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The sedation that put race car legend Michael Schumacher into a medically induced coma after he suffered a serious head injury while skiing in France last month is being gradually reduced "to allow the start of the waking up process," the German driver's manager said Thursday.

ESPN's F1 website reminds us that the 45-year-old Schumacher "suffered a severe head injury on Dec. 29 when he fell and hit a rock while skiing in the French Alps. Surgeons performed two operations to remove blood clots around his brain since when he has been kept in a coma." The coma was induced to help reduce and control swelling in the brain. Schumacher was wearing a helmet when he crashed.

The process of reducing sedation and bringing Schumacher out of the coma "may take a long time," manager Sabine Kehm says.

It's too soon to say too much about Schumacher's post-coma prospects, though experts are expressing concern.

The French newspaper L'Equipe reported this week that doctors say there have been "encouraging signs" from recent neurological tests.

But the BBC has spoken with "two experts — Professor Gary Hartstein, Formula 1's chief medic between 2005 and 2012, and Mr Colin Shieff, neurosurgeon at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London":

"Both Hartstein and Shieff believe it will be difficult for Schumacher to return to the same level of health he had before his accident.

" 'It is extremely unlikely, and I'd honestly say virtually impossible, that the Michael we knew prior to this fall will ever be back,' Hartstein said. ...

"Shieff agreed that outcome was 'extremely unlikely.'

" 'It is generally accepted that the longer a patient is in a reduced state of consciousness, the less likely they are to make a good recovery,' he said. 'It is still possible to regain consciousness, but this is far from certain.' "

"That's more flaring than we would like, and we are working very, very hard to get the percentage of flaring down," Dalrymple says. He points out that an industry task force is working on the issue. "The gas processing companies are building plants really as fast as they can."

Now, another interest group is weighing in on the issue: royalty owners. These are the people who own the rights to the underground oil and gas. When gas is wasted, they lose money. Some of them have filed class-action lawsuits against oil companies. NPR contacted four of those companies, but all declined interview requests.

Sarah Vogel is one of the plaintiffs and also a former North Dakota agriculture commissioner. She owns a farm on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. "It is fabulously beautiful and windswept. ... We just got electricity last year, and running water," she says.

It used to be quiet and dark at night, Vogel says. "We'd just see the stars. Now, at night, we see flares."

Derrick Braaten, an attorney in Bismarck, N.D., who is representing Vogel, says the lawsuit is essentially "requesting that the royalty owners be paid their royalties on the gas that has been flared."

He says that could amount to tens of millions of dollars in gas — gas now being wasted instead amid North Dakota's rush for oil.

Archaeologists excavating a site in central Rome say they've uncovered what may be oldest known temple from Roman antiquity.

Along the way, they've also discovered how much the early Romans intervened to shape their urban environment.

And the dig has been particularly challenging because the temple lies below the water table.

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A Hong Kong real estate tycoon made headlines two years ago when he offered a $65 million bounty to the man who could win his daughter's heart and marry her. In an open letter today, the daughter says she hopes he can accept that she is indeed a lesbian.

Cecil Chao, a billionaire property developer who himself has never married, made the offer after learning that his 34-year-old daughter, Gigi Chao, had married her partner, Sean Eav, in France. Homosexuality is not a criminal offense in Hong Kong, but same-sex marriage there is not legally recognized.

Last week, the elder Chao reportedly increased his offer.

"My wish is: she [will be] married with children who can inherit the hard work of my life," Chao told The Edge, a Malaysian business magazine.

After the initial "marriage bounty" in 2012, Gigi Chao, who is a model, arrived at her management company's building one day "to discover a crowd of Casanovas camped out in the lobby," according to Hong Kong Tatler.

The magazine writes:

"Bearing boxes of chocolates and bunches of red roses, the jet-setting lotharios had flown in from Africa, the Middle East and Europe in an attempt to win her heart — and her father's dowry."