A news blog...... OF SORTS

Malaysian GP

2009-04-06T06:35:00.005+01:00

Round 2 of the Formula One World Championship and again the modifications to the cars this year meant an exciting race with plenty of real overtaking - we didn't just have to wait for pit-stops for the order to change.

The Malaysian Grand Prix was almost as exciting as the previous week’s LieGate scandal had been. (Liegate involved McLaren and its representatives, including Hamilton, lying to the stewards – end result, Hamilton disqualified from the first Grand Prix of the season).

Jenson Button was on pole again and led the race almost from start to finish (with a slow start losing the first couple of laps to Rosberg and a pit-stop routine taking him back into the pack for the briefest of spells). Kovaleinen didn’t make it round the first lap – just to add to McLaren’s woes.

Ferrari had screwed up Massa’s qualifying and then managed to screw up Reikonen’s race by choosing wet tyres too early. By the time this happened it was too late - his wet tyres had gone off.

I think it's safe to say visibilty was not good by the time the safety car was deployed.

Quite when the race finished was a matter for some conjecture and lengthy stewards' debate. Torrential rain meant the race was red-flagged but it took nearly an hour to declare the winner. Not, it seems, because there was much likelihood of a re-start (by then it was almost pitch dark) but because they couldn’t work out who was where when the race finished. (Bearing in mind the race is deemed to have finished when the leader last crossed the line prior to the red flag being thrown.) It seemed that Button had won with the Toyota of Glock second and Heidfeld third but that was then changed to Button, Heidfeld, Glock. The commentator interviewing Hamilton asked was he pleased with seventh place, even though it was half points, and Hamilton said “I thought I was fifth...” One would have thought with all their technology it would have been a fairly simple thing to work out who was where...

The end result (as it stands though it may well change during the week) –

Back on top - briefly

2009-04-06T06:15:00.000+01:00

Liverpool beat Fulham away on Saturday and went to the top of the Premiership. They scored in the 94th minute which was a lesson in not wasting time. If Fulham hadn’t spent so much of the second half wasting time the match would have been over. Unfortunately, on Sunday, Manchester United copied us by beating Aston Villa 3-2 with a goal in extra time. So they went top by one point. Bummer.

Australian GP

2009-03-30T04:11:00.011+01:00

Formula One is back on the BBC but they cannot have been thrilled to have had qualifying interrupted – even if it was only briefly.

It was good to have proper introductory music back. Music like The Chain and ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ summarise Grand Prix racing for me. The commentators include David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan and Martin Brundle.

Honda have disappeared but a buy out by Ross Brawn brought Brawn GP with Jensen Button and Rubens Barrichello to the grid. Virgin has bought into the Brawn with a sponsorship deal and Richard Branson was to be seen in the pits.

The new rule changes mean the ugly side pods (seen above on last year's McLaren) have gone. Instead we have front wings that are the whole width of the car – bound to be plenty of them lying on the track before the race is over and they are so ugly Martin Brundle suggested they should be covered with brown paper bags.

There is a diffuser on the back of three of the teams that is allegedly giving them such an advantage that the other teams are upset and have complained – tell us the old, old story...

Sebastian Bueni is the only rookie on the grid – driving for Torrio Rosso. Mark Webber returned after a crash when his mountain bike hit a car. He smashed up his leg and shoulder. He is still limping badly but he looked quick in the car during practice even if not when limping down the paddock or when his car was limping after a first lap crash initiated by Kovaleinen.

In qualifying one Hamilton could only manage 15th – one place above dropping out... In the end his car packed up and he had to change the gear box so he dropped back to 18th any way! Both Force Indias dropped out in the first qualifying and the Toyotas were put to the back for rule infringements.

The Renault looks more attractive when not in the gravel. Alonso in the attractive looking Renault went out in the next round of qualifying as did Kovalinen showing the McLaren is not a good car at the moment.

Button and Barrichello locked out the front row in their new Brawns. The last time a new team on the grid made it to pole in its first Grand Prix was the Tyrrell team in 1970. The only other team ever to do it was Mercedes in the 1950s.

The race was quite exciting and there was plenty of overtaking suggesting that they have, at last, found rule changes that make for enjoyable racing.

Button led from start to finish but Barrichello looked set to come in fourth after his anti-stall kicked in on the grid. Then three laps from the end Kubica and Vettel had a coming together that put them both out and made it a fairy tale ending for the Brawn team.

Ferrari came nowhere with Massa’s car packing up and Reikonnen having a brush with the wall. Kovaleinen’s car also proved unreliable but Hamilton came from the back to take fourth behind Trulli.

The Kop

2009-03-11T04:08:00.005Z

One of THE great sounds in Football – Liverpool’s Kop in full voice singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

Last night Liverpool played Real Madrid. Liverpool carried forward a 1 - 0 lead from the away leg and added another 4 goals on the night making it a resounding 5 – 0 defeat on aggregate.

This was the fourth goal being scored by Dossena.

The other goals were by Torres and, of course, Steven Gerrard (2). The score hides the fact that the Real goalkeeper, Casillas, made any number of magnificent saves and was undoubtedly their man of the match.

So we are into the quarter-finals of the European Champions League (yet again).

The singing at the end of the match was even louder!

Pink Iguana

2009-03-01T05:16:00.002Z

A pink Iguana, disovered on the island of Volcan Wolf in the Galapagos in 1986, is causing an evolutionary stir.

The Lost World on Google Earth

2009-02-25T17:48:00.008Z

The mountainous area of northern Mozambique in southern Africa had been overlooked by science due to inhospitable terrain and decades of civil war in the country. However, while scrolling around on Google Earth, an internet map that allows the viewer to look at satellite images of anywhere on the globe, scientists discovered an unexpected patch of green.

Driving up to Mount Mabu - Photograph: Julian Bayliss/Kew
A British-led expedition was sent to see what was on the ground and found 7,000 hectares of forest, rich in biodiversity, known as Mount Mabu. In just three weeks, scientists led by a team from the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew found hundreds of different plant species, birds, butterflies, monkeys and a new species of giant snake. The samples which the team took are now back in Britain for analysis. So far three new butterflies and one new species of snake have been discovered but it is believed there are at least two more new species of plants and perhaps more new insects to discover.

Jonathan Timberlake recording vegetation (Photograph: Tom Timberlake/Kew)

Hemipteran bug - Photograph: Julian Bayliss/Kew

Google Earth image of Mount Mabu. The coordinates are 16 degrees 17 min, 56 secs south and 36 degrees 23 mins 44secs east.

Pygmy chameleon (Rhampholeon sp.) - Photograph: Julian Bayliss/Kew

See here for the full article by Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent to the Daily Telegraph.

And here for some more images.

Oh Dear!

2009-02-21T04:38:00.002Z

Or words to that effect.... as the Copenhagen goalie managed to let the simplest of shots by a Manchester City player slip through his hands...

Copenhagen 2 - Man City 2 in the Eufa Cup.

Oh S**t - or more politely - Lizard Poo

2009-02-08T12:59:00.001Z

Leeds University has apologised to Daniel Bennett, a graduate student and friend of Helen, who lost his unique collection of rare lizard excrement when it was thrown away by mistake. Daniel had been studying the Bhutan Lizard (Varanus olivaceus) for more than five years in the Philippines and was working towards a doctorate. The lizard - also known as Gray’s Monitor – is one of the world's rarest reptiles, it was thought to be extinct for over 100 years.

When he returned from field studies “I was surprised to find my desk space occupied by another student and to see that photographs of my daughter, my girlfriend and my favourite lizards had been removed from the wall. The laboratory space where my samples had been stored was empty. Irritation turned to fear as I realized that my personal effects had been carefully stowed in boxes, but there was no sign of my 35-kilogram bag of lizard shit. Fear turned to anger and bewilderment when I learned that my samples had been ‘accidentally’ removed from the lab and incinerated.”

He said the reptile was so shy that he studied what it ate through its droppings, rather than trapping or disturbing it. The tree-dwelling lizard’s reclusiveness makes it difficult to study, he explained, so the fecal samples were invaluable. Nonetheless their destruction did not stop him from finishing his Ph.D.

New amphibians

2009-02-07T23:55:00.004Z

This toad from the Nectophrynoides genus is one of 15 amphibian species in Tanzania that have been described for the first time. They were found during research led by UK conservation charity Frontier. The toad is being studied by researchers in Italy and at the Natural History Museum, London. As well as their distinctive markings and colourings, the researchers say Nectophrynoides are also unique because females give birth to live offspring rather than lay eggs. Sadly, areas of Tanzania's mountain forests are under threat from deforestation, the researchers warned.

Meanwhile, a recent scientific expedition in Colombia's mountainous Darien region has unearthed 10 new species of amphibians, including this Harlequin Frog – Atelopus sp.. Scientists with Conservation International announced the discovery in what's being referred to as a safe haven for frogs located in the west of the country on the border with Panama.

A rain frog of the genus Pristimantis was among the new species.

The discovery of the 10 new amphibians, which include a salamander, , was the result of a three-week survey of the area, the group said. The country is home to over 750 species of amphibian.

(Pictures from CNN and BBC)

Hunting Wolves

2009-02-06T12:21:00.002Z

Over the past five years, Alaska’s aerial hunting program has claimed the lives of more than 800 hundred wolves. Despite strong scientific, ethical and public opposition to aerial hunting, Governor Sarah Palin has not only supported the killing but proposed paying a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf. She has approved a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to promote aerial hunting. In addition Alaska's Governor has introduced legislation to make it even easier to use aircraft to hunt wolves and bears.

If you live in the United States you can send an e-mail to Sarah Palin requesting her to withdraw her support for this brutality by visiting this site.

Sadly the site does not provide for us in the UK to tell her how shameful we find it that a country for which we have much admiration in many respects should let itself down itself by this behaviour. The Uk does not have the best track record on wildlife conservation and environmantal matters but at least blood sports has been banned. (And yes, hunting wolves from the air can only be defined as a blood sport since there is no scientific argument for doing it.)

Everton 1 - Liverpool 0

2009-02-05T16:01:00.000Z

Life doesn’t come much more frustrating than being a Liverpool fan seeing Liverpool FC get knocked out of the FA Cup by Everton.

Actually, yes it does. The match was a replay at Goodison after a draw at Anfield. Everton scored in the 218th minute of play. Two more minutes and it would have gone to penalties – in which Liverpool have an excellent record. Yes, that makes it even more frustrating.

Then again it can get even more frustrating than that. With two minutes to go in the match ITV went to a commercial break so none of us watching on TV got to see the goal!

Not a good night....

Whales with big feet

2009-02-04T09:23:00.001Z

Nine years ago, a team of fossil-hunters led by Philip Gingerich from the University of Michigan uncovered something amazing - the petrified remains of an ancient whale, but one unlike any that had been found before. Within the creature's abdomen lay a collection of similar but much smaller bones. They were the fossilised remains of a foetal whale, perfectly preserved within the belly of its mother...
The creatures are new to science and Gingerich have called them Maiacetus inuus. The genus name is an amalgamation of the Greek words "maia" meaning "mother" and "ketos" meaning "whale", while Inuus, the Roman god of fertility, gave his name to the species.
This trio of skeletons is so complete and well-preserved that Gingerich likens them to the Rosetta Stone.
All in all, Gingerich's latest finds are among his most alluring yet. The remains of these three individuals have lasted through 48 million years of compression and today, they paint an incredibly vivid picture of the life of an ancient species. The fact that they are ancestral whales is the icing on the cake. This group's story is one of the most beautifully illustrated in the field evolution and every new discovery is a welcome one.

For more about this exciting find see Ed Yong’s blog.

Eggheads

2009-02-03T18:45:00.002Z

The Eggheads have lost two games in a row. The Bere Heads won £25,000 but because a new run of money had started the next team only won a thousand. Nevertheless they were delighted to win.

Tony Hart

2009-01-26T19:42:00.005Z

Tony Hart died last week aged 83.

The lovable British artist turned Childrens TV presenter inspired children allover the world to paint and draw for almost 50 years, what a legend. I watched Tony Hart when I was a kid and found his shows hugely entertaining. Tony Hart’s gentle manner and wise years made him one of the best presenters ever to have graced our screens.

Tony Hart broke into television in 1952 after drawing a fish on a napkin at a party that was also attended by a BBC producer (if only it was that easy now!). Tony Hart went on to appear in Saturday Special, Playbox, Titch and Quackers, Vision On, Take Hart, Hartbeat, Artbox Bunch and Smart Hart.

From the 1970s, Tony Hart’s show would often include the animated Plasticine character Morph.

