Kate

Did you watch the programe about Alain Robert aka 'Spiderman' scaling the Malaysin Petronas Towers? I did

That guy had the nerve of steel. He had to make the climb in the dark for fear of getting stopped by security. Oh he made it to the top ok but security were there waitng for him.

The site below needs upgrading because its my understanding Alan made it to the top on his last attempt. But there is a video.

Alan Roberts

Here is a panarama of the Petrona Towers in KL (Kuala Lumpur)Like all places I have come accross in Malaysia, KL is extremely clean.

Petronas Towers

More panaramas here:

Panaramas

Seabirds at a key North Sea colony have generally enjoyed a successful season in 2008, a survey has shown.

Four key species - shags, eider ducks, guillemots and razorbills - have all recorded population increases on the National Trust owned Farne Islands.

The survey's findings are in sharp contrast to the nationwide trend, which has seen an overall decline in the number of seabirds at UK colonies.

However, puffin numbers on the islands have fallen by a third in recent years.

"Many seabird colonies have suffered badly this year with the cold spring and wet summer and through a lack of sandeels, the staple food of the seabirds, which can be catastrophic for any seabird colony," explained David Steel, the National Trust's head warden for the islands.

"(But) it's been a reasonably trouble-free summer for the Farne Islands with a good supply of sandeels around the islands, and the seabirds have managed to come through the poor weather conditions."

The RSPB, in a report published in October, warned that a number of species found in British waters faced a "dire" outlook.

It warned that warmer sea temperatures were believed to be affecting the amount of plankton in the sea, and consequently the number of sandeels available as prey for the birds.

Counting chicks

The survey, led by Mr Steel, monitored more than 1,700 nests on the islands, which are home to more than 80,000 pairs of breeding seabirds, to count the number of fledged chicks.


Results revealed a very good year for shags, eider ducks, guillemots and razorbills.

"The islands witnessed a year-on-year increase in the population of several species, but more importantly eider and shag numbers," revealed Mr Steel.

"Both species reported their best breeding seasons for more than 10 years."

The data suggests that the Farnes' colonies were faring much better than the majority of other breeding sites.

"Seabirds around the UK had a mixed breeding season in 2008," observed Matt Parsons, co-ordinator of the UK Seabird Monitoring Programme for the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

"While European shags bred very successfully, many species fared poorly, especially kittiwakes, Arctic terns, Arctic skuas, guillemots and fulmars.

"In the northern Isles, home to a high proportion of the UK seabirds, the season was particularly poor; kittiwakes there raised few chicks and their breeding numbers continue to fall."

The Farne survey revealed that the islands' kittiwake population had dropped to its lowest level since 1981.

And a survey of puffins revealed that the number of the iconic seabird had fallen by a third in just five years.

"Overall puffin numbers are down… yet the numbers of puffin chicks are fairly healthy," said David Steel.

"More research is needed into what is happening to the puffins during the winter months and why they're not coming back."

In order to understand why so many puffins are failing to survive the winter, which they spend at sea, the National Trust and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology are planning to fit satellite tags to a number of the birds in spring 2009.

They hope the tags will reveal where the puffins overwinter and offer an insight into possible reasons
for their decline.

Hello,

I am not so sure I could follow this through all day. I think I would have withdrawal symtoms..whaaaaaaaaa

I have so much to do, would I have time to shut down all day. What about when I normally have a cuppa as soon as I get up and then switch on, what could replace the push button I enjoy pushing each morning. I don't know about you but pushing the button gives me one hell of a buzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope? Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate! Shutdown your computer on this day and find out! Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?

I must say its a great idea!

http://shutdownday.org/

Hello,

Giant "blisters" containing water that rapidly expand and contract have been mapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Fed by a complex network of rivers, the subglacial reservoirs force the overlying ice to rise and fall.

By tracking these changes with Nasa's Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) scientists were able to map the extent of the subglacial plumbing. The results, published in the journal Science, show that some areas fell by up to 9m (30ft) over just two years.

"We didn't realise that the water under these ice streams was moving in such large quantities, and on such short time scales," said Dr Helen Fricker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, and one of the authors of the paper. "We thought these changes took place over years and decades, but we are seeing large changes over months."

The results are important for understanding how the Antarctic Ice sheet, which contains nearly 90% of the world's ice, may respond to global warming and how much it may contribute to sea level rise.

Climate response:

Nearly 150 subglacial lakes have been mapped beneath the vast Antarctic ice sheet, mostly by glaciologists drilling holes through the ice. The new ones, detected by satellite, were found under the fast-flowing Whillans and Mercer Ice Streams that carry ice from the interior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to the floating Ross Ice Shelf.

These streams of ice move many metres every day and are of particular interest to climate scientists. "It's the fast-moving ice that determines how the ice sheet responds to climate change on a short timescale," said Professor Robert Bindschadler of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and one of the researchers on the study.

As atmospheric temperatures rise, melting the ice shelves, their ability to hold back the ice streams on land would be reduced. "We aren't yet able to predict what these ice streams are going to do." However, understanding how much water flows beneath the ice is critical because it is one of the factors that determine how fast they flow. More water could speed up the flow of ice into the sea, raising sea levels. "It's essentially the grease on the wheel," said Professor Bindschadler.

Ebb and flow:

Using elevation data from Nasa's ICESat, cross-checked with other Nasa satellites, the team was able to map the rise and fall of the overlying ice, and hence areas where water pooled or flowed away.

Launched in 2003, ICESat can measure changes in elevation as small as 1.5cm (0.6ins) from its orbit 645km (400 miles) above the Earth. The study revealed a complex network of ponds and rivers, the largest of which occurred under the Whillans ice stream and covered an area of 500 sq km (190 sq miles).

It also showed that water was constantly moving between different reservoirs. For example, a feature known as Lake Englehardt took just under three years to empty two cubic kilometres (2 trillion litres) of water. In the same period, Lake Conway filled with an additional 1.2 cubic kilometres (1.2 trillion litres) of water. Not all of the water was the same as some escaped to the ocean or was refrozen on to the base of the glacier. Observations like these were only possible using the new satellite technique.

"Until now, we've had just a few glimpses into what's going on down there," said Professor Bindschadler. "This is the most complete picture to date what's going on beneath fast flowing ice."

The findings were presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting here in San Francisco, US.

Its arrived,

We got snow, did you? Airports closed: Luton: Stanstead: Birmingham: Cardiff:

Bristol was closed but its now accessable.

On the upside Britsh Gas will drop prices as from next month (now theres a surprise, will we actually benefit next month, and there after. BG are not stupid, they know that from next month it will get warmer.) Prices will drop by 17% for gas, and 11% for electricity. By snowing as it is it will become warmer anyway... Here is a pic of our snow from a year or two ago, if its worth running out doors with my camera then I will take a shot today.

Coming down like saucers at the mimute where I live.. with snow!