Just imagine your uncle giving his goldfish the kiss of life if he had previosuly given the goldfish Churchill's dentures

Today's creepy crawly story from the BBC. I have not included any photos as I know that some are terrified by spiders.

n some species of spider, males are far smaller than females; now, scientists think they know why.

A group of Spanish researchers says evolution favours small, light males because they can more easily traverse thin strands of silk.

But large females are favoured because they reproduce more abundantly.

Writing in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, the researchers say their finding helps to explain why this trait is so widespread among spiders.

In some species of orb-weaving spider, females are more than 12 times longer than males.

Other research has shown that in many of these species, the females have grown progressively larger over evolutionary time, probably because of the reproductive advantages.

But the males have not followed suit, leading to the huge size differences - a trait known as extreme sexual size dimorphism.

The key behaviour that the Spanish team investigated is known as "bridging".

Here, the plant-dwelling spider produces a strand of silk and allows the wind to carry one end of it.

When it lands on a far leaf or stem and sticks, the spider pulls it tight, secures the near end and crawls across hanging upside down from the strand.

Highwire act The research team, headed by Guadalupe Corcobado from the Spanish National Research Council's Arid Zones Research Station in Almeria, used a wind tunnel to aid their investigations

They looked at how males and females behaved - whether they tried to bridge, and how succesful they were.

Across 13 species that show extreme dimorphism and use bridging, the smaller ones attempted it more often and were more succesful.

"In species where bridging is a very common mode of locomotion, small males, by being more efficient bridgers, will enjoy more mating opportunities and thus will be better at competition to reach receptive females," said Dr Corcobado.

"This may lead to a selective pressure for smaller size."

The idea that gravity is involved in selection for small size is not new - researchers have previously suggested small males could flee from predators faster, or gain easier access to prospective mates.

But the link to bridging is new, said Dr Corcobado.

"[Female] fecundity alone could not explain why males may grow as large as giant females in some species but remain extremely small in others," she said.

"A selective pressure against large male body size has been searched for by researchers since Darwin; the constraint on bridging seems to be such a selective pressure."

This article from the BBC today is posted as a bit of history due to the start of The Normans on BBC2 tonight. My mother's family has a direct connection with the Battle of Hastings. Back in 1034, one of my ancestors came to this country from Normandy. He acted as a spy for William the Conqueror. After William's conquest he went to my ancestor and gave him some land as a reward provided that he converted from Judaism to Christianity. So he became a Christian. The family moved around and no longer has the land, but a later ancestor wrote a book detailing the family history beack to 1034. My mother has a photocopy of the book (it's long out of print), but so far I have not been able to find it. I doubt if my ancestor will get mentioned in the series as there would have been lots of spies.

Key events prior to 1066

In 1016, Cnut of Denmark invaded England. He eradicated all opposition in a pogrom in Winter 1017, and ruled thereafter with a combination of Danes and newly promoted English Earls who profited from the Danish Conquest. Edward (the Confessor) fled to his father-in-law in Normandy. He finally regained the throne in 1042.

William's later chroniclers claim (after the fact) that Edward the Confessor offered William the crown and sent Harold to pledge it to him in the Winter of 1064/5. In fact, reading between the lines we can see that Harold was shipwrecked in Normandy whilst trying to visit France, and took advantage of the situation by trying to secure the release of his brother & nephew who were held as hostages in the Norman court.

The events of 1066

• January 1066: Edward the Confessor dies. Harold gambles and makes a bid for the Crown, supported by all the magnates of England. William does nothing, despite the so-called oath.
• Early 1066: Tostig comes to Flanders looking for aid in his projected bid against Harold. Whether he makes a deal with William is a moot point, but certainly William sees this as his chance to invade. He starts to gather his forces. These were made up of 'feudal' levies, in which the knight owed service to his lord in return for land. However, William manages to double the projected strength of his forces by promising English land to anyone who turns up. The final strength of his army is c. 8-10,000 of which c.2,000 are cavalry. He starts constructing a fleet at Dives to transport them all across.
• May 1066: Tostig makes an abortive attempt to invade England. Harold calls out the English levy (the fyrd) to defend against an expected thrust from William, but it never comes. By 8th September, Harold has to disband the fyrd and let it go home to harvest its crops.

The eve of conquest

• 20th September 1066: After sailing up the Ouse with more than 10,000 men in 200 longships, Harald Hardrada and Tostig defeat the hastily assembled forces of Earls Edwin & Morcar at Fulford outside York. The army of the Earls is decimated and Edwin & Morcar are unable to play any more part in the campaigns of 1066. This leaves them free to make their peace with William after Hastings, but need not be seen as premeditated.
• 25th September 1066: Harold responds by scraping together a scratch force made up largely of his own housecarls and personal followers, and racing north, calling up the shire levies as he passes through. In four days, he has marched 180 miles, and surprised the Norwegian army outside York at Stamford Bridge. Harold offers Tostig his earldom back if he will turn on Harald, but Tostig refuses. Legend has a lone berserker axeman defending the bridge until the sneaky English paddle under the bridge in a barrel and thrust a spear up through the wooden slats. Harald & Tostig both fall at the head of their men.
• 28th September 1066: Having sailed his fleet to St Valery sur Somme, William waits for the wind to be in the right direction. It changes 2 days after Stamford Bridge, and William's fleet makes landfall at Pevensey completely unopposed. He marches to Hastings - a good harbour from which he can withdraw easily if necessary, and begins building a castle.
• 1st October 1066: While at York, Harold learns of William's landing. He marches back down Ermine Street, stopping to pray at Waltham Abbey (which he had founded) on the way. By 12th October, he is back in London and gathering what forces he could to face William.

Hastings

The Battle of Hastings 

• 14th October 1066: Harold takes up a position blocking the Norman advance to London on Senlac Ridge at the site of Battle with an army of little more than 5,000 weary and footsore men. He intends to fight a purely defensive battle, sitting behind the famous Saxon shield wall and letting the Normans break themselves against it. This works well, beating back repeated waves of Norman infantry followed by cavalry. It works so well in fact that the Breton knights on the Norman left begin to run. Seeing victory in their grasp, the English right charges down the slope after them, exposing themselves to a devastating counter-attack led by William himself.
• However, William is unhorsed and a shout goes up that he is dead. Everything hangs in the balance; but William sweeps off his helmet and rises to rally his troops. Yet the pause had given the English time to regroup, and the Normans batter themselves uselessly against the reformed shield wall. As the day drags on, the numbers began to tell and the English shield wall begins to crack.
• Late in the day, Harold takes an arrow in the eye and as his men mill around him, four Norman knights break through and hack him down. Legend has it that his body was so mutilated that it could not be recognised until it was identified by his devoted mistress, Edith Swan-neck.
• Oct-Dec 1066: A state of war continues until Christmas 1066, when a deal is struck between William and the English magnates in which he guarantees their positions in return for their support. William is crowned King of England on Christmas Day in London by Archbishops Ealdred and Stigand. Edwin, Morcar and Waltheof swear allegiance to him.