Morph was was produced for the BBC by Aardman Animations who later became famous for Wallace and Gromit. Tony Hart is also famous for designing the Blue Peter logo and badge. Tony Hart received two BAFTAs and a Lifetime Achievement Award before his retirement in 2001.

The Inauguration

2009-01-20T17:26:00.004Z

The Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America took place today. Barack Obama is now the US President. He begins with two advantages – he follows an awful President and he has a lot of the American people behind him. Obama becomes its first African-American leader - in a ceremony in Washington DC watched by millions around the world and an enormous crowd in Washington itself. As he said “A man who sixty years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant now stand before you to take this sacred oath.”

As Andi concluded:-
“Today is an exciting day, a hopeful day, a joyful day. An historic day for every one of us no matter what party, race, religion, or location. Happy Inauguration Day!!!”
Good luck, America.

The 209th Derby Game

2009-01-19T21:59:00.003Z

Anfield was home to the 209th Derby Game tonight. The Reds scored, thanks to Steven Gerrard, but Everton came back three minutes from time. Bummer. If Liverpool had won they would have gone back to the top of the Premier League as it is they have the same number of points as Man Utd but are behind on goal difference and Man U have a game in hand as well. Disappointing.

John Mortimer

2009-01-19T20:21:00.001Z

Sir John Mortimer, the preternaturally prolific English author, died last Friday at 85. He created two unforgettable characters: one was the irascible barrister Horace Rumpole; the other was himself. He is pictured above with his actress daughter.

Rumpole, the craftily disheveled Old Bailey "hack," is probably best known through Leo McKern's portrayals on television. As a barrister, he is distinguished by his reverence for the common law, his contempt for judges and his refusal ever to prosecute or to enter a guilty plea.

Mortimer, a former barrister himself, was one of his country's best-known literary celebrities, first as a highly successful playwright -- part of the so-called new wave with his friends John Osborne and Harold Pinter -- then as writer of radio dramas, screenplays, novels, short stories and surprisingly first-rate journalism.

Life on Mars

2009-01-16T13:31:00.003Z

The "Is there life on Mars debate?" has gone on for my lifetime and indeed since at least the era of H G Wells. This is the latest round in the debate.

Presumably future visitors to the red planet can expect to find signs saying "Methanogens rule OK".

Milky Way

2009-01-13T06:45:00.000Z

The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers thought, it has been revealed.

For decades, stargazers thought when it came to the major neighbouring galaxies, our Milky Way - home to Earth - was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda, but not anymore. Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it is 15% larger in breadth. More important, it is denser, with 50% more mass, which is like weight.

The new findings were presented at the American Astronomical Society’s convention in Long Beach, California.

Info from The Conscious Mind.

By contrast there is little doubt that Mars Bars are getting smaller...

Atheist buses

2009-01-11T00:34:00.002Z

"You wait ages for an atheist bus, then 800 come along at once"
- Ariane Sherine, the woman behind the atheist bus adverts.

The campaign to raise funds to put adverts on buses bearing the legend "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" was launched in October. Now 200 buses will be taking to the streets in London, with 600 more around the rest of the country.

I wonder how long it will be before we have industrial action by someone refusing to drive one on religious grounds?

Shark Bite

2009-01-09T06:30:00.002Z

Researchers have found that sharks have very weak jaws for their size and can bite through their prey only because they have a lot of very sharp teeth - and because they can grow to be so big.

"Pound for pound, sharks don't bite all that hard," Daniel Huber of the University of Tampa in Florida, who led the study, said.

As Lee (of A Curate's Egg) commented
Big mouth, very sharp teeth. Seems enough for me.

Please can I have my duck back?

2008-12-22T00:35:00.000Z

The US space agency (Nasa) would like its rubber ducks back, please.

Ninety bathtub toys were hurled into a drainage hole on the Greenland ice in September - an experiment to see how melt waters find their way to the base of the ice sheet.

It was hoped the ducks would flow along subglacial channels and eventually pop out into the sea. They may still, but nothing has been seen of them so far.

Strictly is over

2008-12-22T00:34:00.012Z

The Final of Strictly Come Dancing took place on Saturday. Over 13 million viewers enjoyed the spectacle. And what a magnificent spectacle it proved to be.

I believe the right two couples got through to the second stage (though I suspect GB may disagree when he gets his DVDs up-to-date in a few weeks). I never really took to Lisa and whilst I can appreciate her journey and Brendan’s skill in training her I cannot think of a single dance of hers that really wowed me.

Right up until the show dance I thought it was going to be Rachel’s but the show dance made me wonder if Tom could pull it off.

Bruce sang a song for us.

They opened the cages and let Kristina and Ola out to do some of the brilliant professional dances and to dance with their partners from the series. Whatever other health problems I may suffer from I can guarantee there are still some red blood cells left!

The five previous winners of Strictly Come Dancing - Natasha Kaplinsky, Jill Halfpenny, Darren Gough, Mark Ramprakash and Alesha Dixon - also appeared, with all but Kaplinsky performing a group fabulous routine to a version of Robbie Williams' Let Me Entertain You.

The winners – Tom and Camilla. Overall I think Rachel should have won and I felt sorry for her and Vincent. A score of 79 out of 80 for their two dances prior to the show dance – they could not have done more. But I would have felt sorry for Tom and Camilla if they had lost.

It has undoubtedly been the best Strictly Come dancing series yet.

Woolworths

2008-12-14T00:31:00.001Z

Woolworths, the stricken high street retailer, saw its biggest-ever day's trading on Thursday after administrator Deloitte launched a closing-down sale across the 800-store chain. Woolworths' 30,000 staff have been told that they could be out of work before the end of December if buyers for their stores are not found. Hundreds of Woolworths outlets are already under offer to third-party retailers such as Wilkinson and Iceland. However, separate approaches to save Woolworths as a going concern look less likely to succeed.

Strictly Semi-Final

2008-12-14T00:30:00.001Z

During the week, on Claudia’s programme, we learned some Argentine Tango moves from Flavia and Vincent. I loved the ‘decoration’ in which the girl rubs her foot up the man’s leg. The dance originated in seedy nightclubs of Buenos Aires where the ladies of the night hung out. They had to be able to dance in case the place was raided. The ‘decoration’ was designed so that the girl could use her foot to check how much money the man had in his pockets.

The best celebrity Argentine Tango to date has been Mark Ramprakash and Karen. But no Argentine Tango on Saturday night’s show is going to be able to match the one done by Flavia and Vincent and another professional couple last week-end. That has to be one of the best dances I’ve ever watched on TV.

On the night the two dances by Rachel and Vincent were, in my view, simply perfect. Sadly Tom didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I think Austin would have given Rachel a better run for her money. Sorry, but I still can’t see what folk see in Lisa. There never seems the same life in her dances as there is in Rachel and Tom’s.

Craig Smith and Natalie Wolfe’s show dance was unbelievable. The way she rolled up his body at one stage was quite mesmerising. Then the group jive by the professionals knocked Tom and Camilla’s jive into a cocked hat. “All that Jazz” from 'Chicago' was equally fantastic.

The evening ended perfectly with all three couples going through to the Final.

Fans sought over abusive chanting

2008-12-10T07:17:00.002Z

The BBC has published images that have been released of 16 Tottenham fans police want to trace over indecent and homophobic chanting directed at Portsmouth's Sol Campbell. The investigation follows abuse aimed at the former Arsenal and England defender during a game with Spurs at Fratton Park on 28 September.

Officers are asking the public to help them trace the men, who were captured on film during the match. The FA said it would ban for life any fans it could prove were involved.

Supt Neil Sherrington from Hampshire police said: "As part of our investigation into indecent chanting at Fratton Park, we have identified 16 people we would like to speak to. Our inquiry is aimed at identifying and putting before the court those individuals who engaged in unacceptable behaviour at this public event. Their abuse caused distress to some supporters and was targeted at an individual. We want to send a clear message that abuse of this kind will not be tolerated and that we are taking robust action. I'd urge anyone who recognises these people to contact us as soon as possible."

Campbell, who left Tottenham on a free transfer to north London rivals Arsenal in 2001, joining Portsmouth in 2006, was subjected to prolonged abuse during the game. Complaints from Portsmouth fans were made to Hampshire police, who initially said they could not take action because of the number of Tottenham fans involved.

Singing and chanting is part of the fun of being at a football match and I am not overly p.c. but I fully endorse action of this sort. It is good to know that people can no longer just hide in the crowd and get away with things that they would neither have the courage nor the stupidity to do on their own.

New pterosaur species found

2008-12-08T00:31:00.000Z

A new fossil species of flying reptile with a wingspan the size of a family car has been uncovered by scientists. A researcher at the University of Portsmouth has identified the new type of pterosaur, the largest of its kind ever to have been discovered. It would have flown in the skies above Brazil 115 million years ago.

Mark Witton estimated that the pterosaur had a wingspan of 16.4ft (5m) and would have been more than 39in (1m) tall at the shoulder. The partial skull fossil, found in Brazil, is the first example of a chaoyangopteridae, a group of toothless pterosaurs, to be found outside China. Mr Witton said: "Some of the previous examples we have from this family in China are just 60cm (2ft) long - as big as the skull of the new species. Put simply, it dwarfs any chaoyangopterid we've seen before by miles. The discovery of something like this in Brazil - so far away from its closest relatives in China - demonstrates how little we actually know about the distribution and evolutionary history of this fascinating group of creatures."

Mr Witton has named the new species Lacusovagus, meaning lake wanderer, after the large body of water in which the remains were buried. Mr Witton's findings were published in the journal Palaeontology in November.

Strictly Weekend

2008-12-08T00:30:00.009Z

There were eight dances on Saturday. My favourites were Tom and Camilla’s Foxtrot; Tom and Camilla’s Rumba; Rachel and Vincent’s Tango; Rachel and Vincent’s Cha Cha Cha and Austin and Erin’s Salsa. Rachel was judged to have done another perfect dance.

Austin was at the bottom of the leader board. On the basis of my perception of the dances I decided to give Tom and Rachel two phone votes each and Austin one phone vote. I wonder who will be in the dance off. Could be any of them at this stage. Whatever happens someone really good is going to be leaving.

On Sunday the Professionals did a couple of wonderful dances – firstly a Viennese Waltz.

And then an Argentine Tango.

Then Barry Manilow sang Copa Cobana to the accompaniment of a Samba by the professionals again.

Sadly, as Arlene pointed out, the dance that the performers had to s
do on the night affected the outcome of the dance off and Austin and Erin’s best dance – a latin - was judged to be not as good as Lisa and Brendan’s best dance – ballroom. Austin is out. Very sad.

So it will be Austin and Erin on Claudia’s couch on Monday night.

Pygmy Tarsiers

2008-12-01T16:14:00.003Z

Conducting a survey of Mount Rore Katimbo in Lore Lindu National Park on the island of Sulawesi, a team led by Sharon Gursky-Doyen of Texas A&M University captured three pygmy tarsiers, a tiny species of primate that was last collected in 1921 and was assumed to be extinct until 2000 when two scientists studying rats accidently trapped and killed an individual. Gursky-Doyen's team spent two months using 276 mist nets to capture the gremlin-like creatures so they could be fitted with radio collars and tracked. One other individual was spotted but eluded capture.

Pygmy tarsiers are among the smallest and rarest primates in the world. The species is distinguished from tarsiers by its diminutive size (50 grams) and its fingers which have claws instead of nails, which Gursky-Doyen believes may be an adaptation to its mossy habitat some 7,000-8,000 feet (2,100-2,440) about sea level.

Week 11

2008-12-01T16:10:00.003Z

Vincent wiping away tears at the end of the show but not because he and Rachel were out. They were in the dance off but it was Christine and Matthew who left Strictly on Sunday.

The right result but very sad because she has been such a lively, bubbly, happy character. Obviously much loved by the other contestants and professionals as witnessed by Vincent’s emotional response.

A new Dolphin

2008-12-01T00:31:00.002Z

Thanks to DNA testing, a new species of bottlenose dolphin has been discovered in the waters off southern Australia. It is only the second new dolphin to be discovered in 50 years. I always thought examining a moth's genitalia to tell which species it was seemed a bit far to go but when you have to check it's DNA that seems a bit like cheating to an old-fashioned guy like me. As yet the species has not been named.

A Thai Museum

2008-11-30T00:31:00.001Z

Praserd Sriyonyong’s innocuous-looking house in Thailand holds everything from mammoth heads to dinosaur bones, a massive testimony to the man’s obsession with collection and natural history. There are around 400,000 natural history items, including an incredible mammoth head and dinosaur skeleton inside this very unusual house. Sriyonyong says he bought them from some “rich people” in Thailand’s rural hinterland that had them in their possession for generations.

