BORGZA'S Science & Technology UPDATES

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Viking ship attempts sea crossing
The Sea Stallion set out at midnight on Sunday

A Viking Ship is on its way to the British Isles from Norway.
The Sea Stallion, the biggest replica Viking vessel ever constructed, is bound for Kirkwall in Orkney.

It is part of a 1,000-mile journey from Denmark to Ireland over seven weeks; and aims to understand better the seamanship of early Norsemen.

A BBC team is following the "living archaeology" project in a support boat to make a film for the Timewatch series later in the year.

The volunteer crew has already faced severe weather conditions on the journey from Denmark to Norway, with several individuals being taken off the Sea Stallion temporarily because they were showing the early signs of hypothermia.

"This journey has been tough so far but the crew are in high spirits and looking forward to reaching Scotland and sailing in the Atlantic," said crew member Louise Henriksen.


The weather could yet thwart the attempt to cross the North Sea by sail - the harsh weather conditions that have swept across the UK are predicted to bring a gale which could blow the Sea Stallion back towards Norway.

Wind worries

If that happens, the project's organisers may call for the ship to be towed by its support vessel. Skipper Carsten Hvid said: "The aim of the project is to test this ship out in the waters the original Viking ship sailed in.

"It's better that we get to Scotland and start sailing there, than spend the whole summer waiting in Norway for the right winds."

The original Sea Stallion was made in 1042, and is believed to have taken part in clashes between the Anglo-Saxons and Normans in 1050-1060, when many Danish Vikings lived in Ireland.

The boat sank in the Roskilde fjord at the end of the 11th Century, while defending the country's coast from Norwegian Vikings.

The replica was constructed from about 300 oak trees and using 7,000 iron nails and rivets.

At 30m (100ft) in length, the Sea Stallion is said to be the world's largest reconstructed Viking vessel.

The ship hopes to reach Dublin in mid-August.

The ship's crew are writing a weekly diary for the BBC News website. More regular updates and a map of the ship's latest position can be found at BBC History's Viking Voyage website.


THE SEA STALLION FROM GLENDALOUGH
1. The crew of 65 men and women will sleep on the open deck, as the Vikings did, and take turn keeping watch
2. Satellite navigation equipment will make sure the ship stays on course. Vikings had to rely on the position of the sun and stars, the colour and movement of the sea and wind direction
3. Oak planks were cut radially for maximum strength, overlapped and nailed together. Axes and other tools used to make the planks were replicas of those used by the Vikings
4. The sail, mast, rigging and rudder on the original were missing so these have been copied from other finds
5. Shields , vital in battle, were tied over the oarports when the ship was in port
Sources: Viking Ship Museum, Denmark; National Maritime Museum, UK. Photos: Werner Karrasch and Erwan Crouan




Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6900902.stm

Published: 2007/07/16 12:18:05 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Meet the digital biographer
By Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology Correspondent, BBC News



Imagine a man whose entire life revolves around social networking.

It occupies all his business and personal time and keeps him so busy that he struggles to keep up with the constant messages, blog posts and photos. So busy, in fact, that he now pays someone to be him online.

Meet Thomas Power. I knew he existed after a friend told me about a man who employed an "online presence" but I did not know his name.

But then Mr Power got in touch - via Facebook - and confirmed that it was he who had hired what he called a "ghost blogger".

He and his wife started an early social network for business people, Ecademy, and he now spends all of his time networking, online and in the real world.

"People expect me to have a profile on all the social networks - Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn," he explains. "I've got 12,000 connections on LinkedIn, 8,000 on Ecademy and now 500 on Facebook.

"I get up to 500 messages a day on the networks - and that's before my e-mail. It is very time-consuming, so I have to outsource it."


It's no different from a chief executive having a PR person writing their speeches
Thomas Power

So who is doing the work? Several people, including David Petherick.

He's employed by Thomas Power, and others willing to pay for him to maintain their online presence.

He may well be the first of a new profession - a cyberspace concierge, perhaps, or a blog butler?

"I prefer to call myself a digital biographer," says Mr Petherick.

Much of his work involves refining his clients' profiles on the various networks.