An interesting and important invention I saw mentioned on Teletext - from the BBC

Clean water bottle wins UK leg of James Dyson Award

A bottle that uses ultraviolet light to sterilise drinking water has won the UK leg of the James Dyson Award.

The Pure bottle is the brainchild of Timothy Whitehead, a design and technology graduate from Loughborough University, who had the idea while travelling in Zambia.

It eliminates the need for chlorine and iodine tablets which take 30 minutes to work and can leave an unpleasant taste.

The invention will now go forward to the awards' global final in October.

Mr Whitehead said: "I thought that there must be a way of using new technology to clean drinking water. I began experimenting with using ultraviolet light to sterilise water quickly, without any distortion to taste."

Saving lives

The water bottle contains two chambers. Dirty water is put in an outer chamber and the inner chamber is plunged through it, filtering water particles as small as four microns.

Once filtered, the water is sterilised by a wind-up ultraviolet bulb in a process lasting 90 seconds.

A prototype was effective in killing 99.9% of bacteria and viruses.

Professor Matthew Harrison, who is one of the judges and also director of education programmes at the Royal Academy of Engineering, commented: "Pure provides a practical solution to a real problem - how to get clean drinking water in the most hostile of conditions.

"It has the potential to make a real difference to people's lives."

The sterilisation water bottle will go up against inventions from around the world in the worldwide final of the James Dyson Award in October.

Other finalists include a lifeboat from Austria that can be transported by plane for high speed rescues, a bin from Switzerland that decomposes organic waste without any smells, and a car from Australia that can drive through rugged terrain and penetrate a fire, to allow firefighters to control blazes from the inside.

The James Dyson award was set up to recognise those who provide answers for everyday problems. The international winner receives £10,000 for themselves and £10,000 for their university department.

As a national winner, Mr Whitehead has already won a visit to the Dyson research and development centre.

Another Winston Churchill story from the BBC today, this time about unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

Churchill ordered UFO cover-up, National Archives show

The government took the threat of UFOs so seriously in the 1950s that UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, newly-released files show.

Ministers even went on to commission weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts.

The papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent "mass panic".

The files show reports of UFOs peaked in 1996 - when The X Files was popular.

The Joint Intelligence Committee is better known for providing briefings to the government on matters relating to security, defence and foreign affairs.

But the latest batch of UFO files released from the Ministry of Defence to the National Archives shows that, in 1957, the committee received reports detailing an average of one UFO sighting a week.

The files also include an account of a wartime meeting attended by Winston Churchill in which, it is claimed, the prime minister was so concerned about a reported encounter between a UFO and RAF bombers, that he ordered it be kept secret for at least 50 years to prevent "mass panic".

X Files

Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.

"But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid.

"The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."

Reports of sightings of UFOs peaked in 1996 in the UK - when science fiction drama The X Files was popular.

According to the files, there were more than 600 reports in 1996, compared with an average of 240 in the previous five years

The figures for 1996 show 609 reported sightings of unidentified flying objects, 343 letters from the public to the MoD's UFO desk and 22 enquiries and questions from MPs.

But by 2009, the MoD's UFO inquiry desk -Sec(AS)2 - had been closed down.

The 18 files released on Thursday are the latest to come out as part of a three-year project between the MoD and the National Archives.

Dr David Clarke, a UFO consultant to the National Archives, explained why the papers are being made public now.

Dr Clarke told the BBC: "Since the Freedom of Information Act arrived in 2005, this subject - UFOs - have become the third-most popular subject for people to write to the Ministry of Defence saying 'please could you release this file, or papers that you hold on this particular case'.

"What they've decided to do is to be totally open and to say, 'look we're not holding any secrets back about this subject we've got all these files and we're going to make them available to the public'."

One includes details on "aerial phenomena" prepared for a meeting of the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee in April 1957.

According to a note included in the Red Book, the weekly intelligence survey, four incidents involving UFOs tracked by RAF radars were "unexplained".

'Spaceman'

The documents also include reports of a famous incident dubbed the "Welsh Roswell" in 1974, where members of the public reported seeing lights in the sky and feeling a tremor in the ground.

Other cases included in the files are:

• A near-miss with an "unidentified object" reported by the captain and first officer of a 737 plane approaching Manchester Airport in 1995.

• A mountain rescue team called to investigate a "crashed UFO" in the Berwyn Mountains in Wales in 1974.

• Attempted break-ins at RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire - sometimes referred to as Britain's "Area 51" - the US's secretive desert military base.
• The Western Isles incident, when a loud explosion was reported in the sky over the Atlantic in the Outer Hebrides.
• The 14-minutes of "missing" film relating to the Blue Streak missile test launch in 1964, believed by some to show a "spaceman".
• A gambler from Leeds who held a 100-1 bet on alien life being discovered before the end of the 20th Century, and who approached the government for evidence to support his claim after the bookmakers refused to pay out. The MoD said it was open-minded about extra-terrestrial life but had no evidence of its existence.

The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports and letters and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by MPs in Parliament.

They are available to download for free for a month from The National Archives website

This story from the BBC was brought to my attaention by squiggle.

Why have the Northern Lights moved south?

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

The Northern lights, it seems, have moved further south and have been visible from countries including Germany and Denmark. So what exactly is causing this spectacle? And how long will it last?

Cheers Loro

muf, pop over to yesterday's postings on Ben's Buddies where I posted a couple of video clips of the Northern Lights - both clips are worth watching.

A couple of stories from the BBC on two of the major 20th century artists.

Firstly a link to a few photos of Picasso's largest ever painting. Forum rules prevent me from showing them here as there is some partial nudity, but not even Ary Whitehouse would have been offended by these.
Picasso's largest ever work on canvas was created as the front cloth for the Ballets Russes performance of Le Train Bleu in 1924. It forms part of a forthcoming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Secondly, on the artist with the most memorable moustache (other than Hitler) of all time.

Salvador Dali rarities go on display in Atlanta

An exhibition of late works by artist Salvador Dali opens this weekend in Atlanta, including several pieces not seen in the US for half a century.

The collection of 40 paintings - plus films, sculptures and photographs - focuses on the period from 1940 to 1983.

Works have been brought in from countries around the world - including Canada, Scotland and Japan.

The exhibition runs at Atlanta's High Museum of Art until 9 January.

"It's become a really interesting area for investigation because you have Dali's career which spans almost all of the 20th century, but historically people have really only looked at the 1930s," exhibition curator Elliott King told the Associated Press. "It was almost like he died in 1940."

The exhibition includes photos by American photographer Philippe Halsman showing the artist displaying what King describes as Dali's "wacky showman" side.