"I have 300 heads of “kouprey” (Cambodian forest ox) alone; neither the British Museum nor the Louvre has even one specimen of this extinct animal. I also hold the world’s record for antlers”, says Praserd Sriyonyong with pride, a tall, striking-looking man in his early fifties. Sriyonyong is now looking for partners, financial and related specialists, to build and house his fabulous collection as a modern museum, to be centred around a tourist complex by the side of the main road near the ruins of Ayutthaya, Thailand’s historical city founded in 1350 A.D. and destroyed in 1767, now a UNESCO heritage site.

Conservation scientist Antony Lynam of the Asia programmes of the Wildlife Conservation Society said “All who have seen the collection agree that it represents a unique resource for scientific research and education.”

Another Strictly

2008-11-30T00:30:00.004Z

Another good Strictly night – the first on which the competitors have had to do two dances. As usual I preferred the ballroom dances to the Latin but there were so many good dances it was a great evening.

Rachel and Vincent’s Waltz kicked off the evening in fine style and earned a suitably high score.

You know a dance is good when you don’t want it to end. And that was certainly the case with Austin and Erin’s Paso. Len may have thought it was all performance and no content but everyone else gave it a standing ovation. It was most unusual to see Craig give a ten and Len only an eight! Austin and Erin’s foxtrot was also brilliant.

Other tremendous dances were Christine and Matthew’s Salsa, Tom and Camilla’s Waltz, and Rachel & Vincent’s Paso Doble to It's The Final Countdown.

Tom and Camilla danced their waltz to Moon River – what better song could you get for a waltz?

Tom got told off for sticking his rear end out but I didn’t notice it – his lines looked perfect to me even though they obviously weren’t up to the judges’ standards.

I just can’t get worked up about Lisa and Brendan. The judges seem to think she is first class but I don’t get any good vibrations from them. Added to which I can’t get enthused about her personality. There is no way I would have had them at the top of the leader board at the end of the evening but that is where they ended up.

On the basis of tonight I should hate to choose the finalists but the next one to go looks like it’s going to be Christine. On the other hand if the public save her we could lose one of my favourites. Oh dear, better go and do some telephoning...

A1

2008-11-27T00:15:00.005Z

The last A1 race of 2008 last weekend saw Switzerland take the win in a messy Sprint race which had a major crash at the start, saw GB pull out with a gearbox problem on lap 1 and South Africa damage the Malaysian car in a hopeless overtaking attempt. New Zealand was second out of the pits in front of France but had to give the place back because of an unsafe pit release. Mexico went off the track to add to the excitement. Switzerland’s pit stop was quick and clean as befits the team which won the series last year.

A rolling start is supposed to be two abreast not six!

Korea not on the grid for the feature race because of a technical problem gave the US their rear wing to replace the damaged one from the sprint race. The camaraderie between teams in A1 is a notable contrast to F1.

At the start of the Feature Race GB dropped straight from second place on the grid to fifth; India got taken out by the Netherlands who themselves had been hit. Switzerland, trying to make his way up from the back after a penalty, went off. Ireland, led Portugal, Lebanon, Malaysia and GB. Malaysia got past Lebanon but as GB tried it both cars went off and on getting back on the track GB got overtaken by a few cars and then lost his front wing as France hit him. Not a good day for GB. It got wortse and the car ended the race in the garage.

At this stage an unbelievable downpour occurred (on the Wirral not in Sepang) and the picture disappeared. By the time the rain / hail eased off the first round of pit stops had occurred. Close but fair racing between Ho Pin Tung of China and the US’s Marco Andretti showed that overtaking without hitting people is quite possible. Later, Malaysia and Italy also demonstrated skill, good judgement and fairness as they fought. Perhaps Adrian Zoug of South Africa could learn from these drivers.

Malaysia was in a comfortable third place when some miscommunication brought him into the pits unexpectedly losing him so much time he ended up well back, disappointing the home crowd. In the end Adam Carroll took first place for Ireland, chased by Portugal with USA a good deal behind in 3rd.

Newark & Sherwood Council is not just talk

2008-11-25T00:31:00.003Z

A torc (an iron age gold collar) worth more than £350,000 that was found by an amateur metal detectorist in a muddy field in Nottinghamshire has been described as the best find of its kind in half a century, according to a Guardian article.

"I was only in the field because a customer kept me late," Maurice Richardson, a tree surgeon from Newark, said yesterday. "Normally I'd never want to go into this field because a plane crashed there in the last war, and the whole place is littered with bits of metal." The first beep from his detector was indeed a chunk of wartime scrap metal, but as he bent down to discard it, his machine gave a louder signal. Expecting to find a bigger chunk of fuselage, he instead discovered the 2,200-year-old collar.

The piece, a near twin of one already in the British Museum, was the most spectacular of 1,257 finds reported over the last three years. Treasure reports have increased every year since the Portable Antiquities scheme was set up to record finds by the public in England and Wales. The scheme itself came near to being lost in government cuts but, like the torc, has been rescued!

"It's a fabulous thing, the best Iron Age find in 50 years," said JD Hill, head of the British Museum's iron age department. "When I first saw a picture of it I thought somebody was pulling my leg because it is so like the Sedgeford torc in our collection that it must have been made by the same hand. What is fascinating about it is that it turned up where no torc should be - to put it mildly, the Newark region is not known for major high-status iron age finds. This wasn't in a grave, wasn't on a hilltop - it opens up a whole new chapter of the history of this area."

Unusually, the torc has been acquired by his local museum in Newark, after heroic fundraising efforts. Most such finds go to national museums. Sarah Dawes, head of leisure and culture at Newark and Sherwood district council, said: "I took one look and rang my chief executive to say, sit tight, don't leave the office, we've got something to tell you."

When it was originally reported back in 2005, the BBC ran a story on the torc, stating it was probably worth £100K. In the event the artefact was valued at £350K. It has therefore been a massive achievement for the Newark and Sherwood Museum Service to acquire it for display locally, as JD Hill of the BM has been quoted: "It’s a daunting prospect for the British Museum or the V&A to raise £350,000. "

The local council stated in their minutes, that they decided to seek funding to purchase the object because they wanted to: ..ensure that an exceptional artefact relating to the historical importance of the District is secured for local and national interest. Many congratulations to the officers and Members for a job well done.!

Prostitutes to go self-employed...

2008-11-24T00:31:00.003Z

In a wonderful piece of new legislation the Government is to encourage prostitutes to go self-employed, according to an article in The Independent.

Ministers have proposed new legislation that would make it a criminal offence to pay to have sex with someone who is "controlled for another person's gain". Under the proposed law, the Home Office would create a "strict liability offence" meaning that prosecutors would not have to prove that a man knew that the prostitute they had hired was trafficked or pimped. Prosecutors would simply have to show that the prostitute was trafficked or coerced and that cash changed hands.

In fairness, the aim is to target men who use prostitutes who have been trafficked or who are being forced into prostitution by pimps or drug dealers. But I’m not sure how the aim and the legislation match. Where is the incentive to catch or prosecute or punish the trafficker or pimp? Whilst all my experience of this field comes from reading fiction my understanding is that the general police view is that most prostitutes are better off having someone to 'look after them' - i.e. a bodyguard. It would certainly seems safer in the light of the fact that they are so often the target for murderers and other nutters. (Oops, sorry, that wasn't very p.c., was it?)

And what about prostitutes who are forced into that life by poverty – is the government going to prosecute itself for failing to have a higher standard of living in the UK?

Ah well, I’m sure it’s a good idea really.

Strictly Out of It

2008-11-24T00:30:00.004Z

Before I comment on Sunday’s Strictly can I just lay the John Sergeant thing to rest by quoting a couple of sentences from three paragraphs by a Cumbrian blogger who, like me, was upset at the whole ‘thing’. Her posting was the most sensible thing I’d read on the whole subject. “I’ve watched Strictly Come Dancing for about five series now and every time there is some unfortunate soul who lasts far, far longer in the competition than is truly wise because the chance for the average viewer to both witness humiliation and effect rescue is too good to pass up. It’s all the fun of watching your favourite Christian in the amphitheatre, knowing that with a press of a button you can send the lion down the trapdoor, if need be..... Seeing the tempers mount on the message boards has been a disconcerting experience for me, revealing the war-mongering heart of folk who were supposedly enjoying a gentle, old-fashioned Saturday teatime programme. I know some people find a big old row thrilling spectator sport, but I hate the conflict and the excess.”

A brilliant group dance. An intervioew with Felicity Kendall. And by far the best dance off yet. What more could one want?

I thought Jodie’s jive was the better dance but it was Lisa who survived.

So long, Jodie and Ian.

Mammoth genome

2008-11-23T00:31:00.000Z

About 18,545 years ago, give or take a few decades, a woolly mammoth died. Succumbing to causes unknown, the creature was buried in Siberian snow. Many other mammoths must have met similar fates but this one, which we now know as M4, is special. Almost 20 millennia later, its beautifully preserved remains were unearthed by scientists who have revealed both its body and its genetic code. For the first time, the genome of an extinct species has been sequenced almost to completion.

To learn more visit one of my favourite blogs - It's not exactly rocket science.

Strictly special

2008-11-23T00:30:00.004Z

After Rachel and Vincent’s perfectly scored Foxtrot, Tom and Camilla’s excellent Tango and Austin and Erin’s Cha cha cha the competition is really open. I wouldn’t like to forecast which of those three is likely to be the eventual winner. The others will fall by the wayside but still gave us our money’s worth on Saturday. I’m hoping that Christina will survive ‘tomorrow’ but suspect it will be her and Jodie in the dance off.

John and Kristina’s last dance was suitably emotional and will not be forgotten in a hurry.

Nobel Prize for Medicine

2008-11-19T20:01:00.000Z

In October, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2008 with one half to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of “human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer” and the other half jointly to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of “human immunodeficiency virus” [HIV].

Gentleman John Sergeant

2008-11-19T20:00:00.002Z

Just in case you've been under a rock all day.....

Ex-political journalist John Sergeant has pulled out of BBC One's "Strictly Come Dancing" because winning would have been "a joke too far", he has said. The 64-year-old has received strong support from the public since the show started, but the judges have been critical of his dancing.

I fully support John in his decision and his timing.

He told a press conference he was quitting but would return on Saturday's show for a "farewell dance".

Sergeant said dancing on the show was "a wonderfully enjoyable thing", particularly with his Russian partner, Kristina Rihanoff. "But if the joke wears thin, if in fact people begin to take it very seriously, and if people really are getting so wound up that it's very difficult to carry off the joke, then I think it is time to go. It's like when you decide when you leave a party, and the time to leave a party is before the fight starts, and I think that's really what's happened on this occasion," he added.

Rupert Adams, of bookmaker William Hill, told the BBC News website that Sergeant had gone from being a 66/1 outsider to win the series on Saturday morning, to a 10/1 shot by Wednesday morning.

The programme's co-host Bruce Forsyth said he felt "very sorry" for Sergeant. "He was put in the most awkward position, looking at the other dancers and knowing they were better than him. He must have felt guilty in a way. It's a bit sad - the whole team adore him," added the entertainer.

Cluadia introduced an hour long "Strictly - It Takes Two" on Wednesday night as the shock news travelled across the nation.

Sadly, the controversy continued.... Half the people are now saying that he shouldn't have left.... The very same people, like James Jordan, who were complaining last week that he was still in! I've really gone off James - I wonder what Ola seems in him!

Just so you get my point of view - Nobody else has the right to make John's decision for him. So the decision must, therefore, be the right one. And thank you to him and Kristina - a brilliant dancer and choreographer - and all the entertainment they gave us.

Bar-tailed Godwit creates new record

2008-11-19T08:01:00.000Z

A Bar-tailed Godwit has achieved a new record for non-stop, muscle-powered flight, flying from Alaska to New Zealand in eight days. A study published in October reports that godwits can fly as many as 7,242 miles without stopping in their annual fall migration from Alaska to New Zealand. The previous record, set by an Eastern Curlew, was a 4,000-mile trip from eastern Australia to China.

The birds flew for five to nine days without rest, a few landing on South Pacific islands before resuming their trips, which were monitored by satellite in 2006 and 2007. As a feat of sustained exercise unrelieved by sleeping, eating or drinking, the Godwit's migration appears to be without precedent in the annals of vertebrate physiology.

