U.S. woman wins Miss World

Blue-eyed blonde American teen Alexandria Mills has won the Miss World crest for 2010, beating more than 100 other hopefuls at a sparkling observance in south China. Mills, an 18-year-old from the south US state of Kentucky, wept as outgoing Miss World Kaiane Aldorino of Gibraltar put the tiara on her head and directed her to a diamond-shaped throne judging the pageant’s 60th anniversary.

Miss World 2010 Alexandria Mills (C) from the United States, 1st Runner-up Emma Wareus (L) from Botswana and 2nd Runner-up Adriana Vasini (R) from Venezuela sham for a group photo during the final round of the 60th Miss World Beauty Pageant in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province. The 60th Miss World Beauty Pageant was concluded on Saturday.

The pageant got off to a colourful start with a staging by dancers and drummers from China’s Li ethnic few assemblies, who mostly reside on Hainan isle, which was hosting the happening for the fifth time in eight years. Before the contestants whirled in nationwide costume for the “Dances of the World” segment, viewers were treated to a video montage of the women’s whirlwind trip of China – from the Great Wall to the trading malls.

In 2002, the pageant was moved from Nigeria to Britain after more than 200 persons past away in clashes sparked when a bulletin proposed the Muslim prophet Mohammed would have selected a wife from amidst the contestants had he been alive.

Baby elephant attacked by crocodile

The scene was captured by amateur photographer Johan Opperman while taking pictures of a family of African bush elephants browsing by a water hole and cooling down. Under the watchful eye of its family, the young elephant headed to the edge of the waterhole to clutch a drink. However, a crocodile swooped on the youngster, hoping for a kill by locking its jaws around its trunk.

Hearing the baby's distress calls, the group of elephants scared off the reptile by trumpeting and stamping around. After the attack the group stayed with the youngster.

Once the group decided all was well, they crossed the dam together, just metres from where the crocodile had been hiding. Mr Opperman, from Pretoria, in South Africa, captured the unbelievable moment while on a day trip in the country's Kruger National Park. The 38 year-old said: "The elephants were just browsing in the area, drinking water and cooling down - typical elephant behavior.



"The crocodile grabbed the baby elephant and made a tried kill - it was hoping for a nice lunch with elephant on the menu. "From a couple of experts, I've heard that this is however very rare, and that crocodiles do not usually try to catch elephants. "When the crocodile got hold of the baby elephant, the whole group of elephants first went crazy, running around and trumpeting, and then proceeded to come to the rescue of the baby elephant. "After it was saved, all the elephants of the group waited around the baby elephant for a while, making sure that it was okay.

"The ones coming to the save were most probably female, especially the matriarch female."I did not understand exactly what I managed to catch on film until I got to my holiday resort that night and looked through the photos on my computer. "The screen on digital cameras is not the greatest and made it hard to see the particulars of what was captured. "When the 'action' started, I just started clicking away in typical amateur style, hoping to get at least something.

Cement faults 'known before spill'

Tests performed before the deadly BP oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to shut the well, investigators with Barack Obama's oil spill commission have said. It is the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the major offshore oil spill in US history.

And it appears to divergence with statements made by cementing contractor Halliburton, which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company has instead blamed BP's well plan and operations for the disaster. The cement mix's breakdown to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified by BP and others as one of the causes of the accident.

BP and Halliburton decided to use a foam slurry created by injecting nitrogen into cement to protect the bottom of the well, a decision outside experts have condemned. The panel said that of four tests done in February and April by Halliburton, only one - the last - illustrated the mix would hold. But the results of that single successful test were not shared with BP and may not have reached Halliburton before the cement was forced, according to a letter sent to commissioners by chief investigative counsel Fred Bartlit.

BP had at the time of the blowout the results of only one of the tests - a February scrutiny sent by Halliburton in a March 8 email that indicated the cement could fail. The slurry tested in that case was a slightly different blend and unspecified a slightly different well design, but there was no indication that Halliburton flagged the problem for BP, or that BP had concerns, the letter said.

"Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before forcing it at the Macondo well," Mr Bartlit wrote. Independent tests conducted for the commission by Chevron on a nearly identical blend were also released. The results concluded that the cement mix was unstable, raising questions about the validity of Halliburton's final test.

BP, as part of its internal investigation, also conducted independent tests that showed the cement mix was damaged, but its analysis was criticised by Halliburton, which said it was not the correct formula. BP's report also stated a cement test Halliburton performed in mid-April, but it appears BP obtained the results after the accident and considered its methods flawed.

Biggest neutron star ever noticed is twice the mass of the sun

Researchers found that regardless of being comparatively small and around the size of a small city the star is so tightly crushed that its weight is massive. Just a thimbleful of material from the star, named PSR J1614-223, would weigh 500 million tonnes. Astronomers discovered that the neutron star, the "corpse" that remains after a star has undergone a supernova, is twice as huge as our sun.

It is located about 3,000 light-years away in the course of the constellation Scorpio, a newly spotted neutron star is the largest ever discovered to date. Scientists believe its discovery could have wide ranging inference for our understanding of physics. Because they are so dense, the stars are an ideal natural lab for scientists to study some of the most alien states of matter known to physics, which can only exist in such extreme environments.

The star was found by the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Scientists used an effect of Einstein's theory of relativity to measure its mass and that of its orbiting buddy, a white dwarf star. "This neutron star is twice as enormous as our Sun," said Paul Demorest, from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), in Charlottesville, Virginia. "This is surprising and that much mass means that several theoretical models for the internal composition of neutron stars now are feint out.

"This mass measurement also has implications for our understanding of all matter at tremendously high densities and many details of nuclear physics." The neutron star is a pulsar, which emits beams of radio waves like a lighthouse as it spins. "It is amazing to me that one simple number - the mass of this neutron star - can tell us so much about so many different phases of physics and astronomy."

Three Gorges Dam

China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest water project, was fully filled. The water level hit the dam's design capacity of 175 meters (574 feet) at 9 a.m. Tuesday, said the corporation that developed the dam. The 175-meter milestone will "enable the project to fulfill its functions of flood control, power generation, direction-finding and water diversion to the full," said Cao Guangjing, chairman of the China Three Gorges Corporation.


When the dam in central China attains full generating capacity next year, it will produce 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. That's enough to meet Beijing's requirements for a year. By comparison, the United States' Hoover Dam produces about 4 billion kilowatt-hours each year, sufficient to serve 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona, and California.


The 2,309-meter-wide (1.4 mile-wide) Three Gorges project, built in the upper-middle arrives at of China's longest river, began storing water in 2003. Water is diverted to the arid farmlands and cities of China's north. The Yangtze River has been responsible for some of the most horrible floods on record, with hundreds of thousands of people killed over the past century alone. The Three Gorges Dam relieves 15 million people and 1.5 million hectares of farmland in the Jianghan Plain from the threat of flood.


Opponents say the dam worsens pollution by trapping sewage and industrial waste. They also warn that an accident or natural disaster could create a catastrophe in the heavily populated region. An estimated 1.2 million people had to move to make way for the Three Gorges, which busy 632 square kilometers (244 square miles) of land. Historians decried the loss of centuries of remnants and antiquities, and the loss of a way of life for myriad rural residents in hundreds of villages, towns and cities.

World's longest cat

RENO, Nev. The world’s longest cat measures more than 4 feet, steal the record from another Maine Coon. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that 5-year-old Stewie was qualified to the new Guinness World Record holder after measuring 48 1/2 inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail bone. That's a little more than 4 feet long.

The record was before held by another Maine Coon that measured 48 inches. Stewie's owners, Robin Hendrickson and Erik Brandsness, say they decided to try for the record after hearing countless people say they were amazed by Stewie's length. Hendrickson said Maine Coons are known as "the gentle giants" of the cat world.

Volcanic fate for Neandertals

Scientists aren’t sure what caused the annihilation of the Neandertals, the ancient species most closely related to modern human beings. It could have been diet, or climate change, or getting outsmarted by modern humans. Or, volcanoes may have helped cleaned them out, say a team of Russian archaeologists.