Atomic explosion

The exhibition also reflects two recurring influences on Dali's later work - his return to the Catholic Church and nuclear physics.

One work that illustrates this theme is Santiago El Grande - which shows a crucifixion scene and a horse rearing up above an atomic explosion.

Another is The Madonna of Port-Lligat - showing the Madonna and Child breaking into particles. The painting is on loan from a museum in Japan and has not been seen in the US since 1951.

The work Assumpta Corpuscularia Lapilazulina - which features Dali's wife as the Virgin Mary - has been in private collections and has not been exhibited since 1959.

The exhibition also includes the 1960 documentary film Chaos and Creation - an early example of video art which includes pigs, popcorn and a motorbike.

From the BBC for Gloucestershire:

Young cranes are prepared for the wild in Somerset

A group of cranes which were hatched at a nature reserve in Gloucestershire have reached the final stage before they are released into the wild.

They were brought over as eggs from Germany to the Slimbridge reserve in April as part of a project to reintroduce cranes to the UK.

The birds, aged between 12-14 weeks, were released to a temporary enclosure on the Somerset Levels and Moors.

They should acclimatise before their release into the wild in the autumn.

The 21 cranes, which have been temporarily released, have been fitted with tracking devices including small GPS satellite tracking backpacks.

This will enable staff at the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge to monitor them.

Nigel Jarrett, from the WWT, said: "It's an emotional day for us but we know that this is what it's always been about - putting back birds that belong in this country.

Crane costumes

"It is incredible to think that by autumn we could be seeing a flock of wild cranes in the west country for the first time in 400 years."

Staff who reared the young birds even had to wear crane costumes so the birds did not become "imprinted on humans".

The Great Crane Project wants to restore wild common cranes to the UK wetlands. It was lost as a breeding bird 400 years ago after their nesting sites were drained.

The project hopes to have released 100 birds by 2015.

Wolves 3  Ranchers 0

More from the BBC today:

Judge orders US to keep protecting 'endangered' wolves

A federal judge has ordered the US to put Rocky Mountain grey wolves back on a list of protected endangered species.

Encouraged by the recovery of the once nearly-extinct wolf, the US last year moved to allow wolf hunts in two states while protecting them in a third.

But a judge ruled the law did not permit the US to protect part of a species population while allowing hunting of the rest.

Despite the ruling, Idaho said it would seek federal approval for a wolf hunt.

The decision puts wolves in the states of Montana and Idaho back on the endangered species list following their removal last year.

Wyoming's wolves had remained protected because the US government was unsatisfied with the state's wolf protection plan.

In Montana, US District Judge Donald Molloy came down on the side of a coalition of conservation groups who had challenged the US Fish and Wildlife Service's move to take the grey wolf off the endangered species list in Montana and Idaho.

Among several arguments, the coalition said the law did not permit the Fish and Wildlife Service to "partially delist" protected species - protecting the wolf in one state but not others.

Significant protection

"The plain language of the Endangered Species Act does not allow the agency to divide a [population segment] into a smaller taxonomy," Judge Molloy wrote.

Grey wolves were once abundant in the US, but a government-sponsored hunting programme nearly eradicated them. The wolves were gone from Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and south-western Canada by the 1930s.

The US passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and the wolf was listed as endangered in 1974, affording it significant protection from hunters.

In the 1990s, the government reintroduced wild wolf populations into the northern Rocky Mountains, situated in the western US.

Powerful ranching interests in the states concerned have opposed protection of the wolves, saying they threaten livestock.

 

I have found this clip from a couple of years ago talking about the above.

 

This evening I saw a French film (The Dreamlife of Angels), in which the two female leads gave extraordinary depth to their performances. A film which I will remember for many years.

Then over the credits came this song "Rue de cascades" by Yann Tiersen. I've included this piano/accordion version rather than the actual version used for the film as the available clip for that includes the final scenes of the film before the credits.

And from the Bee Bee Cee today:

Honeybees 'cleverer in the morning'

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

The earliest rising bee catches the best flower and ultimately the best meal, according to research.

A study has found that bees are better at learning new odours in the morning.

This early brain power may have evolved to help the insects sniff out flowering plants and forage for nectar more efficiently.

An experiment in which a team tested more than 1,000 bees is described in the journal Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology.

Previous research has shown that most flowers accumulate their nectar during the morning, so this would be the period during which learning many new odours would be most useful to the bees.

The process of memorising the new odours released by flowers is very energy-intensive for the bees' brains, so being a little "less clever" later in the day could help the insects to conserve that energy.

To study the bees' ability to learn, the scientists captured 1,000 forager honeybees (Apis mellifera). They trained groups of the insects at different times of the day to associate a new odour with a food reward.

The team, led by Professor Giovanni Galizia from the University of Konstanz in Germany, could then test each bee to see if it responded correctly to the odour.

The "correct" response to a smell was for the bee to extend its proboscis - the long appendage many pollinating insects use to draw nectar from flowers.

When the bees were trained early in the morning, they were much better at remembering which odours meant that they would receive a reward of sugary nectar.

Much earlier research had already established that bees' behaviour is very dependent upon the time of day. As far back as 1960, one researcher actually flew a group of bees from Paris to New York and found that the "jet-lagged" bees maintained their Paris-timed daily cycle of activity.

But this, the researchers say, is the first study to show that bees are better able to learn in the morning.

In their journal article, the team wrote that this effect was probably a result of bees and the flowers they pollinate "co-evolving".

"It might be evolutionarily advantageous to be the 'early bee' and to 'catch' the flower in order to out-compete possible competitors such as butterflies, flies and [bees from] other hives," the researchers wrote.

Dr Nigel Raine, a researcher from Royal Holloway, University of London, who specialises in the study of insect behaviour, said that bees were "hugely important to us".

"Not only do bees pollinate many crops we depend upon for food, but they also pollinate wild flowers which helps to maintain the beauty and diversity of the landscape in which we live," he told BBC News.

"These are key reasons why we need to increase our understanding of bee behaviour."

What an interesting piece of family history, El Loro. I hope you manage to find the photocopy of the book.

I have just found it. Though, a quick look at them, because I have found two separate photocopied books, they don't seem to go back anything like as far back, so I don't know how much I will find from these books, or whether my mother's stories are just word of mouth. It's going to take time to go through these books and other papers I've found, and I think 99.9% of the material is going to be extremely boring, sort of Adam begat Cain begat Seth begat Fred begat George stuff. The chances are that I go back far enough and you trace your family back far enough, then at some point we could find that we are related. Yes we're cousins 500 times removed.. (And my father's family can be traced back to Ireland - they came here at the time of the Irish potato famine, and I have found that another branch did move to Scotland, so it is possible)

If you've gots lots of money to throw away, you could bid for something at this coming auction. Personally, I think I'll spend my money on something more worthwhile.

Lehman Bros art under the hammer

Art that once hung on the walls of collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers is to be sold next month.

