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Friday, January 11, 2008

Snow blankets Herat

The heaviest snowfall for decades has blanketed western Asia. Qadir Assemy sent these pictures of icy conditions in Herat, western Afghanistan.

Mechanics help mend cars stranded in the snow. Picture: Qadir Assemy
Mechanics on the streets of Herat have been kept busy in the freeze. Many vehicles, particularly those with diesel engines, simply gave up on the road.

A truck breaks down outside the eye hospital. Picture: Qadir Assemy
Trucks were particularly hard hit by the weather conditions. Qadir Assemy says snow brings out community spirit in Herat and people stop to help each other on the road

Herat International Five Star Hotel. Picture: Qadir Assemy
Many parts of the city have been eerily quiet in the wake of the snowfall.

Mobile phone top-up card seller Picture: Qadir Assemy
Few have dared to venture outside but it's business as usual for a mobile phone top-up card seller camped in the middle of the road.

The flurry has covered parts of the region which haven't seen snow in living memory.

20 Photos with Unexpected Elements in the Background

Ever seen a picture with somebody in the background that totally ruins that “intimate photo”? Or something going on that completely disrupts the purpose of the picture… Here are 20 photos in which there are unexpected elements or people in the background doing crazy things.

World's First Outdoor Artificial Surfing Machine

Six-foot swells are set to break on the Thames at an attraction aiming to tempt the growing ranks of urban surfers to taste the "quintessential California surf lifestyle" in the unlikely surroundings of a disused dock in east London.

From 2011, the world's first outdoor artificial surfing machine will try to rival the Atlantic breakers of Devon and Cornwall using cleaned river water. The plan is to persuade surfers to take to their boards in Tower Hamlets rather than make the long drive to the West Country, where the surf is sometimes more millpond than Maui.

The £20m Venture Xtreme project at Silvertown Quays has secured outline planning permission, and building work to transform the former grain dock will begin this year. An artificial beach with palm trees, boardwalks and rentable fire-pits and barbecues is planned for post-surf relaxation.

Surfers can expect to pay £30 ($60) for an hour's session that will offer at least 10 waves per rider, each rolling more than 100 metres as the swell spreads from the dock to the wide beach. The wave machine can be set to make the surf break left and right from a central peak, allowing surfers to ride comfortably without fear of collision.

Blind Mechanic Diagnoses Car Problems By Smell

A mechanic in Deerfield Beach can smell trouble in the cars that come into his shop.

After losing his eyesight three years ago, Daniel Moncada relies on his senses of smell and touch to figure out what's wrong with a car's engine.

Moncada lost sight in both eyes from a rare and aggressive deterioration of his retinas. It cost him work in construction and Web design.

Family members help run the mechanic shop he owns now, King Motors of South Florida. His mother runs the sales department, his mother-in-law does upholstery for cars and his wife oversees engine and vehicle inspections.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

How many dead bodies are up on Mount Everest?

Today's useless fact - How many dead bodies are up on Mount Everest?
Mount Everest is both the highest mountain and the highest graveyard in the world. As of 2002, 175 climbers had died on the mountain, and the vast majority of these bodies were left behind. There are reported to be at least 41 bodies on the north side of Everest.

Some people simply run out of gas on the trail and freeze to death in place. Others are consumed by avalanches. And, as veteran mountaineer David Breashears points out, removing dead bodies from this elevation is an enormous task.

Breashears describes how it took a team of 12 people eight hours to move the body of one dead Taiwanese man down a portion of the mountain. The high altitude, low oxygen, fierce winds, and intense cold make the trip extremely challenging even for an unencumbered person, so few climbers attempt to take the bodies of the deceased back with them.

Some bodies are lost forever on Everest. During the tragic May 1996 expeditions when eight people died in a freak storm near the summit, two of the bodies were never found. To further complicate matters, the local Sherpas, the people most adept at climbing the mountain and transporting gear up and back, are wary of dead bodies and don't like to go near them.

Man with lots of chicks

OMG, so many chicks!… what do you think he’s going to do with the chicks?