"Everyone has a story to tell, but most can't view themselves objectively," he explains.

His clients are realising that social networking is valuable to their businesses, and that projecting their own personalities can help.

Mr Petherick says: "If they're running a small firm, they think everyone will be interested in the details of that - but it's the personal stuff that matters. People are interested in people."

But surely the whole point of networks like Facebook is having a connection with a real person - not their "digital biographer" or "ghost blogger"?


I'll get a text message in the morning saying 'blog this'
Digital biographer David Petherick

Thomas Power says much of his online presence is the real him - but his helpers know how he thinks.

He says: "They know who I am, they are me. In any case, it's no different from a chief executive having a PR person writing their speeches."

David Petherick charges £369 just to carry out what he calls a "profile makeover" but there is no shortage of demand.

He also has clients who ask him to blog for them on a regular basis.

"I'll get a text message in the morning saying "blog this", then I'll do some research and craft some words for them."

So what sort of skills does a digital biographer need?

"You need to be able to write and also do the technical stuff," says Mr Petherick. "I can craft a sentence but I also understand HTML and Flash."

Social networking is spreading out of schools and colleges into companies, big and small, and as that happens the boundary between the personal and the professional is being blurred.

As a result, there could be plenty of work servicing the needs of people who want to be a face on Facebook but just do not have the time.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6900376.stm

Published: 2007/07/16 08:36:35 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Astronomers claim galaxy record
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News



Astronomers say they may have detected the light from some of the earliest stars to form in the Universe.
They have pictures of what appear to be very faint galaxies that shone more than 13 billion years ago, a mere 500 million years after the Big Bang.

The remarkable claim dramatically exceeds the current, broadly accepted record for the most distant detection.

The Caltech-led team behind the work recognises there will be sceptics but says it believes its data is strong.

It has published details in The Astrophysical Journal; and the group leader, Professor Richard Ellis, has been arguing the case at a conference in London, UK.

"We've had these galaxies for over a year and we have gone back to the telescope and revisited them, to prove their signals are robust," he explained.

"We feel confident now that we have done all that is humanly possibly to show the community that these galaxies are at these great distances," Professor Ellis told BBC News.

Big zoom

The international team of astronomers found its six "candidate" galaxies using one of the 10m Keck telescope twins sited on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

The researchers employed a technique known as gravitational lensing to achieve the detections.

This makes use of the gravity of relatively nearby objects (in this case galaxy clusters) to magnify the light coming from much more distant objects (the six candidates).


Astronomers from Caltech (California Institute of Technology) have helped pioneer this field; and they say they know how to select just the right "zoom lens" to see back into the required period in cosmic history.
The team then further refined its search by only looking for a very narrow wavelength of light where its target galaxies - if they existed - would be expected to shine.

It has taken three years' painstaking work to make and check the observations.

"Using Keck II, we have detected six faint star-forming galaxies whose signal has been boosted about 20 times by the magnifying effect of a foreground cluster," said Caltech co-worker Dan Stark.

"That we should find so many distant galaxies in our small survey area suggests they are very numerous indeed."


It's a crowd

This is perhaps the most significant implication of the study.

Astronomy is now engaged in a major drive to tie down the timings of key events in the early Universe.

Scientists would like to see extensive evidence for the very first populations of stars. These hot, blue giants would have grown out of the cold neutral gas that pervaded the young cosmos.


The IOK-1: The most distant galaxy yet found... until now?


The behemoths would likely have burned brilliant but brief lives, producing the very first heavy elements.
They would also have "fried" the neutral gas around them to produce the diffuse intergalactic plasma we detect between nearby stars today.

But this theory demands the earliest star-forming phase in the Universe was a busy one - and the significance of the latest study is that it suggests the numbers of stars required did indeed exist.

"The area of sky we surveyed was so small that for us to find anything at all suggests to us these objects must be very numerous," Professor Ellis told the BBC News website.

"Obviously it's a bit of a stretch to estimate a population from just six objects - but if you went out into a London street, looked at one piece of pavement and found six people standing there, I think you could reasonably conclude London was a crowded place."