About 40,000 years ago, new work shows, at least three volcanoes blown up in Europe and western Asia, where most of the Neandertals lived. The Russian researchers, led by Liubov Golovanova, came to this conclusion after studying the Mezmaiskaya Cave in the Caucasus Mountains. These mountains are in southwestern Russia, near the border between Europe and Asia, and Neandertals lived in and around the cave.

The cave contains layers of sediment, which are bits of rock and other materials that settled there over time. Scientists can determine how old each layer is. Then, when the archaeologists find anything within a layer (such as bones), they know how old that is. For this study, Golovanova and his colleagues looked at layers that are 40,000 to 45,000 years old. These layers, the scientists found, contain ash from two separate volcanic eruptions. Golovanova said “For the first time, we have identified evidence that the disappearance of Neandertals in the Caucasus coincides with a volcanic eruption approximately 40,000 years ago”

Modern human beings, Homo sapiens, were secured from the destructive volcanoes because, 40,000 ago, they lived in Africa and in parts of Asia that the eruptions did not affect. However, soon after the eruptions, Homo sapiens moved into the area formerly occupied by the Neandertals, including the cave. Archaeologists have found artifacts there from modern humans dating back 37,000 years.

Golovanova and his colleagues consider that the Neandertals were long gone from the cave before modern humans showed up, but not all scientists agree. Biagio Giaccio, a geologist at the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering in Rome, says that more work is needed to understand who was where, and when.

Fossilised iceblocks shed light on early life

The discovery of blocks of nettle which sank to the bottom of the sea trapped in ancient icebergs has sparked a new understanding of a bizarre group of creatures. The research published today in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, has also forced a rethink of the situation that existed more than 500 million years ago.

Associate Professor Victor Gostin and colleagues at the University of Adelaide found evidence of ancient icebergs mixed in with volcanic rocks which were spewed out when an asteroid hit the earth between 635-542 million years ago. The 4.7-kilometre asteroid left a 90-kilometre crater in what is now Lake Acraman in the Gawler Ranges of South Australia.

Icebergs carry coarse debris, boulders and grains. As the iceberg melts it is dragged to the bottom by the weight of the debris, then the ice melts and the surrounding mud eventually buries the debris, creating this sort of fossilised iceblock.

The Australian Geologist, Professor Malcolm Walter of the University of New South Wales says the research resolves matters around the timing and record of the glaciations, the impact and the rise of the Ediacaran biota. He explained the effect of the icy climate and asteroid impact as a "double whammy" that paradoxically led to the "flourishing of exotic plankton and the first macroscopic animals".

The Ediacaran fauna, which were the first large complex life forms to emerge. They resembled jellyfish, sponges, marine worms, plus other organisms whose body plan resembles nothing alive today.

Gostin is eager to explore other glacial deposits that formed around the same time in other parts of the world to see if there is further evidence of the asteroid's impact on the microscopic creatures at that time.

Largest Monkey In The World

Do you know the largest monkey in the world? It is Mandrills.

Mandrills are the largest of all monkeys. They are shy and cloistered primates that live only in the rain forests of equatorial Africa.

Mandrills are extremely colorful, perhaps more so than any other animal. They are easily identifiable by the blue and red skin on their faces and their brightly hued rumps. These distinctive colors become brighter when the animal is keyed up. They also have extremely long canine teeth that can be used for self-defense Hough baring them is typically a friendly sign among mandrills.

These are primarily terrestrial monkeys, and they move with long arms to scavenge on the ground for fruits, roots, and animals such as insects, reptiles, and amphibians. Their cheeks have built-in pouches that are used to store snacks for later consumption. Though mandrills spend much of their time on the ground, they can climb trees and do so to sleep.

Mandrills live in troops, which are bossed by a dominant male and include a dozen or more females and young. They also gather in multi-male/multi-female groups that can include some 200 individuals.

These colorful primates are threatened. They are often hunted as bushmeat, and many Africans consider them to be fragility. Mandrills are feeling the squeeze of spreading agriculture and human settlement both are shrinking their rain forest homeland.