Works by Lucien Freud and Gary Hume are in the company's European collection, which is to be sold for an estimated £2m by Christie's in London.

That will follow a similar sale of art from the firm's US headquarters, which is expected to fetch $10m (£6.3m).

Pieces by Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter and Felix Gonzalez-Torres will go under the hammer in New York on 25 September.

The proceeds will go towards repaying the creditors of the investment bank, which was the biggest bankruptcy in US corporate history when it collapsed in September 2008.

A company sign from its offices in Canary Wharf, London, will be among the objects sold at the London auction on 29 September, as will Lehman Brothers cigar boxes and tea caddies.

With an estimated value of up to £150,000, an image of a New York stock exchange by photographer Andreas Gursky will be sold separately in October.

One of my great-grandmothers was Irish, so you never know El Loro, stranger things have happened.

Oh, and apparently one of my mother's ancestors was an Irish brigand

My brother is fanatical about frogs so this one from the BBC will be of considerable interest to him.

Global hunt begins for 'extinct' species of frogs

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

A frog hunt like no other is about to begin, as conservationists scour the world for species thought to be extinct but which may just be hanging on.

Over the next two months, missions will begin in 14 countries searching for species such as the golden toad, the hula painted frog and the scarlet frog.

Amphibians are the most threatened animals on the planet, with one third of species at risk of extinction.

Many have been eliminated by a fungal disease carried in water.

The scientist leading the project, Robin Moore, said he believes some of the 100 amphibians targeted in the survey will turn up.

"A couple of years ago when I was in Ecuador with a team of local scientists, we went in search of a species that hadn't been seen in 12 years," he told BBC News.

"We weren't very hopeful that we'd find it, but after a day of searching we uncovered a rock and found one of these little green frogs.

"Similar stories have started popping up of people finding frogs that we thought had gone; so it gives me hope that there are a lot out there that we think may have disappeared but may actually still be alive."

Dr Moore, of Conservation International (CI), is organising the search for the Amphibian Specialist Group (ASG) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Golden goal

The biggest issue for amphibians globally is loss of their habitat, as forests are cleared and wetlands drained.

But this survey will target many species that have fallen prey to a newer and starker threat - the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

There is currently no way of preventing infection in the wild, or of preventing its spread across the world.

Although some species are immune, the chytrid fungus wipes others away suddenly. The iconic golden toad of Costa Rica (Incilius periglenes) went from abundant to extinct in little more than a year.

This spectacular species has become a poster-child for the amphibian crisis, and finding some specimens still alive - about which the team is not optimistic - would be a major coup.

The same applies to the gastric brooding frogs of Australia, which uniquely in the animal world raise their tadpoles in their stomachs.

This involves turning off production of stomach acid. Medical researchers hoped that understanding how the frogs did it could lead to new treatments for stomach ulcers.

But their disappearance in 1985 - probably another victim of chytridiomycosis - put paid to such notions.

If it turns out that a few of them do still exist, or of any of the other species to be surveyed, conservation measures would be implented in full.

"We're limited by our knowledge of many of these species and whether they even exist - if we don't know whether a species exists, we can't protect it," said Dr Moore.

"So it really is a mission to increase our knowledge of what's out there, what's still alive, so that we can follow up and hopefully do some conservation work on species that are found."

Among the other top targets for the survey teams are:

• the hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer) of Israel. Last seen in 1955, it probably went extinct because of marsh drainage - an attempt to curb malaria

• the African painted frog (Callixalus pictus), formerly found in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. It was last seen 1950, and is thought never to have been photographed

• the Mesopotamia beaked toad (Rhinella rostrata). Featuring an unusual pyramid-shaped head, the last sighting dates back to 1914.

Teams will spend between a week and two months in the field looking for each of the targeted species.

The results of the search missions should be known before October's meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Japan, at which governments will review the reasons why they have failed to implement their 2002 pledge to reduce the loss of nature significantly by 2010.

"This [survey] is something that has never been done before, and is hugely significant," said Dr Claude Gascon, CI vice-president and ASG co-chair.

"The search for these lost animals may well yield vital information in our attempts to stop the amphibian extinction crisis, and information that helps humanity to better understand the impact that we are having on the planet."

Which can first, the big chicken or the big egg? More from the BBC:

A chicken belonging to a Gloucestershire man has laid an egg double the normal size.

Jeremy Power, from Cheltenham, said his hen Rainbow produced the egg on Saturday.

"Sadly it's not a world record, ours comes in at about 130g (4.6oz) whereas there are eggs on record of 160g (5.6oz), " he said.

"It's all a bit of a dodgy world really in that there's no one to actually authenticate the weight of an egg."

The average egg weighs about 56.7g (2oz).

'Poor little chicken'

Mr Power said: "We've only got two chickens and every so often you do get an egg which is bigger than a normal egg but this one really has caught us by surprise.

"On Saturday, Rainbow really was on top form. I opened up the chicken house and there was this enormous egg. It's almost like a comedy egg it was so big.

"Ouch, that is everyone's reaction to it... poor little chicken."

He said he was intrigued what was inside it.

"On YouTube there is video - which I don't think is a fake - of an egg that size being opened up and inside is another egg.

"The question is what is inside our egg. I think I'll have to video us opening it up just in case there's a surprise in there."

A spokesman for Guinness World Records said: "The heaviest egg reported to have been laid by a hen is one of 454g (16oz), with a double yolk and double shell, laid by a White Leghorn at Vineland, New Jersey, USA, on 25 February 1956."

This piece from the BBC is from the BBC's Green Room which contains weekly opinions on the environment rather than actual news stories. This is written by Mark Huxham

Healthy mangrove forests provide a huge range of environmental benefits and need to be protected, says Mark Huxham. In this week's Green Room, he argues that schemes such as Redd offer a vital lifeline to the important ecosystems.

Like smoke from a bushfire, a pall of black pessimism permeates news from tropical forests.

Every year millions of hectares are lost; usually between 1-2% of global forest coverage.

But in recent years, new units of destruction have appeared measuring mass, not area.

In 2008, we saw 12 billion tonnes of carbon disappear - this is equal to the mass of about 100 million blue whales.

This shift in measurement reflects a change in international priorities.

Whilst the negative impacts of deforestation on biodiversity and indigenous people remain as serious as ever, it is climate change, and units of carbon, that have come to dominate discussions around forestry.

Redd wedge

Approximately 17% of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from the destruction of tropical forests. This is more than the total from all forms of transport combined.

So conserving and restoring these forests must form part of a comprehensive climate change deal; reducing emissions from the developed world is essential, but is not enough.

International negotiations have developed a mechanism to achieve forest conservation, known as Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation).

The idea is that tropical nations will be able to apply for funds either to slow the rate of destruction of existing forests or to increase the area of new ones.