As astounding as the feat is, it actually represents a highly evolved solution to a problem. The non-stop, over-water route is free of predators and substantially shorter than a hopscotching route down the eastern coast of Asia, which is the alternative. Landing and eating -- literally, refuelling -- would expose the birds to disease and parasites when they are probably somewhat immune-suppressed. Refuelling also would add weeks to the trip and itself take energy. All in all, flying non-stop across most of the north-south span of the Pacific Ocean is the safest thing to do. The death rate during the migration is unknown but presumably low, as the population of bar-tailed godwits, estimated at 100,000, has been stable and long-lasting.

"This system would not have perpetuated itself if mortality were a big problem," said Robert E. Gill Jr., a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, who headed the study, published in October by The Royal Society.

(Top marks to anyone who spotted my photo is of a Black-tailed Godwit; I haven’t got a picture of a Bar-tailed Godwit!)

Never Steal a Student's Laptop

2008-11-17T00:35:00.001Z

A thief learned the mistake of trying to steal a law student's laptop last week. Armed with a baseball bat, the intruder, Gabriel Saucedo, allegedly climbed through an open window into Alex Botsios' apartment at Arizona State University, waking the student and threatening to smash his head in.

Botsios was willing to let Saucedo take his wallet and guitars. Then the robber made the mistake that ultimately landed him in the hospital -- he went for the laptop. According to Botsios, he said "Dude, no -- please, no! I have all my case notes...that's four months of work!" Saucedo, obviously underestimating the fury of an overstressed, overworked first-year, was unsympathetic. That's when Botsios could take no more. Wrestling Saucdeo to the floor, Botsios separated the bat from the thief and repeatedly punched him in the face.

When it was all over, police had to get Saucedo (above) stitched up before charging him with armed robbery and kidnapping, while Botsios only suffered some scrapes and a bruised knuckle. Most importantly, at least to the student, is that his laptop, which he called "his baby," escaped unharmed. Next time, Saucedo might want to try robbing a third-year student, as they're generally considered more docile.

Strictly Votes

2008-11-17T00:34:00.001Z

Oh dear, the controversy continues. John was once more saved by the public. As a result the dance off was between Cherie and James and Lisa and Brendan.

Craig voted to keep Lisa, Arlene voted to keep Lisa, then Bruno voted to keep Cherie... That left the casting vote to a very grumpy Len who thought John should not have escaped his fate. Grumpy Len voted for Lisa so Cheri left the competition in week 9...

Can’t wait for next week.

Rare rhino birth

2008-11-16T00:46:00.000Z

A rare eastern black rhino calf is the newest arrival at Chester Zoo. Keepers at Chester Zoo are celebrating the successful birth of a rare black rhino calf. The calf, an endangered Eastern Black Rhino, is the first to be born at Chester Zoo in the last 10 years. The calf and her mother Kitani are currently being kept inside the Tsavo rhino house at the zoo but are expected to be on show to visitors shortly.

The black rhino suffered a 96% decline in numbers between 1970 and 1992 and with only 700 eastern black rhino's left in the wild an international breeding programme is aiming to boost numbers, Kitani's calf will eventually become part of this and return to Africa.

It's Kitani's first calf and the zoo hopes it won't be the last calf born at the zoo, "For a first time mum, she is proving to be a natural and we are delighted with the progress Kitani and her calf are making in these first fragile few days," said Kevin Buley, Chester Zoo's Head of Zoo Programmes.

Strictly

2008-11-16T00:45:00.002Z

John and Katrina danced their best dance of the series – an American Smooth - further complicating the “Should he still be there” debate which has torn the country in half (almost literally).

Meanwhile Rachel and Vincent, in the dance off last week after the weird public voting, went to the top of the leader board, performing a super Rumba. Austin and Erin’s Tango, Christine and Matt’s Viennese Waltz and Tom and Camilla’s Salsa wer amongst the best dances of the series making it a very good evening’s dancing. The standard is improving.

Ice-Age rhinoceros remains found

2008-11-10T12:32:00.000Z

The BBC have reported - The remains of an Ice Age rhinoceros have been unearthed by a five-year-old girl at a Gloucestershire water park. Emelia Fawbert found the fossilised carcass at the Cotswold Water Park near Cirencester during a fossil hunt. Emelia and her father James, 33, from Bussage, near Stroud, dug up the atlas vertebra of the woolly rhino which roamed the area about 50,000 years ago.

Emelia was among a group of fossil hunters searching a freshly-excavated gravel pit at the park on 26 October. The atlas vertebra, which once supported the head of the animal had been sticking up through the clay which was exposed by the gravel excavations. The pair used a trowel to dig the bone from the mud. It has now been sealed in a special protective covering before being donated to a museum.

The hunt, involving 75 people, also unearthed the leg bone and vertebra from an Ice Age deer and belemnites, the remains of squid-like creatures from the Jurassic period, some 150m years ago. Emelia, who wants to become a palaeontologist, had joined the fossil hunt for the first time. It was organised by the Cotswold Water Park Society and led by Swindon palaeontologist Dr Neville Hollingworth who also found the remains of a woolly rhinoceros in a gravel pit near Swindon in 2004.

Strictly Controversy

2008-11-10T12:31:00.001Z

After being in the dance off for the fourth time Heather finally departed but not before she had given Rachel a shock. Or rather the viewers gave Rachel a shock.

John and Kristina were the first couple announced as being voted back next week... How much longer can it go on. The British public do so love a loser! Craig probably did them a favour when he gave them a 1.

A new Gecko from an egg...

2008-11-08T21:36:00.000Z

So where else would a Gecko come from but an egg? But this is sl;ighty unusual in that the egg travelled 12,000 miles before the Gecko hatched. French scientists say they have hatched a new gecko species from an egg plucked from its nest in a South Pacific island and carried to Paris in a box lined with Kleenex.

France’s National Museum of Natural History says the discovery marks the first time a new species of lizard has been catalogued based on an individual raised from an egg. The museum says it is baptised with the Latin name Lepidodactylus buleli and makes its home near the tops of the trees that line the west coast of Espiritu Santo, one of the larger islands of the Vanuatu archipelago, east of Australia. Just three inches long, the gecko lives in trees, feeding off ants and other insects and, possibly, the nectar it sips from treetop flowers. The species is not thought to be endangered.

Strictly Saturday

2008-11-08T21:35:00.000Z

I decided on Saturday that the time had come to start voting in Strictly. I didn’t fancy one of the better ones going out by being in the dance off against another good couple. So I made a note of the number to call for Tom, Austin, Rachel and Christine. Unfortunately I forgot to vote until ten past nine by which time it was too late. I suspect this is one case where the thought doesn’t count! I wasn’t wowed by any of the dances and really feel that this has not been the best Strictly series despite the promise suggested by the group Mambo early on.

John was hilarious after being voted down by the judges (yet again) when he pointed out the judges didn’t appreciate the rules. “The rules are that the public has half the vote. We’re playing by the rules,” he said. His partner, Kristina Rihanoff, gets sexier by the week. I can only echo someone who commented on “Strictly – It takes Two” during the week that she must be kept in a cage during the week and released at weekends – purrr.... Nevertheless, despite John’s wonderful personality and Kristina’s It, I think it’s time for them to go.

Oops!

2008-11-02T16:28:00.000Z

A dredger sank in the harbour at Heysham in Lancashire today. The newscaster commented that when the crew came back to the dredger they realised it was taking on water... Duh!!!! Wouldn’t take much intelligence to realise that!

Strictly Secret

2008-11-02T16:26:00.000Z

I’ve swapped my Strictly blog postings over from Rambles from my Chair because I don’t want GB to see them before he receives his dvds from the UK.

I have come to the conclusion that in general I much prefer the traditional ballroom dances like waltz, quickstep, foxtrot and American smooth. One of the reasons is the men look so smart in tails and the women so beautiful in their gorgeous dresses. The exception is the jive which Jill Halfpenny did so brilliantly in an earlier series. Austin and Erin’s waltz was a definite ten for me. Len’s ten to them was the first ten of the series – it’s been a long time coming.

I think Cherie has peaked. As Bruno said the “Dress was red hot but the salsa was not.” As Len pointed out the salsa and Paso didn’t suit here but the good news was that as long as she got through that was two poor ones out of the way...

Despite my preference for the traditional dances the controversial paso of Tom and Camilla was excellent. I thought Rachel and Vincent’s jive was good – the jive is my favourite of the modern dances – but it wasn’t up to the Jill Halfpenny one.

As Arlene commented John Sargant’s Foxtrot got into a trot at the end but it lacked Fox. Len’s comment that it wasn’t “Help the Aged” was a bit cruel. He will need the public more than ever this weekend but think his time has come.

Jodie’s waltz with Ian was by far her best dance yet – I loved the Mr Darcy outfit and her dress.

I think Len is having hormone problems – he’s been really grumpy the last couple of weeks.

MotoGP

2008-10-30T06:22:00.004Z

The MotoGP season has come to an end. No more racing for months. I shall miss the beauty of the bikes, the thrill of the speed, the excitement as riders pass and re-pass each other, the colour, the glamour, the grid girls, Suzi Perry, the wonderful commentary on BBC, and the whole atmosphere of a MotoGP weekend. And that’s just watching it on TV.

Valentino Rossi won the Championship on his Yamaha. Rossi (born February 16, 1979 in Urbino) is an Italian professional motorcycle racer and multiple MotoGP World Champion. A cheeky chappy. he seems to have a really pleasant personality and unlike many sports champions he seems to be moderately popular with his competitors. Part of the reason fopr this is the fact that he fights very hard but very fair.

Rossi is one of the most successful motorcycle racers of all time, with 8 Grand Prix World Championships to his name. According to Sports Illustrated, Valentino Rossi is one of the highest earning sports personalities in the world, having earned an estimated $34 million in 2007. He had a trial in a Ferrari F1 car and toyed with the idea of moving to F1 but decided to stay with motorbikes.

Following his father, Graziano Rossi, Rossi started racing in Grand Prix in 1996 for Aprilia in the 125cc category and won his first World Championship the following year. From there, he moved up to the 250 cc category, again with Aprilia, and won the World Championship in 1999. He won the 500 cc World Championship with Honda in 2001, the MotoGP World Championships (also with Honda) in 2002 and 2003, and continued his streak of back-to-back championships by winning the 2004 and 2005 Championships after leaving Honda to join Yamaha. After two years as a runner-up (to Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner) he has now regained the title in 2008.

The Rizla Suzuki, ridden here by Capirossi, got my vote for best colour scheme (as it has done for the past couple of years)

Second came the Kawasaki, seen here with west riding it.

Third came the Ducati, seen here with Casey stoner on board.

The Repsol Honda livery for the final race was also pretty smart.

And, as always, the website mcnews.com.au proved to be the definitive website for all things motorcycling.

Discoveries

2008-10-30T04:52:00.004Z

I seem to have fallen behind of late in mentioning new species and re-discovered species. So here, thanks largely to “Free your Imagination” is a compilation of some recent discoveries.

The Hairy-nosed Otter (Lutra sumatrana) is the world’s rarest otter species and was thought to be extinct in the 1990s. But a pair were spotted in U Minh Ha National Park, in Vietnam’s Ca Mau province, in March 2008. They have also recently been rediscovered in Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community. Their findings were published in the international science journal Zootaxa on Aug. 15 2008 The Olive-backed Forest Robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) was named by the scientists for its distinctive olive back and rump. Adult birds measure 4.5 inches in length and the males have a fiery orange throat and breast, yellow belly, olive back, black feathers on the head and a distinctive white dot on their face in front of each eye. The female is basically similar but less bright.

A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of Australia’s tropical north. The 1.5 inch-long Armoured Mistfrog, Litoria lorica, had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state. But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville conducting research on another frog species in Queensland stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek.

And another rare frog, the tiny tree frog, Isthmohyla rivularis, has been seen in Costa Rica after 20 years. This species was thought to have become extinct two decades ago, but last year a University of Manchester researcher caught a glimpse of a male in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.. Now a female has been seen and they are presumed to be breeding.

The world’s smallest snake, Leptotyphlops carlae, averaging just 10cm (4 inches) and as thin as a spaghetti noodle, has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The snake, found beneath a rock in a tiny fragment of threatened forest, is thought to be at the very limit of how small a snake can evolve to be. Females produce only a single, massive egg - and the young hatch at half of their adult body weight. The discovery of this new snake, the smallest of the 3,100 known species, is described in the journal Zootaxa.

Beans puzzle - solution

2008-10-17T00:43:00.000+01:00

The answer to the beans puzzle on my other blog...