Snatched from the jaws of death: Zoo rescues cubs after confused polar bear mother EATS her two babies

The giant polar bear looks like a mother tenderly caring for her newborn.
As Vera emerges from her den at Nuremberg Zoo, she carries her tiny cub - believed to weigh less than 8lb - by the scruff of its neck.But rather than a loving encounter this was, in fact, the final scene from an extraordinary drama involving primeval nature, a controversial zoo experiment and a tragic outcome.

Moments later, Vera began violently swinging the cub round her head. When she dumped it in the den, keepers moved in to rescue the cub.An attempt to force the bears to raise their cubs as nature intended has already led to two others being eaten by their confused mother, Wilma.

This grisly find, which keepers discovered yesterday, forced them to move in on Vera and - finally - check on her cub. The zoo hurriedly announced that keepers would begin bottle-feeding the surviving cub.It's an ironically late move. Managers at the German zoo had previously announced that the cubs would not be bottle-fed as bears in captivity often are.

Even when they later realised that the mothers had failed to bond with their offspring-officials said it was vital that the tiny cubs should be reared "naturally", even admitting they would leave them to starve. In the wild, cubs whom the mother cannot care for are often killed and then eaten - protein is not to be wasted when the carnivores have to survive temperatures of -70c.

Last weekend, zoo staff became worried when Vera did not appear to be feeding her cub, which she had hidden in a man-made den carved out of rock inside her enclosure.
Wilma's cubs had also remained inside their den.But the zoo refused to check on them, saying they did not want repeats of "Knut-mania" - a reference to the worldwide outcry after a baby polar bear faced starvation at Berlin Zoo last year.

Abandoned by his mother at birth, animal rights activists claimed that Knut should die rather than be raised by humans. But zoo officials disagreed, rearing him by hand in defiance of death threats by extremists.Nuremberg officials took a sterner line on the raising of their cubs.As radio phone-ins and internet sites were bombarded with pleas to save the tiny animals, deputy director Helmut Maegdefrau insisted they would not intervene.

"If you don't let the mothers practise, they'll never learn how to bring up their cubs," he said."If we were to keep checking, we would disturb them and make it more likely that something goes wrong." Yet something had already gone wrong. On Monday morning, zoo staff heard Wilma pawing at the gates of her den, where it was believed she was raising her litter.Keepers had assumed that there was no crying from her cubs because they were content and fed.

But when zoo keepers let Wilma into a separate area to investigate, the den was empty.Wilma's customarily ravenous appetite had also disappeared and the obvious conclusion was drawn.Last night, Vera's surviving cub was being examined by vets in case being thrown about by its mother had caused internal injuries.

Now the zoo is facing just as rough a ride from an outraged international community.
Let's hope that Vera's sole surviving cub will grow up as healthy and happy as the now one-year-old Knut who has his own TV show and blog - and not care whether it is raised by humans holding bottles of milk.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Rare Prehistoric Shark In Japan

A rare prehistoric shark was discovered by local residents in Shizuoka, southwest of Tokyo. The huge eel-like creature, considered to be a living fossil, was taken to Japan’s Awashima Marine Park and placed in a seawater pool. But the new environment was fatal and, only just a few hours after it was moved, the unusual shark died.

Schoolgirl's Guide to Teenage Slang

A school girl from Britain has written a guide to teenage slang for confused parents.

Lucy van Amerongen, 13, penned The A-Z of Teen Talk after her parents complained they couldn’t follow her conversations with pals – and a publisher snapped it up.

Now Lucy, who goes to posh private school Cheltenham Ladies’ College, is “stoked” (very happy) because sales of her “nang” (cool) book are “owdish” (excellent).

Her guide includes 300 teen words such as “antwacky” (unstylish), “cotch down” (sleep), “rago” (OK) and “zip” (yob).

It also includes her three golden teen talk rules – never make eye contact when talking to a “mouldie” (parent), always mumble inaudibly, and try to include “like” in every sentence.

Lucy, of Box, Gloucs, said: “I hope the book clears up confusion. Some parents don’t give teenagers enough credit for some of the words they use. More come up every day and a lot are very creative.”