Humpback whale beats long-distance record

A humpback whale has broken the world record for travel by any mammal, swimming at least 9,800 kilometres (6,125 miles) from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean in search of a mate, marine biologists reported on Wednesday. The female humpback was first photographed among a group of whales at a breeding ground on Abrolhos Bank, off Brazil's southeastern coast, on August 7 1999. By utter chance, it was photographed more than two years later, on September 21 2001 by a commercial whale-watching tour at a breeding ground near the Ile Sainte Marie off the eastern coast of Madagascar.

The whale was identified thanks to the distinctive shape of its tail and a pattern of spots on it. "It is the longest documented movement by a mammal, about 400 kms (250 miles) longer than the longest seasonal migration that has been reported," according to the research, headed by Peter Stevick of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

It also raises exciting questions about the breeding habits of humpbacks (Megaptera novaeangliae), a species of which relatively little is known. Until now, it was thought that only males, rather than females, would be likely to wander such extreme distances in quest of a partner. Humpbacks are known to be long-distance swimmers, but until now their migration patterns were thought to be between northern and southerly latitudes.

For instance, a whale might head to feeding area in a far southern latitude in the Atlantic, and then return to a tropical latitude in the Atlantic in order to breed. But this discovery suggests that humpbacks may also have a migratory pattern that straddles longitudes, not latitudes. In other words, they could swim east-west to breed.

Further work is needed to investigate such theories, as this is just a solitary sighting. But if more marathon humpbacks are found, it could lead to a rethink of the species' genetic profile, which in turn has an impact on conservation.

So far scientists have been able to identify seven distinct breeding stocks and several sub-stocks of humpbacks in the Southern Hemisphere. Their perceived isolation and entrenched breeding habits raised fears of a restricted gene pool, which is bad news for a species.

Humpbacks were driven close to extinction through over-hunting but are now staging a comeback.

Scouting is always important to waterfowl hunters but especially this year

In this day and age of waterfowl hunting in Minnesota, scouting and acclimatized to hunting new places is critical for success. Some traditional spots and marshes that were once teeming with ducks and geese have seen a shortage of waterfowl. This has been especially true this year, where sheet water has shaped temporary flooded fields and wetlands.

I have found how many good waterfowling opportunities there are to be found if you put in some windshield time. The great thing is a lot of these better places are public hunting areas. We hunted a Waterfowl Production Area open to hunting that held good numbers of ducks. Research and scouting led to a nice bag of ducks in territory that was unknown to us.

So try exploring new areas and scouting places where other huntsman doesn’t tread. You never know when you will stagger across a honey hole that will pay off big time.

One billion people without enough food

According to statistics one billion people in the world were under nourished in 2009.

The 2010 Global Hunger Index shows that child malnutrition is the biggest reason of hunger worldwide, accounting for almost half of those affected. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia were revealed to have the highest levels of hunger. Despite the number of undernourished people in the world falling between 1990 and 2006, the number has crept up in recent years, with the data from 2009 showing more than one billion starving people.

The most recent figures from 2010 suggest the number may again be falling but this data is not yet over. The Global Health Index (GHI) is calculated for 122 developing and transition countries. Out of which 29 countries are in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia - have levels of hunger described as "extremely alarming" or "alarming". The GHI shows hunger increasing in nine countries, North Korea and eight sub-Saharan African nations. The Democratic Republic of Congo saw the biggest increase, GHI rose by more than 65%.

Children under the age of two are considered to be more vulnerable. Malnourishment at this stage harms physical and mental development and its effects are mostly irreversible causing lifelong damage. In some sub-Saharan African countries, for example Burundi and Madagascar, about half the children have stunted growth because they do not have access to an appropriate diet.

It is estimated that child malnutrition could be cut by about a third by providing improved health care and nutrition, not only to young children but also to mothers during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Hundreds of Kenyan teachers dismissed over sex abuse of young students

In Kenya more than 1,000 teachers have been sacked for sexually abusing girls over the past couple of years. Most of the victims were aged between 12 and 15. A nationwide confidential helpline was set up to help victims. And it had revealed that the problem was much more widespread than previously thought. Most of the cases have occurred in rural primary schools.