White Prominent

2008-10-10T05:03:00.002+01:00

Two moths that are so rare in Great Britain as to be almost mythical have been re-discovered – one in Scotland the other in Ireland. A field centre’s moth count training session in Invernesshire earlier this year was amazed to find a black-winged, orange-bodied micro-moth by the name of Ethmia pyrausta. It has only ever been recorded in the UK on five occasions, the first being in 1853, close to this 2008 sighting.

But a micro-moth is nothing like so exciting as the discovery of the macro-moth Leucodonta bicoloria – the White Prominent. This turned up in County Kerry on 7th June (National Moth Night) Ireland, 70 years after it was last seen. In total seven of them were found over the next two nights indicating a reasonably healthy population.

Banana's split

2008-10-06T05:47:00.007+01:00

Did you know that if you are my age or older the bananas you had as a child tasted different to today’s bananas? Indeed, interestingly I recall very few bananas when I was young – they were certainly not a common fruit in our house though bananas and custard was an occasional dessert. The reason is explained in a widely read and frantically e-mailed New York Times story that has opened many new eyes to a horticultural disaster anticipated for many years: the commercial extinction of the Cavendish banana. Dan Koeppel's warning is right on target:

“By sticking to [a] single variety, the banana industry ensures that all the bananas in a shipment ripen at the same rate, creating huge economies of scale. The Cavendish is the fruit equivalent of a fast-food hamburger: efficient to produce, uniform in quality and universally affordable.

But there’s a difference between a banana and a Big Mac: The banana is a living organism. It can get sick [mind you, I’ve seen some pretty sick Big Macs], and since bananas all come from the same gene pool, a virulent enough malady could wipe out the world’s commercial banana crop in a matter of years.

This has happened before. Our great-grandparents grew up eating not the Cavendish but the Gros Michel banana, a variety that everyone agreed was tastier and easier to peel. But starting in the early 1900s, banana plantations were invaded by a fungus called Panama disease and vanished one by one. Forest would be cleared for new banana fields, and healthy fruit would grow there for a while, but eventually succumb.

By 1960, the Gros Michel was essentially extinct and the banana industry nearly bankrupt. It was saved at the last minute by the Cavendish, a Chinese variety that had been considered something close to junk: inferior in taste, easy to bruise (and therefore hard to ship) and too small to appeal to consumers. But it did resist the blight.

Over the past decade, however, a new, more virulent strain of Panama disease has begun to spread across the world, and this time the Cavendish is not immune. The fungus is expected to reach Latin America in 5 to 10 years, maybe 20. The big banana companies have been slow to finance efforts to find either a cure for the fungus or a banana that resists it. Nor has enough been done to aid efforts to diversify the world’s banana crop by preserving little-known varieties of the fruit that grow in Africa and Asia.”

There are other bananas in the world but no one has put enough effort into ensuring they are preserved and finding if any are resistant to the disease. And none of them is widely cultivated so, even if a disease-resistant one were found, if the Cavendish goes offline, it'll be a long, banana-less age in which scarcity ensures that two of my favourite deserts – bananas in custard and the banana split – are forgotten entirely.

Cueva de los Cristales

2008-10-04T00:12:00.002+01:00

Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world's largest known natural crystals—translucent beams of selenite, a variety of gypsum, as long as 36 feet (11 metres).

Found deep in a mine in southern Chihuahua, Mexico, these crystals were formed in a natural cave totally enclosed in bedrock. The Naica mine was first discovered by early prospectors in 1794 south of Chihuahua City. They struck a vein of silver at the base of a range of hills called Naica by the Tarahumara Indians.
From the discovery until about 1900, the primary interest was silver and gold. Around 1900 large-scale mining began as zinc and lead became more valuable.
The famous Cave of Swords was discovered at a depth of 400 feet. Due to the incredible crystals, it was decided to try to preserve this cave. While many of the crystals have been collected, this is still a fascinating cave to visit. In one part there are so many crystals on one of the walls, they appear to be like an underwater reef moving in a gentle undulating motion in an ocean current. Then, in April 2000, brothers Juan and Pedro Sanchez were drilling a new tunnel when they made a truly spectacular discovery - the Cave of Crystals. While Naica miners are accustomed to finding crystals, Juan and Pedro were absolutely amazed by the cavern that they found. The brothers immediately informed the engineer in charge, Roberto Gonzalez. Gonzalez realized that they had discovered a natural treasure and quickly rerouted the tunnel. During this phase some damage was done as several miners tried to remove pieces of the mega-crystals, so the mining company soon installed an iron door to protect the find. While there are more crystals in the Cave of Swords, they are far smaller, typically about a yard long. Their relative compactness is likely due to a rapid temperature decline, as opposed to the far more gradual change that is believed to have encouraged the megacrystals in the deeper cave.

Selenite, the gypsum crystal, named after the Greek goddess of the moon due to its soft white light, is said to have many metaphysical and healing benefits. Selenite powder has been used cosmetically for thousands of years to enhance one's natural beauty. It is believed that this crystal assists with mental focus, growth, luck, immunity, and soothes the emotions.

100 Years Ago: Egyptian Fossil Discovery

2008-10-02T00:17:00.000+01:00

EGYPTIAN FOSSILS— “Prof. Henry F. Osborn, who directed the expedition of the American Museum of Natural History to the Fayum Desert of Egypt, is just now placing on exhibition one of the most important and significant finds there, the skull of the giant Arsinoitherium,

These photos depict the skull of the extinct Arsinoitherium

The expedition of the American Museum of Natural History to the Fayum Desert in Egypt has brought back one of the most important and significant finds, in the shape of the skull of the giant Arsinoitherium, one of the most extraordinary land mammals of ancient Africa, or of the whole known fossil world. This remarkable beast is entirely new to science and paleontologists. Its existence was unknown and undreamed of until a few years ago.

The dominating and all-powerful feature of the Arsinoitherium was the long pair of sharp-pointed horns, protruding upward and outward above the nose for nearly two feet, an appendage both dangerous and fantastic. Undoubtedly no contemporary could cope with and withstand a mad rush and furious charge from an animal thus armed. Arsinoitherium was the brute king of the Fayum during Eocene times, some two or three million years ago. The narrow muzzle of the head indicated that the animal did not graze, but browsed upon the low bushes and herbage. Our photographs show the front and side views of the Arsinoitherium skull now in the Cairo Museum, found by the Egyptian Geological Survey only a few years back."

Liverpool 3 PSV Eindhoven 1

2008-10-01T21:28:00.003+01:00

Liverpool played PSV in the Champions League tonight at Anfield. Kuyt scored in the fourth minute and the game was effectively over for PSV. Robbie Keane, Liverpool’s new signing this season, scored his first Liverpool Goal, much to the Kop’s delight, after 34 minutes.

In the second half, at the Kop end, Steven Gerrard got his 100th goal for Liverpool, joining a select group of fifteen others who have reached that figure. As usual it was a super goal – in this case form a free kick well outside the penalty area - that zinged into the net.

PSV came back with a goal but were never really in the game.

The Rubber Dodo Award

2008-10-01T05:13:00.004+01:00

The 2008 Rubber Dodo award has been made by the Center for Biological Diversity in the US. It has gone to Sarah Palin the Governor of Alaska. as well as denying global warming was caused by greenhouse gases she lied about and suppressed State scientific reviews and then tried to block legislation to protect the Polar Bear.

Perhaps being in Alaska makes you welcome global warming and if you are afraid of Polar Bears it’s only natural to want them shot! As for lying and suppressing evidence, don’t politicians do that all the time?

The Center for Biological Diversity presented Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne with its first ever "Rubber Dodo" award, in 2007 in honour of going a record one year and 90 days without listing a new species as endangered or threatened despite the Fish and Wildlife Service classifying 279 species as "candidates" for listing, because they were in danger of extinction.

A Night-time GP

2008-09-29T17:12:00.006+01:00

Formula One racing held it’s first ever night-time Grand Prix on a new street circuit in Singapore at the week-end.

They say that if a Formula One car didn’t have all its wings to generate downforce it would be impossible to keep it on the ground – it would fly. Fisichella showed in free practice that it can fly even with its wings! The engineers worked like mad to get him out He then drove into the barriers in the first qualifying session although, in fairness, his throttle appeared to have stuck open. I enjoy Martin Brundle’s down to earth views, “He couldn’t drive a nail into a piece of wood,” was his comment on the one-time F1 driver Luca Badoer.

Alonso’s engine did the opposite and died. So he went out in the second qualifying session. As a result he started near the back and adopted a different strategy which paid off when his team-mate hit the wall and brought out the safety car.

Massa, who had had an unassailable lead, tried to see how the Ferrari would go with a fuel hose attached. While Massa was assaulting his engineers Raikkonen was busy queuing. Neither Ferrari scored a point. Massa spun a couple of times, did his stop go penalty and generally got fed up while Raikkonen lost concentration with four laps to go and stuck his car in the barrier. In theory Lewis Hamilton might have made it to the top of the podium but then got stuck in traffic and ended up third behind winner Alonso and Rosberg who managed second despite a stop and go penalty.

Alonso deserved his win (he wrote, grudgingly). But Hamilton says he feels comfortable heading into the final three races of the Formula One season with a seven-point championship lead. Perhaps he's forgotten that this time last year he had a sixteen point lead!

Bornean clouded leopard

2008-09-29T16:19:00.002+01:00

A rare and reclusive leopard that hunts among the dense island forests of Borneo and Sumatra in south-east Asia was identified eighteen months ago as an entirely new species of great cat.

Genetic tests and pelt examinations have revealed that the animal, now called the Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), is as distinct from other clouded leopards that roam mainland Asia as lions are from panthers.

On the islands the clouded leopard is the top predator, preying on monkeys, deer, wild pigs and lizards, and has a crucial influence on the regional ecosystems. At their largest they reach just over 1m long, and for their size sport the largest canine teeth of the cat family. Their name comes from the mottled white patches that cover their skin.

Clouded leopards were first described in 1821 by the British naturalist Edward Griffith, but few of the animals have ever been sighted and from the sparse information available scientists suspected they were either all one species, or possibly divided into four sub-species.

By testing DNA from clouded leopard populations across Asia and the islands, scientists at the US National Cancer Institute in Maryland identified 40 genetic differences between the island cats and those found elsewhere, confirming them as two distinct species whose evolutionary paths divided 1.4m years ago.

There are estimated to be only 5,000 to 11,000 of the leopards on Borneo and 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra. The island species has small cloud markings, a double stripe down its back, and its grey fur is darker than the mainland species. The leopards are extremely agile and can hunt by staging ambushes from the trees. Little else is known about their behaviour.

Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian

Magpies are no bird brains

2008-09-26T00:57:00.000+01:00

LONDON (Reuters - By Ben Hirschler) - Magpies can recognise themselves in a mirror, highlighting the mental skills of some birds and confounding the notion that self-awareness is the exclusive preserve of humans and a few higher mammals.

It had been thought only chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants shared the human ability to recognise their own bodies in a mirror. But German scientists reported on Tuesday that magpies -- a species with a brain structure very different from mammals -- could also identify themselves.

"It shows that the line leading to humans is not as special as many thought," lead researcher Helmut Prior of the Institute of Psychology at Goethe University in Frankfurt told Reuters.

"After finding this kind of intelligence in apes, many people thought it had developed once in one evolutionary line with humans at the end. The bird studies show it has developed at least twice."

The discovery of self-awareness in magpies follows a 2002 study in which a crow stunned researchers with its tool-making skills, by twisting a wire into a hook to lift food from a tube. Prior and his colleagues tested their magpies by marking the birds' bodies with a red or yellow dot that could only be seen in a mirror. They found the birds regularly scratched the mark on their body, proving they recognised the image in the mirror as themselves and not another animal. To ensure they were actually seeing and reacting to the mark, and not just investigating what had been done to them, a "sham" black mark was used as a control that was invisible on the birds' dark feathers.

Is This Actually Illegal?

2008-09-25T00:19:00.000+01:00

And another old one I have just come across.. If mating with a hedgehog is questinably legal, what about driving backwards?

Friday, October 06, 2006
Scott William Poulton, an Australian man in his early 20s, was arrested for driving backwards on an empty highway in the Outback. Police were heading out onto the road when they saw a car coming towards them. They aimed their radar gun to check it out but were not astonished when they saw the car was approaching at a mere 56 km/hour (35 mph). They stopped the car when they realized it was "going the wrong way." The driver told them his transmission had "stuffed up" and the only gear he could use was reverse. So he did ... for about 20 km in an attempt to make it to the closest town.