Given that the international carbon market is worth in excess of $100bn per year - more than 100 times what is spent on international conservation - Redd holds the potential of injecting large sums into saving tropical forests and of finally reversing the decline.

Mangroves, forests that grow in intertidal areas in the tropics and sub-tropics, and the people that depend upon them could really benefit from Redd-related carbon payments.

Mangroves account for only around 0.4% of all forests; but the multiple services - such as coastal protection, nursery habitat for fish and filtration of pollution and sediments - that they provide, and the rapid rate of their destruction, make them a conservation priority.

They are also highly effective natural sinks for carbon, capturing up to six times more carbon per hectare than undisturbed rainforests.

Community credits

We have been working with conservation charities Earthwatch Institute and Plan Vivo, along with the Kenyan government, to develop a demonstration community mangrove conservation project at Gazi Bay in southern Kenya.

There are many good reasons to carry out this work, and money from carbon credits might just make it possible - not only in Kenya, but in other communities throughout the tropics.

So why don't we seize the chance?

Critics of the carbon market highlight a number of reasons.

First, the carbon accounting approach to forestry may fail to see the woods for the carbon; the best ways of maximising carbon revenue may not be the best ways of maintaining healthy ecosystems.

Mangroves favour areas such as deltas where salt and fresh water mix

For example, plantations of fast growing exotic species - such as eucalypts - can rapidly capture carbon but may be a disaster for native wildlife and ecosystems.

But the temptation to do this will usually not arise for mangroves, which are highly specialised and grow in areas that other trees cannot tolerate.

Second, there is the threat that Redd and similar systems will be used by governments to evict "inefficient" local people from forests made suddenly valuable by carbon money.

The recent People's Climate Conference, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, came out against Redd on these grounds.

But this is an argument for bottom-up projects, which are led by local people from the start. While the Redd process is still flexible and evolving, an opportunity exists to model future projects on community-based principles.

In the case of mangroves, governments already own most forests around the world, with local people having no formal rights to their use or powers to protect them. Redd presents an opportunity to design and test new systems of community tenure-ship.

The third argument heard against investing in forests for carbon is that of "permanence": how can we know that carbon locked in forests today will not be released following fires or clear-felling tomorrow?

Such an argument could be made against most low-carbon developments. There is no guarantee that the wind turbine built today will not be struck by lightning tomorrow, and anyhow it will "die" at the end of its operating life of 30 years.

However, mangroves are capable of storing carbon for many thousands of years in the form of peat in their sediments, and much of this carbon may remain in place even if the forests themselves are destroyed.

One UK newspaper columnist compares carbon offsetting to the indulgences paid by the pious in the Middle Ages - a device to absolve your conscience without changing your actions.

This is the "moral hazard" argument - that offsetting carbon is a trick that will excuse business-as-usual and will be counterproductive.

But we no longer have a choice between protecting forests and changing lifestyles. Both are necessary.

Money from offsetting can form a useful bridging mechanism as we move towards reducing emissions and enhancing and protecting sinks. But we do need to make sure that both happen, and that cash generated from offsetting is only a part, and a diminishing one, of the funding required.

And what can be said of the final argument, that pricing ecosystem services such as sequestration is a final capitulation to the market-driven, growth-obsessed logic that has got us into our current mess?

I agree that we need a revolutionary change in our ethical outlook so that ecological sustainability becomes our central concern, but I don't see it happening in time to save the forests.

(Lord) Nicholas Stern, in his landmark review into the economics of climate change, identified climate change as a massive "market failure".

By using the language of economics, his report influenced thinking from governments to tabloid newsrooms, even though it contained no new science.

We should learn from this and use the tools of economics to help correct "market failures" such as the destruction of valuable mangroves for short-term gain.

Meanwhile, the bad news from the tropics continues to drift in.

But for the first time in many years there is an emerging opportunity to clear the smoke, and community-based conservation of mangroves is a good place to start.

Dr Mark Huxham is an Earthwatch researcher based at Napier University, Scotland

A different type of news story from the BBC this morning: A quintillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. If they do succeed in developing this type of computer, the technolgy may eventually filter down to commercial computers, particularly as the likes of Intel and Nvidia are involved.I would guess that the military want this speed of computer for things such as code breaking. For nstance the key to a code could be in two parts, both consisting of two large prime numbers. A prime number is one which is only divisible by 1 and itself. Other than 2, all prime numbers must end with 1, 3, 7, or 9.The sender and the recipient know the two prime numbers, but others don't. The message is encoded using a number consisting of the two prime numbers multiplied by each other. The message could be intercepted, but could only be decoded if they could factor htis big number into its' two prime factors. 37 and 71 are two numbers, and the produce is 2,627 - it would not take very long to work out that 2,627 was the multiple of 37 and 71. So in practice the two prime numbers are much larger. Hence this where computers can be used to factor the resulting very big numbers.

There are an infinite number of prime numbers. This is easy to prove. Imagine that every single prime number ever discovered (other than 1) was multiplied by each other to give a staggering big number. Then add 2 to that number. The result cannot be divisible by any of the know prime numbers. (Using my example above 2,627 + 2 = 2,629. As 2 is not divisble by 37 or 71, neither can 2,629. Unless itself is a prime, it must be divisible by prime numbers other than 37 and 71. And in fact it is ewual to 11 times 239.

So there are an infinite number of prime numbers. So when the baddies realise that the goodies now have the ability to crack their codes, they just increase the size of the prime numbers. So there is always a catch up game. So by developing the fastest computer of all time, the US military reckon that as their computers will be vastly faster than anybody else's that they have the upper hand. I know that for experts in crypography, what I have said above is an oversimplification, but I am trying to keep something complex as simple as possible.

Now the article:

US military to attack Moore's Law for future computers

Computers that can perform a quintillion calculations per second are being planned by the US military.

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has awarded the first grants to firms it wants to build so-called exascale computers.

These will be far more powerful than current top supercomputers which manage just over one petaflop - 1000 trilliion calculations per second.

Darpa expects the first prototypes to be working by 2018.

'Reinvent computing'

An exaflop is the equivalent of one million trillion calculations per second.

Darpa said its research project was needed to help analyse the tidal wave of data that military systems and sensors are expected to produce.

The research project, dubbed the Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) program, would attempt to create hardware that "overcomes the limitations of current evolutionary approach".

That approach is characterised by Moore's Law which says the number of transistors that can fit on a given piece of silicon will double every 18-24 months.

The limitations of that approach are the mushrooming power, management and structural issues that crop up as components shrink.

To get around these limitations, grant recipients will have to design chips that use "dramatically" less power per calculation.

The ultimate goal of the research project would be to "re-invent computing" said the agency in a statement.

It is looking to "develop radically new computer architectures and programming models that are 100 to 1,000 times more energy efficient, with higher performance, and that are easier to program than current systems".

Chip giant Intel, graphics card maker Nvidia, MIT and the Sandia National Laboratory are all recipients of the first grants to be used to create prototype exascale machines.