Redshift hunters

It has been known for a while that the Caltech-led group had some very interesting pictures. In the past 12 months, knowledge of their existence has been shared at scientific conferences and hinted at by popular publications such as Time Magazine and the BBC News website.

But Ellis and colleagues have deliberately held back from formal publication of their work. Theirs is a field which has burned the reputations of others who have rushed forward with announcements that could not be confirmed by subsequent, independent observation.

Even so, to get an idea of how big a leap in detection is now being claimed can be illustrated by the "ruler" astronomers use to describe far-off sightings.

They will often be heard referring to "redshift". It is a measure of the degree to which light has been "stretched" by the expansion of the Universe. The greater the redshift, the more distant the object and the earlier it is being seen in cosmic history.

The current, widely accepted distance record-holder is the IOK-1 galaxy detection announced last year which had a redshift of 6.96. Its light was being seen when the Universe was little more than 700 million years old (Current estimates have the Universe coming into existence about 13.66 billion years ago as a "hot soup" of elementary particles).

Getting to this mark was a process of steady, incremental steps through redshifts in the lower-sixes and fives. The Caltech-led group has now suddenly jumped into the redshift region of eight to 10.

Dr Andy Bunker is a high-redshift hunter with Exeter University, UK. He has worked with the Ellis group in the past but was not involved in this study.

He commented: "Richard is a careful worker and he knows the burden of proof is very high.

"His group is aware of the history of the field and that's why they are being a little bit cagey; but I think this is a significant paper and unlike many that have gone before, I believe this will stand the test of time and at least some of the six candidates will be confirmed by others in due course."

The Caltech-led group hopes soon to get some confirmation of its own by looking at a different wavelength of light using the Spitzer Space Telescope and through the use of a new spectrograph instrument which is being installed at the Keck.

A refurbished Hubble Space Telescope is expected to be able to reach up to redshift 10; and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, due for launch early in the next decade, should be capable of redshift 15 observations.

Richard Ellis, the Steele Professor of Astronomy at Caltech, Pasadena, US, delivered a talk at the From IRAS to Herschel and Planck Conference. The meeting was organised to celebrate the 65th birthday of Royal Astronomical Society President Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson.



Even the powerful Keck struggles to see the greatest distances
It uses a trick - a gravitational zoom lens to magnify far-off objects
The candidate galaxies are among the first to form in the Universe
Their stars would have helped end a period dubbed the 'Dark Ages'
In this cold phase the Universe was filled with neutral gas atoms
The stars of the 'Cosmic Renaissance' changed their environment
These giants' nuclear cores synthesised the first heavy elements
Their intense ultraviolet light also 'fried' the neutral gas atoms
The resulting plasma - free electrons and protons - is evident today

Prof Richard Ellis explains gravitational lensing



Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6292024.stm

Published: 2007/07/11 17:10:17 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Robot unravels mystery of walking
Runbot can adapt to changes in the terrain (Credit: Manoonpong et al)
Runbot in action
Roboticists are using the lessons of a 1930s human physiologist to build the world's fastest walking robot.
RunBot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein.

"Getting a robot to walk like a human requires a dynamic machine," said Professor Florentin Woergoetter.

RunBot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human.

Bernstein said that animal movement was not under the total control of the brain but rather, "local circuits" did most of the command and control work.

The brain was involved in the process of walking, he said, only when the understood parameters were altered, such as moving from one type of terrain to another, or dealing with uneven surfaces.

The basic walking steps of RunBot, which has been built by scientists co-operating across Europe, are controlled by reflex information received by peripheral sensors on the joints and feet of the robot, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the pitch of the machine.

These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of local circuits - which analyse the information and make adjustments to the gait of the robot in real time.


Information from sensors is constantly created by the interaction of the robot with the terrain so that RunBot can adjust its step if there is a change in the environment.

As the robot takes each step, control circuits ensure that the joints are not overstretched and that the next step begins.

But if the robot encounters an obstacle, or a dramatic change in the terrain, such as a slope, then the higher level functions of the robot - the learning circuitries - are used.


About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not doing anything, just falling forward
Prof Florentin Worgotter

The latest findings of the robot research study are presented in the Public Library of Science Computational Biology journal.