Police gave the man a breathalyser to determine sobriety which he, of course, passed. The driver was charged with reckless driving and driving while under suspension. It is unfortunate his license was suspended but I wonder what he had done wrong otherwise. Is it illegal to drive in reverse? If so, why are manufacturers allowed to put an illegal gear into a car?

For the record, this occurred on the Great Eastern Highway. The man was driving eastward. The cops were driving westward. Aren't the cops the ones who were going the wrong way?

Man Lacerates Penis with Hedgehog

2008-09-24T06:07:00.002+01:00

This is actually old news, but I never heard about it. And you just can't make this stuff up!
Friday, October 20, 2006

A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after he had sex with a hedgehog on a witchdoctor's advice. Zoran Nikolovic, 35, from Belgrade, says the witchdoctor told him it would cure his premature ejaculation. The witchdoctor also guaranteed discretion and confidentiality. Unfortunately for Zoran the local hospital didn't! He ended up in an operating theatre after the hedgehog's needles left his penis severely lacerated.
A hospital spokesman said: "The animal was apparently unhurt and the patient came off much worse from the encounter. We have managed to repair the damage to his penis."

I guess it goes to show that witchdoctors still hold a lot of power in some places of the world...

Bill Gates Digs Algae

2008-09-22T21:15:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates' Cascades Investments has backed algal biofuel maker Sapphire Energy, bringing the total amount raised by the startup to over $100 million. The San Diego, Calif., company is one of a slew of startups developing processes for harvesting fuels from algae. In May, the one-year-old company said it had raised over $50 million from Arch Venture Partners, the Wellcome Trust and Venrock.

Sapphire CEO Jason Pyle told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that the company plans to build a production plant capable of generating 10,000 barrels of algal oil a day. Biofuel is not a new field of investment for Cascade, which put money in Pacific Ethanol, a public company in Sacramento, Calif. But the investment firm sold all of its shares in Pacific earlier this year after the company reported losses and suspended construction of a planned ethanol plant . Pacific Ethanol said it was on track to complete a new plant last month even as it posted further losses.

From Mainstreet.

Rubber ducks and Global warming

2008-09-22T20:12:00.000+01:00

Rubber ducks are being used to help scientists understand global warming and melting glaciers.

Nasa researchers have dropped 90 ducks into holes in Greenland's fastest moving glacier, the Jakobshavn Glacier in Baffin Bay, between Greenland and Canada. The toys have each been labelled with the words "science experiment" and "reward" in three languages, along with an e-mail address. If they are found scientists will be able to track how the water moves through the ice and provide information about the movement of glaciers. Scientists are still unsure about why glaciers speed up in summer and head towards the sea.

One theory is that the summer sun melts ice on top of the glacier's surface, creating pools that flow into tubular holes in the glacier called moulins. These moulins carry some water to the bottom of the glacier, where it acts as a lubricant to speed the movement of ice toward the coast.

The Jakobshavn Glacier is believed to be the source of the iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912 and is important to researchers because it discharges nearly 7 per cent of all the ice coming off Greenland.

Alberto Behar of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said none of the ducks had been reported yet.

"We haven't heard back but it may take some time until somebody actually finds it and decides to send us an e-mail that they have found it," he said. "These are places that are quite remote so there aren't people walking around."

"Octosquid" found off Hawaii

2008-09-22T07:25:00.000+01:00

In 2007 a curious cephalopod creature that appeared to be half octopus, half squid was found in waters at Keahole Point in Hawaii. Local biologists thought that it could possibly be a new species.
The creature is believed to have been sucked up in a deep seawater pipeline at the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority at Keahole. This pipeline pumps colde water up from 3,000 feet below sea level, and occassional deep-sea marine life gets caught in a filter in the line. Workers who discovered the creature call it an "octosquid" because it has the body of a squid and the tentacles of an octopus.
The octosquid stayed alive for three days once it was found by researchers. It was then shipped to the University of Hawaii Manoa campus for evaluation.
Sadly, it turned out that the creature was simply a rare species of squid which had lost two tentacles!

Beaver in Devon

2008-09-15T19:31:00.000+01:00

For a great picture of a beaver in Devon see UK Safari's picture of the month.
Ben Lee took this photo using a Nikon D80 at Escot Park in Devon.
A pair of beavers were introduced there as part of a carefully monitored experiment. Recently the beavers set about making a house a home by adding the ultimate must-have feature in every beaver habitat – a dam. It's probably the first beaver dam to be built in the south west for 800 years.

Ancient trees recorded in mines

2008-09-09T08:01:00.000+01:00

By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, Liverpool

Spectacular fossil forests have been found in the coal mines of Illinois by a US-UK team of researchers. The group reported one discovery last year, but has since identified a further five examples. The ancient vegetation - now turned to rock - is visible in the ceilings of mines covering thousands of hectares.

These were among the first forests to evolve on the planet, Dr Howard Falcon-Lang told the British Association Science Festival in Liverpool.

"These are the largest fossil forests found anywhere in the world at any point in geological time," he told reporters.
"It is quite extraordinary to find a fossil landscape preserved over such a vast area; and we are talking about an area the size of Bristol." The forests grew just a few million years apart some 300 million years ago; and are now stacked one on top of another. It appears the ancient land experienced repeated periods of subsidence and flooding which buried the forests in a vertical sequence. They have since become visible because of the extensive mining operations in the border area between the states of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Scientists look up to see what would have been the forest floor

Once the coal seams have been removed (what were, essentially, the compacted soils of the forests), it is possible to go into the tunnels and look up at what would have been lying on the forest floors.

"It's a really exciting experience to drive down into these mines; it's pitch black," the Bristol University research said. "It's kind of an odd view looking at a forest bottom-up. You can actually see upright tree stumps that are pointed vertically up above your head with the roots coming down; and adjacent to those tree stumps you see all the litter. "We found 30m-long trunks that had fallen with their crowns perfectly preserved."

Some of the preservation is exquisite

The researchers believe their study of these ancient forests could give hints to how modern rainforests might react in a warmer world. The six forests straddle a period in Earth history 306 million years ago that saw a rapid shift from an icehouse climate with big polar ice caps to a greenhouse climate in which the ice caps would have melted.

"The fascinating thing we've discovered is that the rainforests dramatically collapse approximately coincident with the greenhouse warming," explained Dr Falcon-Lang. "Long-lived forests dominated by giant club moss trees almost overnight (in a geological sense) are replaced by rather weedy fern vegetation." The next stage of the research is to try to refine the timings of events all those years ago, and work out the exact environmental conditions that existed. The thresholds that triggered the ancient collapse can then be compared with modern circumstances.

Olympics

2008-08-26T07:46:00.001+01:00

British competitors won 19 golds in Beijing to finish fourth in the medal table with a haul of 47 medals in total.
I didn't watch the last few days of the Olympics but Britain's James DeGale secured our nineteenth gold by winning the middleweight final. The successful medallists came home in Boeing with a specially painted gold nose!

The outstanding performances - in terms of gold medals - were from Chris Hoy with three and Becky Adlington with two.

Our 18th Gold

2008-08-23T07:00:00.001+01:00

Tim Brabants powered to a superb victory in the final of the men's K1 1000m to win Great Britain's 18th gold medal of the Olympics. The 31-year-old dominated the race from the start, finishing almost a boat's length ahead of the defending champion, Norway's Erik Veraas Larsen. Brabants crossed the finishing line in 3 min 26.323 sec to win Britain's first ever canoeing Olympic gold medal.

Shanaze Reade crashed out of the BMX final while in second place on the last bend - she wasn't going to settle for silver. It was gold or nothing. Nothing - except a possible broken hand. But at the age of 19 "There's always London 2012...."

Meanwhile, Heather Fell got an excellent silver in the modern pentathlon.

Phillips Idowu

2008-08-22T02:26:00.000+01:00

Phillips Idowu got a Silver in the triple jump - not a happy bunny after expecting to get a Gold and despite wearing Kelly Holmes's lucky number 1809. Idowu is known for his eccentric personality, sporting a variety of hair colours, an array of facial piercings and trademark booming laugh. There was no laughing at the end of his event. I expect he will always view his medal with mixed feelings after having been the favourite to take Gold. Not that it is any consolation to him but I think that any sporting event is to some extent a lottery and to be the Olympic silver medallist for th next four years is a pretty creditable achievement. And there's always 2012...

I had expected, at the start of these Games, to be saying "There's always 2012" about a lot of the British competitors but they have done so brilliantly that it is going to be very hard for them and their successors to do as well.

Have you got it?

2008-08-21T13:27:00.000+01:00

Have you got it? I’ve got it.

Oops, no I haven’t. If it wasn’t the USA I’d feel sorry for them....

But then... We passed the baton ouitside the yellow line... Or was it on... the debate continues as I write this....

So far, so brilliant...

2008-08-21T07:53:00.001+01:00

Iain Percy and Andrew (Bart) Simpson have won GB another Gold Medal in the sailing – in the final race of all at Qingdao in the Star Class. This has been the best Olympic regatta in history for the British team.

As I head off to Exeter to stay with Helen and Ian the medal tally stands at 17 Gold, 11 Silver and 11 Bronze for GB. we are still third in the table.

Lightning Bolt

2008-08-21T05:06:00.001+01:00

If Michael Phelps claimed the glory of week one of the Bejing Olympics it is Usain Bolt who will be remembered for the second week. Not only did he easily smash the world record in the 100 metres, taking it down to 9.69 secs) but in a wonderful week from an amazing athlete, the 200m race was the most staggering moment of all. He finished in 19.30 seconds to break Michael Johnson's 12-year-old world record, one of the most venerable in the books. Jaws dropped. Gobs were smacked, flabbers were gasted. That shouldn't have been possible. Michael Johnson's 200m world record was supposed to be untouchable. He had said that if Bolt concentrated on time and ignored the flag waving antics of his 100m run he could do it. And he did, despite supposedly being tired after running eight races in six days.

Bolt, seen here winning his 100m race, is by no means alone in getting two Golds and two world records at an Olympic Games but what Golds and what world records!

Olympic boxing - underwater

2008-08-21T04:34:00.001+01:00

Since my last posting we’ve added a couple more medals.

In the women’s 400m hurdles a surprise and well-earned bronze went to Tasha Danvers.

In the past the Olympics have had some weird sports (perhaps no more weird than synchronised swimming!) including rope climbing and underwater swimming but now we've got underwater boxing / wrestling. David Davies swam the 10km marathon but swam off course a couple of times resulting in a silver despite him undoubtedly being by far the best swimmer there. In his defence he led almost the whole way and the other swimmers virtually beat him up in the water – it’s a violent and unpleasant tactical race. At the end he was delirious and had to be stretchered away though amid some concern. Fortunately he quickly recovered and, equally fortunately, he was pleased with a silver.

The girls got silver and bronze in their race and he did equally well getting his silver but if we carry on playing by the rules we’ll never get a gold!!! (I’m not suggesting the winner himself cheated but he was a lot bigger than David and perhaps more able to take care of himself). It’s about time they enforced the rules better though in fairness the World Champion was disqualified during the race for too many rough tactics.

David Davies is a Barry boy and very proud of his Welsh roots but you won’t see a single Welsh flag waving in Bejing. It would contravene Olympic rules - section D of the regulations posted outside Olympic venues says that spectators are not allowed to bring in "flags of non-Olympic and Paralympic participating countries/regions". So, no English, Scottish or Welsh flags are allowed since the UK competes as one nation under the flag of the Union Jack.

The winner of the race – Maarten van der Weijden – is himself a story of some inspiration. Seven years ago he was lying in a hospital bed suffering from cancer; his baldness is the outcome of that and not a swimming tactic. He wants to send the message to cancer sufferers everywhere that “If you are lucky there is a major world out there still”.

Our Men’s RS:X wind-surfing – Nick Dempsey - slipped out of the medals in the last race and came in that most invidious of spots – fourth. I think I’d rather be last than be so close and yet so far.

We never had it so good..

2008-08-20T06:57:00.000+01:00

In 1996 ‘we’ (i.e. our representatives in Atlanta) came home with just one Gold medal. So far we have now got 16. Absolutely brilliant.

British cyclist Chris Hoy claimed a superb hat-trick of gold medals after beating team-mate Jason Kenny in the sprint. Kenny’s silver was an addition to his gold in the team sprint. The 32-year-old becomes the first Briton in 100 years to win three golds at the same Olympics, after his earlier success in the team sprint and keirin. The Scot was pushed to the limit in the first race by his 20-year-old opponent, edging the opening duel in the best-of-three by half a wheel's length. Hoy dominated the second race, giving a victory salute as he crossed the line.