I saw this mentioned on Teletext at lunchtime and in view of my own experences at the beginning of the year, I can see that this makes a lot of sense.

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The brain appears to be a vastly interconnected network much like the Internet, according to new research.

That runs counter to the 19th-Century "top-down" view of brain structure.

A novel technique to track signals across tiny brain regions has revealed connections between regions associated with stress, depression and appetite.

The research, which has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, may lead to a full map of the nervous system.

Larry Swanson and Richard Thompson from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, US, isolated a small section of a rat's brain in the nucleus accumbens - a brain region long associated with pleasure and reward.

Their technique hinges on the injection of "tracers" at precise points in the brain tissue. These are molecules that do not interfere with the movement of signals across the tissue, but can be illuminated and identified using a microscope.

Loops not lines

What is new is that the researchers injected two tracers at the same point at the same time: one that showed where signals were going, and one that showed where they were coming from. The approach can show up to four levels of connection.

If the brain has a hierarchichal structure like a large company, as neurology has long held, the "to" and "from" diagram would show straight lines from independent regions up towards a central processing unit: the company's boss.

But instead, the researchers saw loops between differing regions, feeding back to and directly linking regions that were not known to communicate with one another. This is a better fit with the model of vast networks such as the internet.

The region of the brain studied by the researchers displays a network connecting regions associated with stress, appetite and depression.

Such a highly interconnected structure has been hypothesised for some time, and could prove to be a powerful tool in analysing how the brain processes information. But it had not, until now, been demonstrated experimentally.

"You would be amazed at how much of the current experimental neuroscience literature is dominated by 'top down-bottom up thinking', which goes back to the 19th Century, especially in neurology," Professor Swanson told BBC News.

"The bottom line is that no matter what you might think, the circuitry we've shown - that specific set of structural connections - has not been demonstrated before."

The work illuminates just one tiny corner of the vast number of connections present even in a small mammal's brain. But by slightly overlapping one mapped region with another, and mapping that, a far greater picture could emerge.

"This method is repeatable in a sensible way so that neural networks can be followed as far as they go - ultimately to the whole wiring diagram of the brain," Professor Swanson said.

Such a diagram would be boundlessly complex, and the degree to which it could shed light on the more slippery questions of consciousness and cognition is still up for debate.

"We have no idea right now, but the direct analogy is with the Human Genome Project: taking on faith that knowing the complete sequence of human DNA would be a foundation stone for biology, no matter how long the understanding may take to realise in practical terms."

Fascinating stuff guys, thank you and I also love the environment, and do everything i can to help it.

ginger, welcome to the Parrot Sanctuary which I set up here in the Lounge as a refuge for those on this forum who are not obsessed with the UK Big Brother.

This morning's story from the BBC is an old one, in fact it's billions of years old.

By Howard Falcon-Lang Science reporter

Scientists have found Arctic rocks that may preserve the earliest remnants of Earth.

Over billions of years, much of the material that made up the early Earth was modified by processes such as melting and mixing.

But the Arctic rocks seem to contain chemical signatures that date from just after the Earth's violent origin.

If confirmed, the discovery challenges established theories about the formation of our planet.

The results of the study are published today in the leading journal, Nature.

The signatures found in Arctic lavas are more than 4.45 billion years old. By comparison, the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, only slightly older.

The oldest surviving remnants of our planet's turbulent beginnings were unearthed by Dr Matthew Jackson of Boston University, US, and his international team.

They collected the lava samples from Greenland and Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Although they erupted only 60 million years ago, the lavas contain a chemical signature of a far more ancient source.

They show that beneath the Arctic today are small pieces of mantle - the toffee-like layer below the crust - that have survived unchanged since shortly after the formation of the Earth.

The age of this ancient mantle was determined by studying helium gas locked in the lavas. The 4.45 billion-year age means that the samples date from before the Earth's crust developed, but after the core formed.

The search for the oldest remnants of the Earth's mantle has become something of a Holy Grail for planetary scientists in recent times.

Dr Carlson of the Carnegie Institution, a co-author on the study, remarked that, "this was a key phase in the evolution of the Earth. It set the stage for everything that came after".

However, Professor Tim Elliott of the University of Bristol, who was not involved in the latest study, remarked that though the conclusions were interesting, they were not beyond doubt: "A more convincing way to prove the great antiquity of this material would have been to demonstrate an anomalous extinct nuclide signature," he said.

Extinct nuclides are chemicals that were formed in stars before the formation of the Solar System. They subsequently decayed away to nothing but the traces they left behind are good markers of the early Earth.

If proven, the new discovery would challenge our understanding of the early Earth.

The ancient mantle source discovered has a different chemical make-up to that predicted by theory. It suggests that the Earth had a more complicated early history than previously thought.

A strange little story from the BBC:

A Massachusetts man who was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung came home with an unusual diagnosis: a pea plant was growing in his lung.

Ron Sveden had been battling emphysema for months when his condition deteriorated.

He was steeling himself for a cancer diagnosis when X-rays revealed the growth in his lung.

Doctors believe that Mr Sveden ate the pea at some point, but it "went down the wrong way" and sprouted.

"One of the first meals I had in the hospital after the surgery had peas for the vegetable. I laughed to myself and ate them," Mr Sveden told a local Boston TV reporter.

Mr Sveden said the plant was about half an inch (1.25cm) in size.

"Whether this would have gone full-term and I'd be working for the Jolly Green Giant, I don't know. I think the thing that finally dawned on me is that it wasn't the cancer," Mr Sveden said.

He is currently recovering at home with his wife Nancy, who joked that God must have a sense of humour.

Read through earlier but forgot to sign in
 
Hi Loro
I love this thread
Keep it up mate

Beavering away from the BBC:

The first newborn beavers born in the wild since their re-introduction to the UK last year have been spotted by officials in a Scottish forest.

At least two kits, estimated to be eight weeks old and belonging to different family groups, have been seen in Knapdale Forest in Argyll.

A total of 11 beavers were brought to Scotland from Norway last year as part of the Scottish Beaver Trial.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in the UK 400 years ago.

Some feral beavers have been known to exist in the wild as a result of being released by people who owned them as pets.

Christian Robstad, beaver field officer for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, described seeing the new arrivals was an "amazing" experience.

"After weeks of patient observation, we were finally rewarded with not just one kit being spotted but a second kit from a different family group as well," he said.

"The first emerged as part of a 'family outing' with its parents and older sister close by to offer additional protection.

"It kept close to the edge of the loch and called out to its family for reassurance while it began to learn to forage for food."

The reintroduction is a partnership between the society and the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

Simon Jones, Scottish beaver trial project manager with the trust, said the kits marked a "fantastic step forward" for the trial.

He said: "Both these beaver families are real trial success stories, having settled into Knapdale very well.

"Both have built their own lodge and one family has had great success building a dam to access better food supplies.