Initially it was difficult to know what was actually happening in the country because of the poor communication, but now communication is everywhere - there are mobiles across the country. So now it is easier and to get into it and know what is really happening. Last year, 600 male teachers were dismissed and so far this year 550 teachers have lost their jobs for either kissing, touching or impregnating girls out a total teaching staff of 240,000 countrywide.

A number of them have been taken to court, and they have been sentenced accordingly. The problem was widespread. Last year in Nyanza province it was found that in one primary school we had over 20 girls who were pregnant and nearly half the numbers were actually impregnated by the teachers themselves. However, the officials investigating the abuse were not passing on vital information to get convictions.

The biggest problem is the fact that the district education officers they do not report the matters to the police. Often teachers who are caught sullying their students end up paying the parents in order to prevent cases going to court. Not only male but also female teachers who started to have illicit liaison with young boys.

Death rate rises to 97 in Indonesia flooding

The death rate has climbed to at least 97 dead and 68 missing in Indonesia, after flash floods. It is suspected that at least 97 people would have been injured, and more than 900 people have been displaced. The hardest-hit area is the distant location of Teluk Wondama, about eight to 10 hours by ship from Manokari, West Papau. Communication lines also have been disturbed. About 80 percent of the town of Wasior, in the Teluk Wondama district, has been damaged.

Help and supplies such as tents, blankets, clothes and food have been provided for the people in the region. Rescue workers are still searching for survivors from floods which hit West Papua's Teluk Wondama district on Monday following torrential downpours. It's monsoon season in Indonesia, and flooding is not unusual. However, the Bureau of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics is forecasting unusually heavy rains this year. Experts warned such events will become more common in the archipelago due to a combination of climate change, land conversion and logging.

Montana's melting glaciers: The poster-child for climate change

As just as 100 years ago, Montana's Glacier National Park had more than 150 glaciers throughout its more than one million acres. In 2005 only 27 remained. Today the total is down to a just 25 and those that are left are mere bits and pieces of their former frozen selves. With warmer temperatures and changes to the water cycle, scientists guess Glacier National Park will be glacier-free by 2030.

Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ecologist who works at the national park believes that even those estimates are too conventional and says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of their predicted demise. The glaciers have been around for the last seven thousand years and if we are going to lose them in the next 10 or 20 years that is an appealing radical shift.

The fast melting of glaciers has led scientists to suppose that mountains are more susceptible to global warming than the lowlands beneath them. Mountain ecosystems have been changing about two times as fast as the rest of the globe. We have had temperature increases that are two times greater than the average. Many scientists are now worried about the cascading effects on the landscape and the consequences for all species including humans.

Many people are directly dependent on the water coming out of mountains and in the parched western United States that figure is much larger, it is about 85 percent. So even if you live a long ways a way you are tied to the water in mountains and so we have a lot of concerns of future climate change states. According to scientists mountains are the "water towers of the world" with 70 percent of the world's fresh water frozen in glaciers. Whatever the causes magnificent and environmentally crucial glaciers around the world are retreating a loss to nature and to the human species.

Hungary – state of emergency due to toxic mud

Hungary is been declared as the state of emergency after a toxic mud spill swamped seven villages killing four people and injuring 120.And it was the country's worst-ever chemical accident. Eight of the injured were in a serious condition and six people were gone astray after the walls of a reservoir of residue at an aluminum plant broke on Monday afternoon. Officials feared the death numbers could rise. The mud left a path of damage destroying all vegetation other than trees, seeping into houses and leaving residents asking when they could return.

The two-metre (six-and-a-half-foot) tide of mud overturned cars, swept away properties and has raised fears that pollution leeching from it could reach the Danube River, which courses through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine before flowing into the Black Sea. Interior Minister Sandor Pinter persisted there was no threat so far to drinking water in the area but warned against eating home-grown produce from the region for the time being. It would be an ecological disaster, worst chemical accident in the country. The toxic sludge swamped seven villages with 1.1 million cubic metres (38.8 million cubic feet) after it spilt from the reservoir in Ajka, western Hungary.