Victoria Pendleton won Britain's sixth track cycling gold of the 2008 Olympics with victory over Australia's Anna Meares in the women's sprint final. The 27-year-old was in a class of her own, winning the first two races of the best of three, with relative ease. She led out in the first race before outsprinting her opponent and then gave Meares the chance to lead in the next but the result was even more emphatic.

In the Bird’s Nest stadium our high jumper Germaine Mason took the stadium by storm and gained an unexpected and very welcome silver medal.

This was shortly followed by a Gold when Christine Ohuruogu's stunning 400m victory brought Team GB's gold medal haul to 16 as Britain sealed their best Olympic performance for a century.

The Americans commented the other day that we only won our medals sitting down – a bit of jealousy over our sailing and cycling records, I think. We most definitely proved them wrong the last couple of days... (And one could argue that they win all their medals in the water - when we don't beat them!)

Britain's Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten took silver and bronze in the 10km swim.

Bryony Shaw took the Bronze medal in the Women’s RS:X wind-surfing medal race at the end of a very long week. An emotional Bryony promptly jumped in the water and was dragged into the BBC boat where she was 'over the moon' - "I am just so happy. It was such a hard race and I had such a hard week. It's the best thing in the world. I love my mum and dad so much, they are so supportive. And my boyfriend Greg. My coach Tom is such a legend. I am so (unacceptable word for morning television) happy." That was like Gwyneth Paltrow but with genuine emotion," said BBC presenter Adrian Chiles.

Cyclists demoralise the opposition

2008-08-19T08:11:00.001+01:00

The Track Cycling Men's Team Pursuit gold medal final was held at Laoshan Velodrome in Beijing, China, on August 18, 2008. The British team claimed the title in this event and broke the world record with a time of 3:53.314. Our cycling team has just totally demoralised the other countries.

Gold Medal thirteen for team GB came with Paul Goodison in the Laser class sailing.

Super Sunday

2008-08-17T11:40:00.000+01:00

By Sunday lunchtime (our time) Britain was third in the Gold Medal table with 11 golds. Three blondes in a boat got the gold in the Yngling class.

Ben Ainsley got a third career gold in the Finn class sailing.

The lightweight scullers (Zak Purchase and Mark Hunter) got a brilliant gold in their little boat and the Woman’s quad got silver with which they were devastatingly disappointed but it seemed like good going to me. It’s all about expectations.

Rebecca Romero got the gold in the women’s pursuit cycling with Wendy Houvenhaghel getting the silver. Rebecca was only the second ever woman to get a medal in two entirely different disciplines in the summer Olympics – she was part of the silver Women’s quad scullers who won silver in 2004.

Mara Yamaguchi came sixth in the marathon but the unfit Paula Radcliffe had to be content with finishing. Liz Yelling was just behind her des[pite a fall very early in the race which left her bruised and with cracked ribs.

The men's team pursuit cyclists made it into the Final beating their own world record time in the process - so another gold or silver has to be earned tomorrow.

If Michael Phelps were a separate country he would be in seventh place in the medal table - as it is his eight golds are the difference between the USA and ourselves at the moment.

Still Medalling

2008-08-16T06:35:00.000+01:00

Chris Hoy, Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny won Gold for Britain in the Cycling team sprint.

Rebecca Adlington got a second Gold in the swimming - the 800m freestyle - the first British woman to get two swimming medals in one Games. She managed to smash the World record in the process. That man Phelps got his seventh Gold. The Brits have done reasonably well in the early rounds of the athletics. I have been amazed at how many World Records have gone in these Olympoics in a wide variety of events. Often, winning events involves a different technique to smashiing world records but in Bejing they have done both. I wonder if the 100m sprint will be a record.

More Medals

2008-08-14T07:30:00.001+01:00

The personable David Florence got a brilliant silver medal in the CI canoeing slalom final.

Britain's eventing team got a bronze and Tina Cook on Miner's Frolic got a Bronze in the Individual eventing. As she rode for her individual medal the commentator was so wound up apologised in advance in case he swore.

Emms and Robertson (silver medallists from last Olympics) got through their first round - agsinst the Chineseto whom they lost in the last finals. For them it was like a final all over again.

Emma Pooley brought in our second Silver with a second place in the women's time trials cycling. In the pool American Michael Phelps won medals four and five of this games taking his all-time tally to a record ten. Then he got another making him the most successful Olympian of all-time. He is still on target for eight medals in eight days with eight world records....

Olympics – Britain’s First medals

2008-08-11T20:57:00.001+01:00

Nicole Cooke won the Women's road race in awful conditions

The women have kicked off the Olympics well with Nicole Cooke winning gold in the cycling road race yesterday and Rebecca Adlington and Jo Jackson taking Gold and Bronze respectively in the swimming – 400m freestyle at the Water Cube. This is Britain’s first women’s swimming gold since the days of Anita Lonsborough in the 60s.
I’m also enjoying the fact that the host nation are currently leading the medal table with 9 golds in Diving, Weightlifting, Judo and Shooting. They will soon be overtaken but it’s good that they’ve had a fair start.

Adlington and Jackson celebrate in the pool

Adlington shows off her Gold Medal

Olympic Openers

2008-08-10T11:14:00.001+01:00

U.S. Swimmer Michael Phelps demolished his own world record to take a first gold on Sunday in the quest for an unprecedented eight wins. Listening to hip-hop on headphones as he walked to the block, Phelps went on to win the 400 metres individual medley at China's futuristic and full-to-capacity Water Cube. His time was 1.41 seconds quicker than a previous best he set just six weeks ago.

After the first race of a thrilling morning at the pool, Phelps raised his arms to celebrate triumph in what he calls his weakest event. He was watched by President George Bush and cheered by flag-waving compatriots and thousands of Chinese. Even if the lanky 23-year-old with the perfect swimming physique wins only half his eight race competitions, he will hold more Olympic gold medals than any other athlete. But he looks in great shape to match his own six golds at Athens 2004 then maybe go one further than Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven wins at one Games.

After Phelps thrilled the Water Cube, Australia's Stephanie Rice followed suit to smash the world record and win the same 400m individual medley event for women.

Park Tae-hwan won the men's 400m freestyle to give South Korea a second gold while Zhang Lin became the first Chinese man to win an Olympic swimming medal when he grabbed the silver.
With 14 golds being awarded on Sunday, the hosts were well-placed to add to their first-day tally of two, with favourites in shooting, fencing, judo and diving.

Chinese diving queen Guo Jingjing, the supermodel and local airhead, steps up to the springboard to defend her 3-metre synchronized title. China dominates world diving and has a reasonable chance of winning all eight golds in the discipline. Chinese fans are also focused on Sunday's basketball blockbuster between the hosts, led by 7ft 6in NBA player Yao Ming, against a star-studded United States still smarting from their bronze in Athens 2004. It could be the most-viewed sporting contest ever in China.

Women cyclists face a tough but shorter road race on the same route between Beijing's Forbidden City and the Great Wall that the men had on Saturday. A third of the men withdrew from their race, blaming suffocating heat, humidity and pollution. The agonies endured by the men's cyclists bode ill for other endurance athletes, such as marathon runners.

The Real World

2008-08-10T07:24:00.000+01:00

I plan to do some blogs about the Olympics over the next fortnight but in the meantime the 'real world' carries on regardless of the attempt by sport to bring peoples together...

10th August - Russia bombed a military airport outside the Georgian capital early on Sunday and Tbilisi said Moscow was massing troops in a second breakaway region of Georgia as fighting raged for control of South Ossetia. There were signs of a second front opening in the conflict, with Georgia accusing Russia of sending troops by sea to the larger rebel region of Abkhazia on the Black Sea. A U.N. peacekeeping official also warned of an imminent military offensive by the Abkhaz who, like the South Ossetians, broke with Tbilisi in the early 1990s after a war.

Russia bombed Georgia's military airport 12 km (8 miles) from Tbilisi early on Sunday, the latest target in a Russian air assault on its small neighbour following a Georgian push to re-take the pro-Moscow enclave of South Ossetia. A Georgian ceasefire offer went unheeded by Moscow and separatists in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali reported that Georgian forces, dug in on high ground outside the town, were continuing to fire on the town.

Russia poured troops into Georgia on Friday, dramatically upping the stakes in a long-running stand-off with the ex-Soviet republic over its pro-Western policies and its drive for NATO membership. The confrontation has sparked alarm in the West and led to angry exchanges at the U.N. reminiscent of the Cold War.

Meanwhile, in China itself, the Games' Day Two was spoiled by pre-dawn blasts and a shootout in Xinjiang, some 3,000 km (1,860 miles) west of Beijing. State media said "lawbreakers" tossed homemade explosives into local government buildings. Five attackers were shot dead by police, and two officers plus a security guard injured. Suspected Muslim militants killed 16 police in the same region a week ago. It was not known who was behind Sunday's attack.

Beijing says it has foiled past plots to sabotage the Olympics by separatists in Xinjiang. Critics accuse China of exaggerating the threat to justify repression of dissidents. Chinese authorities hope the Games will finally put the spotlight on sports after a build-up dominated by accusations of rights abuses and concerns over pollution despite Beijing's desire to showcase its modern face and economic might.

On the first day, though, a Chinese man stabbed to death the father-in-law of a U.S. men's volleyball coach at a tourist spot.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...

Robbie Keane

2008-08-01T06:58:00.000+01:00

There seem to me to be two types of figure that news media never agree upon - the number of people killed in a disaster and the amount paid for transferring football players. This week saw figures raning from £18 mi;llion to £20.3 million as the price of Robbie Keane's transfer to Liverpool. But what's a couple of million here or there?

However much he cost, Robbie Keane has completed his move to Anfield earlier this week, simultaneously calling curtains on his impressive six-year spell at Tottenham Hotspur. The Irish striker scored 107 goals in 257 games for Spurs and effectively established himself as the club's de facto skipper given Ledley King's consistent absence through injury. Now the 28-year-old has embarked upon a new journey with the Reds, and Torres believes a player with such a track record in the Premier League can only be a hugely positive addition to the squad. Keane will wear the number 7 shirt made famous by such stars as Keegan, Dalgleish and Fowler.

He has already made his debut in a friendly against Villarreal. The team from the land of Yellow Submarines played in grey against the Yellow Submarimes (Villarreal's nickname) so-called for their habit of bobbing up and down the Spanish league. Liverpool’s Spanish contingent were kept on the bench for the start of this pre-season friendly with former Villarreal keeper Pepe Reina returning to his ex-club just days after the birth of his second child. The match was part of the deal which took the Spanish keeper to Anfield. Prior to kick off Liverpool’s Spanish quartet of Reina, Alonso, Arbeloa and Torres showed off the Euro 2008 trophy and received a heroes welcome, along with Villarreal’s three Spanish internationals. Rafa Benitez handed Liverpool debuts to forwards Robbie Keane and David Ngog.

A Ten Day wonder

2008-06-30T17:09:00.000+01:00

Unless you were one of the millions of Chinese affected by it, the Great Sichuan earthquake was another of those ten day wonders in the news. Here are some of the statistics at the end of June.

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake measured at 8.0 Ms[6] and 8.3 Mw[7] according to China Seismological Bureau (CSB), and 7.9 Mw according to USGS, occurred at 14:28:01.42 CST (06:28:01.42 UTC) on 12 May 2008 in Sichuan province of China. It was also known as the Wenchuan earthquake after the earthquake's epicenter in Wenchuan County, Sichuan province. The epicenter was 80 kilometres (50 mi) west-northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, with a depth of 19 kilometres (12 mi).
The earthquake was felt as far away as Beijing (1,500 kilometres (932 mi) away) and Shanghai (1,700 kilometres (1,056 mi) away), where office buildings swayed with the tremor. The earthquake was also felt in nearby countries.

Official figures state that 69,185 were confirmed dead by late June, including 68,636 in Sichuan province, and 374,171 injured, with 18,467 listed as missing. The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless, though the number could be as high as 11 million. It is the deadliest and strongest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed at least 240,000 people. Approximately 15 million people lived in the affected area.

On May 25, a major aftershock of 6.0 Mw hit northeast of the original earthquake's epicenter, in Qingchuan County, causing eight deaths, 1000 injuries, and destroyed thousands of buildings. On May 27, two more major aftershocks, a 5.2 Mw in Qingchuan County and a 5.7 Mw in Ningqiang in Shaanxi Province, led to the collapse of more than 420,000 homes and injured 63 people.