Four other scientists - Poramate Manoonpong, Tao Geng, Tomas Kulvicius and Bernd Porr - are also involved in the project, which has been running for the last four years.

Professor Woergoetter, of the University of Gottingen, in Germany, said: "When RunBot first encounters a slope these low level control circuits 'believe' they can continue to walk up the slope without having to change anything.

"But this is misguided and as a consequence the machine falls backwards. This triggers the other sensors and the highest loop we have built into RunBot - the learning circuitry - and from that experience of falling the machine knows that something needs to be changed."

Dynamic process

He said human walking was a dynamic process.

"About half of the time during a gait cycle we are not doing anything, just falling forward. We are propelling ourselves over and over again - like releasing a spring.

"In a robot, the difficulty lies in releasing the spring-like movement at the right moment in time - calculated in milliseconds - and to get the dampening right so that the robot does not fall forward and crash.

"These parameters are very difficult to handle," he said.


All these big machines stomp around like robots
Prof Florentin Worgotter

RunBot walks in a very different way from robots like Asimo, star of the Honda TV adverts, said Prof Woergoetter.

"They are kinematic walkers - they walk step by step and calculate every single angle, every millisecond.

"That can be handled through engineering but it is very clumsy. No human would walk like that. All these big machines stomp around like robots - we want our robot to walk like a human."

The first step in building RunBot was creating a biomechanical frame that could support passive walking patterns.

Passive walkers can walk down a slope unaided, propelled by gravity and kept upright and moving through the correct mechanical physiology.

Prof Woergoetter said: "Passive walking looks pretty realistic - but that's level one. On top of this we have local circuits, nested neural loops, which operate between the muscles (the joints of the robot) and the spinal cord (the spinal reflex of RunBot)."

He said RunBot learned from its mistakes, much in the same way as a human baby.

"Babies use a lot of their brains to train local circuits but once they are trained they are fairly autonomous.

"Only when it comes to more difficult things - such as a change of terrain - that's when the brain steps in and says 'now we are moving from ice to sand and I have to change something'.

"This is a good model because you are easing the load of control - if your brain had to think all the time about walking, it's doubtful you could have a conversation at the same time."

Nervous system

The principle was first discussed in the human nervous system by Russian physiologist Nikolai Bernstein.

Prof Woergoetter said: "He said it made sense that local agents, local networks, do the basic job, but the brain exerted control whenever necessary."

So using the information from its local circuits RunBot can walk on flat surfaces at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second.

Prof Woergoetter said RunBot was able to learn new walking patterns after only a few trials.

"If walking uphill, the gait becomes shorter, the robot's upper body weight shifts forward," he said.

The key lesson from the study, he said, was that the nested loop design first proposed by Bernstein more than 70 years ago "worked and was efficient".

He said the challenge was now to make RunBot bigger, more adaptive and to better anticipate situations like change of terrain.




Frames 1 - 3: The robot's momentum causes the robot to rise on its standing leg and a motor moves the swinging leg into position
Frame 3: The stretch sensor of the swinging leg is activated, which triggers the knee joint to straighten
Frames 3-6: The robot falls forward naturally, with no motor functions being used, and catches itself on the next standing leg
Frame 6: As the swinging leg touches the ground, the ground contact sensor in the foot triggers the hip extensor and the knee joint of the standing leg and the hip and knee joints of the swinging leg to swap roles
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6291746.stm

Published: 2007/07/12 10:03:37 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

'Blinded' vent shrimps thriving
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News




Vent shrimps
Scientific activity near deep sea vents may not be as harmful to some of their unique fauna as previously feared.
Recently, researchers found lights used to illuminate the vents for study were blinding some Rimicaris exoculata shrimp.

But new research shows that potential eye damage is not affecting shrimp numbers, and scientific expeditions pose no immediate conservation threat.

The work is to be published in the UK's Marine Biological Association journal.

Hydrothermal vents are of great interest to researchers.


These are absolutely unique ecosystems, and those involved in that work are the very last people on the planet who would want to do anything to damage them
Dr Jon Copley, University of Southampton

These fissures in the ocean floor spew out plumes of fiercely hot, salty water which, despite the apparently inhospitable environment, play host to rich marine ecosystems. Some believe their mineral-rich make-up may give clues to how life started on Earth.