A state of emergency was called in the counties of Veszprem, Gyor-Moson-Sopron and Vas. Among the dead were two children aged three and one, said Karoly Tily, the mayor of one of the affected villages, Kolontar. A 35-year-old man was killed when his car was overturned by the flood and an elderly woman died in her home. The sludge can cause burns to the skin and blindness if it gets into your eyes. Up to 40 square kilometres (15.4 square miles) of land were affected and there were fears that some of the sludge had already found its way into the Marcal river, potentially polluting the connecting Raba and Danube rivers. Theres also the possibilities for the sludge could reach the Danube, Europe's second longest river, in four or five days.


From the point of view of water management, it's a catastrophe. The red mud is a toxic residue left over from aluminium manufacture. It is slightly radioactive, highly corrosive and contains toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium. The Government was monitoring water quality round-the-clock and stressed that the level of polluants had not crossed the acceptable limits thus far.
There was suspicion that Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company (MAL), which owns the reservoir, had stored more red sludge in the reservoir than was allowed, or that the containers had not been sufficiently fitted. Prime Minister Viktor Orban sent his pity to the victims' families and promised a thorough investigation to find "who is responsible for this man-made catastrophe". All production at the plant is suspended and it will be decided this weekend whether operations can resume.

The interior minister said a new defensive dam had been built around the broken tank, so now there is no danger there could be another spill. Environmental group Greenpeace called for MAL's managers to be punished, saying satellite imagery taken a day before the disaster showed catastrophic cracks in the tank's walls.

Survey on sea life: Most ocean life is mysterious

The planet's seas and oceans are richer and more diverse than scientists suspected, the biggest survey of marine life has opened but many mysteries remain.

The Census of Marine Life, which broadcasted its full findings Monday, has taken 10 years to complete, employing 2,700 scientists from 80 nations. The $650 million study reviewed from the coldest waters to the warmest lagoons, from the smallest microbes to the largest cetaceans.
Scientists tagged and tracked marine being in order to gain insight into their migratory habits and populations as well as how they breed and what they eat.

The census also discovered some unusual sights during its 10 years, including what scientists labelled a "White Shark Cafe" and a "sturgeon playground" in the Pacific as well as giant bacteria and mollusks.

In August scientists working on the census opened that the richest waters for marine life are around Australia and Japan; and that crustaceans are the biggest group populating the seas, making up around one-fifth of sea life.

Scientists guess that there are more than 1 million marine species but only about 250,000 have been formally described in scientific text over the centuries. Those figures exclude microbes of which the census guesses there are up to 1 billion kinds.

The survey enlarged the known world. Life amazed us everywhere we looked. In the deep sea we found lavish communities even with extreme conditions.

The census also assembled information on the 16,764 species of fish that have ever been described but estimates that a further 5,000 have yet to be discovered.

Central to the census is its database called the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (or OBIS), which includes 28 million observations of more than 120,000 species, going back centuries. OBIS is growing at the rate of about five million observations each year.

The sum of marine life yet to be detailed varies wildly by region. The census guess only 10 percent is yet to be described in European waters but that figure rises to 75 percent for the deeper waters of the Mediterranean and 80 percent for the seas around Australia.

The census is alluring other organizations, projects and individuals to help monitor life in the world's waters by contributing to OBIS.

All surface life depends on life inside and underneath the oceans. Sea life provides half of our oxygen and a lot of our food and regulates climate. We are all citizens of the sea." The census also used DNA barcoding for example, ensuring a specimen can be identified by something as small as a fish scale for 35,000 species, as well as establishing baseline measures so that future harm from climate change or pollution can be accurately assessed.

Patricia Miloslavich, co-senior scientist on the census, said in a statement: "Before the census, we lacked even a simple list of known marine species. Information was scattered all over the world with limited access. If we liken Earth to a firm with humankind as CEO, we must surely know the key employees and their functions."

The survey was began 10 years ago by Fred Grassle at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and Jesse Ausubel of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York.