"This has created a magnificent new area of wetland in which wildlife is now flourishing in.

"There is a chance that even more kits have been born this year.

"We will be tracking our animals closely and hope to determine the exact number of kits produced as part of the trial soon."

Beavers were a native species to the UK and were once common before they were hunted to extinction by man.

The trial aims to provide information which could determine whether or not animals are reintroduced into the wild across Scotland.

Scottish Environment Minister, Roseanna Cunningham, said: "It's exciting to see these beavers thriving in Knapdale Forest and producing beaver kits so soon after their reintroduction.

"We were hoping that this would happen and I'm looking forward to watching the progress of the beaver families over the coming years."

Nick Purdy from Forestry Commission Scotland, the trial's host partner, said: "We are delighted to have the beavers resident in Knapdale and this is just the news we have been hoping for.

"I know visitors will be keen to get a sighting of the new arrivals, but will also understand that this is a very sensitive time for these beaver families.

"It would be of great help to the beavers if the public avoided the loch edge for the next few weeks to help minimise disturbance while the kits get used to their new environment."

The kits are currently thought to be about the size of large guinea pigs.

The young weigh about 1lb (450g) at birth, are born with a full coat of fur, their eyes open and the ability to swim.

More from the BBC today:

A Swedish motorist caught driving at 290km/h (180mph) in Switzerland could be given a world-record speeding fine of SFr1.08m ($1m; £656,000), prosecutors say.

The 37-year-old, who has not been named, was clocked driving his Mercedes sports car at 170km/h over the limit.

Under Swiss law, the level of fine is determined by the wealth of the driver and the speed recorded.

In January, a Swiss driver was fined $290,000 - the current world record.

Local police spokesman Benoit Dumas said of the latest case that "nothing can justify a speed of 290km/h".

"It is not controllable. It must have taken 500m to stop," he said.

The Swede's car - a Mercedes SLS AMG - has been impounded and in principle he could be forced to pay a daily fine of SFr3,600 for 300 days.

To celebrate the fact that here in Gloucester it is raining heavily and looks as if it will be for some hours to come, and it is cold enough for my central heating to come on (check diary - it says we're in mid August ), here's a sunny story from the BBC today.

Sun's 'quiet period' explained

By Howard Falcon-Lang Science reporter

Solar physicists may have discovered why the Sun recently experienced a prolonged period of weak activity.

The most recent so-called "solar minimum" occurred in December 2008.

Its drawn-out nature extended the total length of the last solar cycle - the repeating cycle of the Sun's activity - to 12.6 years, making it the longest in almost 200 years.

During a solar minimum the Sun is less active, producing fewer sunspots and flares.

The new research suggests that the longer-than-expected period of weak activity may have been linked to changes in the way a hot soup of charged particles called plasma circulated in the Sun.

The study, conducted by Dr Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and her US colleagues, is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The Sun's activity strengthens and weakens on a cycle that typically lasts 10.7 years. Since accurate records began in 1755, there have been 24 such solar cycles.

The 23rd cycle, which ended in December 2008, was both longer than average and had the smallest number of sunspots for a century. Sunspots are areas of intense magnetic activity that are visible as dark spots on the star's surface.

Currents of fire

The new research suggests that one reason for the prolonged period of weak activity could be changes in the Sun's "conveyor belt".

Similar to the Earth's ocean currents, the Sun's conveyor transports plasma across its surface to the pole. Here, the plasma sinks into the heart of the Sun before rising again at the equator.

During the 23rd cycle, these currents of fire extended all the way to the poles, while in earlier cycles they only extended about two thirds of the way.

Dr Roger Ulrich of the University of California, Los Angeles, a co-author of the study, said the findings highlighted the importance of our monitoring of the Sun.

The research team used sophisticated computer simulations to show how changes in the conveyor might have affected cycle duration. They found that the increased length of the conveyor and its slower rate of return flow explained the prolonged 23rd cycle.

However, Dr David Hathaway, a solar physicist from Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, who was not involved in the latest study, argued that it was the speed and not the extent of the conveyor that was of real importance.

The conveyor has been running at record high-speeds for over five years. Dr Hathaway said: "I believe this could explain the unusually deep solar minimum."

At least the weather here isn't as cold as where this man is going to.

This is a little picture I did some time ago for Lori our forum Lady High Executioner when we were setting up the pretend Forum Coalition Government and she was elected (she loves penguins - hence the igloo)

Scientist will live as an Inuit for one year

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

A Cambridge University researcher will set out on 15 August on a year-long expedition to Greenland to document the threatened Inuit culture.

Dr Stephen Pax Leonard will spend a year living with a community in Qaanaaq in the far north of the country.

Once he has learned their dialect - Inuktun - he plans to record and archive the literature, songs and myths that form the basis of the culture.

The Inuits in Greenland are the World's northernmost settled population.

For centuries, the Inughuits - as these northenmost Inuits are known - have lived as hunter-gatherers in the remote region. Dr Pax Leonard describes the area as the "cultural centre of Greenland".

But their culture and language are now endangered, he told BBC News.

"The reason for this is global warming Their lifestyle is almost entirely based on hunting sea mammals... They insist on using the traditional methods of hunting - dog sleds and kayaks.

And because the ice is thinning, it's becoming much more dangerous to travel and hunt that way."

Their language, which has never been written down in full, is used to communicate their history, spirituality and other forms of practical knowledge.

When he arrives, Dr Pax Leonard will talk to his hosts in Danish, but he hopes to become fluent in the Inuktun language during his first few months, so he can appreciate fully the significance of traditional songs and stories.

Only 1,000 people speak Inuktun. The aim of this project is to record and describe it and then "give it back to the communities themselves in a form that future generations can use and understand," said Dr Pax Leonard.

"If their language dies, their heritage and identity will die with it."

Total darkness

The scientists said he was "excited but apprehensive" about his trip.

He will face extreme cold - the average temperature is about -25C during the winter - and several months of darkness.

"The sun goes down on 24 October and doesn't rise again until 8 March," Dr Pax Leonard told BBC News. "I've spent some time in cold places, but I've never experienced solid darkness for weeks on end.

"That's going to be difficult to deal with and I think there'll be psychological ramifications."

The biggest challenge though, is likely to be adapting to a diet of sea mammals.

"It'll be seal, walrus and narwhal - an extremely fatty diet, very low in carbohydrate and very few fruit and vegetables, so I'll be living on vitamin supplements as well."

The scientist will live in a house owned by the local priest, which has electricity, but, like all the houses in the settlement, no running water.

He will have to collect and melt ice for his water supply.

"Something as simple as taking a bath will take hours," he said.

Until they were "discovered" by the Scottish explorer Sir John Ross in 1818, the Inughuit (which literally means the "big people") believed they were the only inhabitants of the world.

In the coming decades, they could be faced with a difficult choice of either continuing to try to eke out a increasingly difficult existence in the north, or move further south.