And for most of us in the Western World that’s all this disaster was – another set of statistics. In the Eighteenth Century the church would have initiated a Fast Day a few weeks after the disaster to remind people of the event and to allow for money to be collected for the victims. Perhaps we need to go back to something like that before the news media make us too inured to the hardships of others.

Spain win Euro 2008

2008-06-30T16:54:00.000+01:00

I watched the Euro 2008 Final – the only match of the tournament I’ve watched though I glanced at one of the semi-finals. Fernando Torres (the Liverpool striker) scored first for Spain. That turned out to be the only goal. Bye, bye Germany,

Javan Rhino, Grey-faced Elephant Shrew, and a Long-eared Jerboa

2008-06-05T06:44:00.000+01:00

Remarkable images of the world's rarest rhino species, the Javan rhino, have been caught on film. A mother and her calf could be seen grazing in Ujung Kulon National Park in Java, Indonesia. But when she spotted the hidden camera, she charged and sent it flying.

Meanwhile, a bizarre-looking mammal called the grey-faced elephant shrew has been discovered in Tanzania. It didn't charge the camera...

A desert 'Mickey Mouse' has also been caught on film. The first known footage of a long-eared jerboa in the wild was filmed in the Mongolian Gobi desert.

The Borve Crow

2008-05-29T21:23:00.000+01:00

While I am on holiday anywhere I enjoy reading the local newspaper. Up here it is the Stornoway Gazette. The funniest story last week (though not funny for those affected by it) was the tale of the Borve Crow.

A crow decided to build its nest on top of an electricity pole. After all, there are not a lot of trees around Borve! Unfortunately it also decided to use odd scraps of barbed wire for its nesting material. This resulted in the electricity board having to cut off the power supply to 1500 people in order to dismantle the nest. The Borve Crow was, however, a persistent so-and-so and the power supply had to be cut off for a number of days in succession as they destroyed the nest each morning only to find it rebuilt the next day. The saga continues….

Flying fish

2008-05-21T08:42:00.000+01:00

Some remarkable footage of a flying fish has been captured by a TV crew filming off the southern tip of Japan.

It is claimed to be one of the longest recorded flights of this acrobatic animal.

The fish was completely airborne for 45 seconds. This beats one previous, impressive report from an American researcher in the 1920s of 42 seconds.

The animal is seen travelling parallel to a ferry, which itself is motoring at about 30km/hour (20mph).

The fish was able to continue flying by occasionally beating the surface of the water with its tail fin. The footage was shot by an NHK crew as it travelled to Yakushima Island.

According to Junji Yonezawa, at the Center for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on Outlying Islands, the animal's flight-time of 45 seconds must be close to its physical limit, as brachial respiration is impossible while moving through the air.

There are some 40 species of "flying fish" in the family known as Exocoetidae. The animals are found worldwide in warmer waters.

Their flight ability comes from a glide rather than a powered flapping

Disaster

2008-05-21T08:40:00.000+01:00

I did say this news blog was not going to be about disasters and the bad things in life but two things cannot really be ignored since I last blogged over a month ago on 10th April - the earthquake in China and the behaviour of the Rangers’ fans.
On 14th May the Rangers fans let themselves and Scottish and British football down when they went on the rampage through Manchester after losing the EUFA Cup Final. I hope Liverpool’s Twelfth Man never behaves like that.
On 12th May China’s Sichuan Province was hit by an enormous earthquake that is estimated to have taken over 50,000 lives. As China is now more media friendly this was reported in greater detail than the Tangshan Earthquake of July 1976 that is estimated to have taken a quarter of a million lives. Officials said 80% of the buildings in Beichuan county, close to the epicentre, had been destroyed. The 7.8 quake was felt as far away as Beijing, Shanghai and the Thai capital, Bangkok. A week after the event the death toll from had risen to 40,075,. Tens of thousands more are still missing, and hopes have now gone of finding any people still alive. However, Chinese media say a woman was pulled from the rubble 195 hours - or eight days - after the disaster. Chinese aid workers are struggling to find shelter for millions who lost their homes. Foreign medical teams have started arriving in the area.

Rangers Twelfth Man

2008-04-11T04:43:00.000+01:00

After a fairly boring two legs, Rangers went through to the semi-finals of the EUFA Cup last night by beating Sporting Lisbon 2-0 in Portugal (both goals being in the last half hour of the three hours).

The travelling Rangers fans were on song but my vote for Ranger's twelfth man is Assistant Manager Ally McCoist. The ebullient former Scotland player and TV personality makes a perfect foil to the manager, the dour but effective Walter Smith.

Liverpool's 12th Man

2008-04-10T06:47:00.000+01:00

I apologise to all on the Kop on Tuesday night - I meant to point out in my blog posting that Liverpool always play with twelve 'men' on European nights at Anfield. There is no doubt that the twelfth man is worth an extra goal to Liverpool. Opposition players must dread coming out of the tunnel under the notice "This is Anfield".

Liverpool 4 Arsenal 2 (5-3 on aggregate)

2008-04-09T07:48:00.000+01:00

People with heart problems should not get involved with supporting Liverpool FC. This was their third (and most important) meeting with Arsenal in a week. They drew 1-1 in the first leg of this European Champions League Quarter Final last week at The Emirates. They drew 1-1 at the Emirates in the Premiership on Sunday. And at half-time it was 1-1 in this match at Anfield last night.

Sammy Hyppia celebrates
Arsenal had the best of the first half with some excellent play leading to a one goal lead which they held for 17 minutes until Liverpool’s 34 year old Sammy Hyppia scored a brilliant header and Liverpool took control for a while. For those not au fait with the rules, away goals count double. So each had one home goal and one away goal – that would lead to extra time and a penalty shoot-out. However, if Liverpool scored they would win by 3-2 on aggregate. If Arsenal scored they would win by 3-2 on aggregate. However, if the score were 3-3 Arsenal would win on the away-goals rule... So any goal meant there would be no extra time / penalties.

Torres scores
The teams were evenly balanced in the second half until Liverpool scored with another excellent goal by Fernando Torres. Just fifteen minutes separated Liverpool from the semi-finals. Then Arsenal scored and at 3-3 they would go through on the away-goals rule and it seemed all over.

Gerrard from the penalty spot
But Liverpool never lie down and within a minute they had earned a penalty which captain Gerrard put away with tremendous calm and skill.

The Arsenal fans faced dropped – they could not believe they had gone from winners to losers in a minute. The Kop were desperate for the final whistle. After all, another Arsenal goal would see the Gunners through and anything seemed possible in this match.

Despite being pulled Babel scores Liverpool's fourth of the night
Then, in injury time, to stop the Liverpool supporters from having any more heart attacks Ryan Babel scored again and the Gunners were out.

No one can ever say that Liverpool don’t give value for money in important matches.

Ged

2008-03-28T14:52:00.000Z

A new era is to begin at Lancashire County Council with the appointment of new chief executive Ged Fitzgerald. Last year, according to figures published by the Taxpayers' Alliance, Ged Fitzgerald was England's eighth highest paid chief executive working outside London, with a £170,036 pay packet. On June 1 he replaces the man who sat at number six in that Town Hall Rich List with £181,827 - although Mr Fitzgerald arrives on a salary of £190,000.

Ged was appointed to my Urban Programme section in Knowsley many moons ago. Good to see he's still smiling! I wish him the best of luck.

Track Cycling World Championships

2008-03-27T19:34:00.001Z

At the Cycling World Championships in Manchester the British Team Pursuit team not only took the Gold Medal but also set a World Record in the process.

Geraint Thomas, Edward Clancy, Paul Manning, and Bradley Wiggins formed the team.

Rower Rebecca Romero was part of the British crew that won the 2005 World Championships in the quad sculls in Gifu, Japan, and had won a Silver at the Athens Olympics the year before. Not content with a World Championship Gold Medal at rowing, Romero has turned her attention to cycling. Tonight she got a Gold Medal in the 3,000 metres individual pursuit.

The first Grand Prix of the season

2008-03-17T06:41:00.000Z

The GP season has roared off with no traction control on the cars – taking them back a bit more to the ‘good old days’. It was the youngest ever front row - Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren and Robert Kubica in the BMW.

Hamilton’s new team-mate, the friendly Haiki Kovalainan, was third on the grid. It was good to see the two of them beforehand enjoying a chat together – a bit of a change from the bad-tempered relationship that Alonso brought to the team last year. It was the first Grand Prix for 17 years without a driver called Schumacher.

Heading for an early talk with Louise
On the first lap quite a few cars discovered that three into two won’t go and still leave all the numbers whole! Webber, Button, Vettel, Davidson and Fisichella all out while Massa ended up at the back after having his own one off accident. Sutil out in the second Force India car by lap 10. Raikonnen, who had had qualifying problems, jumped up many places during the chaos.

Massa and Coulthard collided as the former overtook the Scot and took him out. Coulthard was a little annoyed and commented that he expected Massa to admit the fault or he’d “kick the shit out of the little bastard.”. I bet that doesn’t make it to the edited highlights programme! Another safety car..

After it came in Raikonnen well overcooked an attempt to overtake Haiki and ended up running through the gravel trap and losing a load of places. As Brundle commented – he’d have needed an anchor to slow down enough to take the corner.

Piquet and Takuma Sato both stopped out on the track as did Massa – down to eleven cars and eight score points with 28 laps to go! Raikonnen put it on the grass and went back in the field again.

Then rookie Timo Glock did likewise but he managed to crash his car with a degree of spectacular bouncing and revolving that left him somewhat shaken.

Under the safety car Barrichello had to come in for fuel (or run out of fuel on track) which would have got him a penalty even if he hadn’t taken out the fuel filler men as the lollipop man lifted the lollipop too early.

Hamilton pitted just before the safety car but Haiki Kovalainen, who was running a solid second place, had to come in for fuel and that dropped him back to ninth in the crocodile behind the safety car. Nakajima hit Kubica on the restart and the BMW driver was out. Barrichello, despite his 10 second penalty, rejoined in eighth with Nakajima the only runner not looking like scoring points.

With six laps to go the remaining prancing horse went lame. Does he run the 5000 engine parts to bits and suffer a ten place penalty on the grid next time or retire and lose his two points. In the end the engine appeared to decide it for itself. Kovalainen still fighting Alonso for fifth place at the line and after a pass he got re-passed as his McLaren seemed to lose drive.

Poor rookie (but experienced ex Indy car driver) Sebastian Bourdais’s Torro Rosso (with a Ferrari engine!) lost out to five championship points as it blew up with four laps to go.

Hamilton had the advantage of all his main rivals scoring few or no points. The result -
1. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes 58 laps one hour 34 minutes 50.616 seconds
2. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber +5.478 secs
3. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota +8.163
4. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault +17.181
5. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes +18.014
DQ Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda +52.453
6. Kazuki Nakajima* (Jpn) Williams-Toyota 1 lap behind
7R Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 55 laps completed
8R Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 53 laps
R Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 47 laps
R Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 43 laps
R Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda 32 laps
R Nelson Piquet Jr (Brz) Renault 30 laps
R Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari 29 laps
R David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 25 laps
R Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 19 laps
R Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari 8 laps
R Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 0 laps
R Jenson Button (GB) Honda 0 lap
R Anthony Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda 0 lap
R Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 0 laps
R Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari 0 laps

* Nakajima handed 10-place grid penalty for next weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix

U-boat in the Mersey

2008-03-10T18:41:00.000Z

Work is under way to move the only World War II German submarine in the UK to a new location. The U-534 has been stationed at Mortar Mill Quay, near Birkenhead, Merseyside, in the Historic Warships Museum, until it closed last year.

Now the 900-ton U-boat, which is too big to move in one piece, has been cut into five parts and is being floated to Woodside Ferry Terminal in Birkenhead. Once it has been put back together it will become a tourist attraction. Work to divide the vessel into portable sections took a month to complete and it is expected to take barges another week to transport the parts along the River Mersey.

Merseytravel, which owns and operates Mersey Ferries, bought the U-boat to house it at its terminal. Neil Scales, chief executive and director general of Merseytravel, said: "It's a really important piece of history which we want to preserve." The Imperial War Museum confirmed there are only four full-size WWII German U-Boats in existence, and that U-534 is the only one in the UK.

According to the museum's archives, the submarine, which was launched on 23 September 1942, was used as a training vessel in the Baltic. However, it was sunk less than three years later on 5 May 1945 by depth charges dropped by an RAF Liberator. The vessel was salvaged in 1993 and brought to the UK in May 1996, before becoming a popular tourist attraction in Seacombe, Wirral.

The new exhibition at Woodside, which includes artefacts from the submarine and an enigma machine, is due to open in July.

(from the BBC)