanted to do since I was in my early 20s, but which my depression defeated me on every year until my 28th. Not only that, but it seemed that every time I was about to take the leap, a relationship or a financial or family situation would leap up and stop me. But I was determined this time: I was going.

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The government quelled most of the violence in Bangkok but not the underlying political divisions that caused it, and unrest spread to northern parts of Thailand.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva imposed a nighttime curfew in the capital and 23 other provinces and said his government would restore calm. Although leaders of the Red Shirt demonstrators surrendered, sporadic clashes between troops and remaining protesters continued well after dark.

Bangkok's skyline was blotted by black smoke from more than two dozen buildings set ablaze -- including Thailand's stock exchange, main power company, banks, a movie theater and one of Asia's largest shopping malls.

At least six people were killed in clashes that followed the army's storming of the protest camp Wednesday. Witnesses said another six to eight bodies were in a temple where hundreds of demonstrators, including women and children, had sought sanctuary.

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The 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew was enforced Wednesday following an army assault on the anti-government protesters.

At least six people have been killed and nearly 60 injured in clashes.

The last such curfew was declared in 1992, when the army killed dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators seeking the ouster of a military-backed government.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BANGKOK (AP) -- Downtown Bangkok became a flaming battleground Wednesday as an army assault forced anti-government protest leaders to surrender, enraging followers who shot grenades and set fire to landmark buildings, cloaking the skyline in black smoke.

Using live ammunition, troops dispersed thousands of Red Shirt protesters who had been camped in the capital's premier shopping and residential district for weeks. Five protesters and an Italian news photographer were killed in the ensuing gunbattles and about 60 wounded.

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If the walnut-sized stones he shoots fail to hurt the Thai soldiers gathered behind sandbag bunkers, Sakhorn and his comrades have an arsenal to fall back on: firecrackers shot from metal pipes, Red Bull bottles brimming with glass shards, Molotov cocktails, burning tires and other weapons fashioned with ingenuity and scrap.

If it sounds like a David and Goliath fight, in most cases it is.

A ragtag army of Red Shirt anti-government protesters has spread out in central Bangkok, shouting obscenities at troops and attacking them with rudimentary weapons. Often, it seems that some of the demonstrators treated the fighting like a game of paintball. But for many, the price for losing was death.

Troops -- including sharpshooters positioned on high buildings -- have used live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas. Since the violence flared on May 14, 38 protesters were killed by gunfire and 313 wounded in violence that turned parts of Bangkok, a city known for its crime-free nightlife, into deserted wastelands. One soldier from the government side has died.

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As night fell, booming explosions and the sound of gunfire rattled around major intersections in the central business district. Local TV reported that several grenades hit a shopping center and elevated-rail station. Plumes of black smoke hung over the neighborhood as tires burned in eerily empty streets while onlookers ducked for cover.

Among those wounded were two Thai journalists and a Canadian reporter, who was in a serious condition.

With security deteriorating and hopes of a peaceful resolution to the standoff increasingly unlikely, what was once one of Southeast Asia's most stable democracies and magnets of foreign investment has been thrust deep into political uncertainty. The crisis threatens its stability, economy and already-decimated tourism industry.

Violence escalated after a rogue army general regarded as a military adviser to the Red Shirt protesters was shot in the head Thursday evening, possibly by a sniper. A doctor said Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol was still in a coma Friday and he could "die at any moment."

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Ported over to Stockholm for work, she grew tired of facing the 20 hours of darkness a day alone, so she geared up a charm offensive: She offered to go to people's houses and cook; all they had to do was invite enough of their friends to make it a proper dinner party. "Because who doesn't want someone to come cook for them?" she asks.

It turns out the Swedes have a real thing for Thai food. "Everyone in Stockholm's been to Thailand five times," Ganda says. "They have a lot of vacation time. And, you know, Thailand's politically stable, lots of sun, no landmines, pretty girls ... So anyway, Stockholm has lots of great Thai grocery stores. And I made lots of Thai-ish food." Which is what she called it when she spoke with a journalist who ended up writing about this funny little American's movable feast and her very personal repertoire of Thai-American-Swedish dishes.

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