I heard this story on the radio this morning, but at that time, there was nothing on the BBC website about it. But there is now. I don't somehow think I'm going to bid for this though as apart from the fact that I don't have that sort of money, I think I would have difficulty in parking it on my modest forecourt.

A sports car once owned by the late British actress Diana Dors could fetch up to £4 million ($6m) at a Californian auction on Saturday, organisers say.

The 1949 Delahaye Roadster, which some have dubbed as the most beautiful car in the world, was given to Dors when she was 17.

The sky blue car has been described by auctioneers as "extravagant and outrageous - a rolling sculpture".

Dors, who was seen as the British Marilyn Monroe, died in 1984 aged 52.

Born Diana Mary Fluck, Dors became known as a 1950s blonde sex symbol, but was also well-respected for her acting skills.

RM auctioneers said the car was curvaceous, sexy and flamboyant, just like its former owner.

'Most extravagant'

The car is one of only 150 Roadsters made, and only one of 51 of its specific model - the 175S - and is expected to attract a lot of interest from car collectors around the world.

The company stopped production in 1951 as it found there was little demand for such extravagance during that post-war period.

When Dors first received the car, she did not even have a driving licence.

At 20, she became the youngest owner of a Rolls-Royce in the UK - a reflection of her success at an early age.

After she died, the car changed ownership several times and has in recent years been restored to its former condition.

In its catalogue listing, RM Auctions says the Roadster - which has a top speed of 70mph - can "easily claim to being the most extravagant and beautiful coachbulit car in existence"

Stephen Fry has been getting around these past few days with his one man stage show on Twitter, being appointed to the board of Norwich City FC at the invite of Delia Smith, and now his programme on the QWERTYUIOP keyboard. So this post is the BBC article on good old qwerty - I find it strange that the longest word which can be made from just the keys in the row is TYPEWRITER.

Very big gigantic colossal news from the BBC - in fact absolutely titanic:

US firm awarded $110m for salvaging Titanic artefacts

A judge has awarded a US exhibition company $110m for salvaging artefacts from the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

The US federal judge ruled that RMS Titanic Inc, which displays the artefacts in museums across the world, is entitled to their full market value.

The court will decide whether to grant the company ownership of the objects or sell them and give it the proceeds.

The ship sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in April 1912, killing more than 1,500 people.

RMS Titanic Inc, a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc, has undertaken seven expeditions to the wreck site 2.5 miles (4km) below the north Atlantic, and has retrieved more than 5,500 artefacts.

The Belfast-built ship sank about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, two hours after hitting an iceberg. It was discovered in 1985 by an expedition led by Dr Robert Ballard.

A US court granted the company salvage rights to the vessel in 1994 but explicitly stated it did not grant ownership of the wreck or the artefacts. The company has displayed the artefacts in museums across the world.

'Feats of skill'

In Virginia on Thursday, US District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith found the company's monumental effort to reach the wreck and to retrieve, conserve and exhibit the artefacts entitled it to the monetary award.

"The salvage of the Titanic has involved unprecedented feats of skill and dedication," she wrote.

In deciding the 17-year old case, Judge Smith wrote she had relied on marine salvage law that had its genesis in ancient Greece 3,000 years ago.

She allowed the company to continue to display the artefacts but did not grant the company ownership of them.

She gave herself until 15 August, 2011 to decide whether to sell the artefacts through the court and give the company the proceeds or to give the company title to the objects after setting conditions for their maintenance and future disposition.

'Artefacts imperilled'

"We are very pleased with the decision of the court and believe it reflects the extensive efforts of the company to embrace its role of salvor-in-possession of Titanic," Christopher Davino, Premier Exhibitions, Inc's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

In praising the company's effort, Judge Smith noted the company had invented 20 specialised instruments to retrieve fragile artefacts from the sea bed, including a vacuum and a flat shovel used to retrieve a stained-glass window.

She also noted the great peril its submarine crews had faced on the dives, pointing out that the pressure at the sea floor reaches 6,300 pounds per square inch, and any significant damage to the hull would mean instant death.

And she cited evidence the Titanic is fast deteriorating on the sea floor, with the eventual collapse of the hull imperilling the artefacts.

"The Titanic artefacts were previously lost on the bottom of the ocean, depriving the public of all social utility in their historic symbolism and cultural beauty," she wrote. "Instead, RMS Titanic has recovered those items from a fate of being lost to future generations."

Goes to investigate......................

It's a different Dvorak to the composer whose best known work was The New World Symphony.

Lol
Some how, my keyboard is set to DVORAK on some windows and not on others :0
I've just had a hell of a time logging on to my router after changing its SSID

More from the BBC:

A team of astronomers has found that novae - the relatively quiet death of certain kinds of stars - can emit the highest-energy rays known to nature.

It was not previously thought that novae, which come about for different reasons than the brighter supernovae, could give rise to these gamma rays.

Users of the Fermi space telescope have now confirmed these observations, which were first made by amateur astronomers.

The find runs counter to existing theories of how stars evolve and die.

It was published in the journal Science.

Novae are the lesser of two bright shows marking the end of a star's life. Large stars end in the more spectacular explosions known as supernovae, which generate fast-moving particles in extraordinarily high magnetic fields. When these particles collide with other matter, gamma rays can result.

Amateur find

Most stars do not have enough mass to start the chain of events that leads to a supernova.

Instead they contract to become white dwarfs. Those white dwarf stars that find themselves near a "companion" star can draw material from their neighbour, building up to a critical mass and eventually sparking nuclear fusion again in a nova.

However, theory has held that such novae do not involve such cataclysmic processes that give rise to gamma rays.

Now, an international team of astronomers has trained the Fermi space-based gamma ray telescope on V407 Cygni, a "binary" system comprising a white dwarf star and a red giant companion, 9,000 light-years away.

They had been alerted to the system by amateur Japanese astronomers who had spotted that V407 Cygni had increased in brightness by 10 times over just a few days.

The Fermi telescope is specially designed to capture gamma rays, and the team was surprised to find that it was spitting out gamma rays at completely unexpected energies.

The nova is providing a unique stellar laboratory, shedding light on processes normally confined to supernovae that are too slow for Earth-bound astronomers to learn from quickly.

"It takes thousands of years for supernova remnants to evolve, but with this nova we've watched the same kinds of changes over just a few days," said Kent Wood, a co-author on the Science study from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

"We've gone from a photo album to a time-lapse movie."

As anyone reading this thread will know, the topics I have been posting can cover just about anything - things that I see which tend to get overlloked by the main news and which may be of interest to people.

muf, I have no idea how your keyboard got Dvorakked and why it does it on some applications and others Of course if you set it up to do that (and I don't know myself, though I could tell you how to do that on the old 8 bit Atari computers) it may be that only certain applications recognise Dvorak whereas others can't so just use QWERTY.