But little light reaches these deep locations; to study them, deep-diving submersible research vehicles shine high-intensity floodlights, illuminating marine life normally used to living in near pitch-black.

Research has shown R. exoculata , a 10cm (4in) long shrimp that feeds on bacteria living around the vents, is particularly sensitive to this.

The light causes structural and potentially permanent changes to a light-sensing eye that is positioned on its back, effectively blinding it. This has prompted some to call for more regulation of scientific activity around these deep sea vents.

The conservation group WWF is seeking Marine Protected Area status for some hydrothermal vents, which would limit activity around them.

Unchanged population

To investigate the effects of bright lights on the vents' fauna, researchers from the University of Southampton, UK, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, US, investigated the Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse (TAG) hydrothermal vent which sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The researchers looked at shrimp population data taken in both 1994 and in 2004. The decade between had seen numerous expeditions from the scientific community and documentary makers.

Dr Jon Copley, an oceanographer from the University of Southampton and an author of the paper, said: "If lighting was a problem to the shrimp, then we would expect to see a decline in their population, either in the area covered by the shrimp population or the actual population density of the shrimp."


He said that damage to the shrimp's eye, which can sense the faint glow of the vents, could be adversely affecting their numbers.

However, when the researchers looked at the R. exoculata data from 1994 and 2004, they found that the population had remained unchanged.

Dr Copley said: "The idea that there is any imminent danger from current levels of scientific activity appears not to be the case."

The researchers said they did not know why the shrimp was able to thrive without its light-sensing eye, but Dr Copley suggested that perhaps it was relying on other sensory organs.

Dr Copley added: "These are absolutely unique ecosystems, and those involved in that work are the very last people on the planet who would want to do anything to damage them."

Stephan Lutter, programme director of WWF North-East Atlantic Marine Ecoregion, said: "If the lights are still causing damage to the shrimps' eyes, even if it is not affecting their numbers, it is still important that this species is protected, whether by regulation in protected hydrothermal vent fields or through researchers' codes of conduct."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6292776.stm

Published: 2007/07/12 12:48:00 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Baby mammoth discovery unveiled
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News



A baby mammoth unearthed in the permafrost of north-west Siberia could be the best preserved specimen of its type, scientists have said.
The frozen carcass is to be sent to Japan for detailed study.

The six-month-old female calf was discovered on the Yamal peninsula of Russia and is thought to have died 10,000 years ago.

The animal's trunk and eyes are still intact and some of its fur remains on the body.


In terms of its state of preservation, this is the world's most valuable discovery
Alexei Tikhonov, Russian Academy of Sciences

Mammoths are an extinct member of the elephant family. Adults often possessed long, curved tusks and a coat of long hair.
The 130cm (4ft 3ins) tall, 50kg Siberian specimen dates to the end of the last Ice Age, when the great beasts were vanishing from the planet.

It was discovered by a reindeer herder in May this year. Yuri Khudi stumbled across the carcass near the Yuribei River, in Russia's Yamal-Nenets autonomous district.

Missing tail

Last week, an international delegation of experts convened in the town of Salekhard, near the discovery site, to carry out a preliminary examination of the animal.

"The mammoth has no defects except that its tail was bit off," said Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of the delegation.


"In terms of its state of preservation, this is the world's most valuable discovery," he said.
Larry Agenbroad, director of the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs research centre in South Dakota, US, said: "To find a juvenile mammoth in any condition is extremely rare." Dr Agenbroad added that he knew of only three other examples.

Some scientists hold out hope that well preserved sperm or other cells containing viable DNA could be used to resurrect the mammoth lineage.

Despite the inherent difficulties, Dr Agenbroad remains optimistic about the potential for cloning.

"When we got the Jarkov mammoth [found frozen in Taimyr, Siberia, in 1997], the geneticists told me: 'if you can get us good DNA, we'll have a baby mammoth for you in 22 months'," he told BBC News.

Lucrative trade

That specimen failed to yield DNA of sufficient quality, but some researchers believe it may only be a matter of time until the right find emerges from Siberia.

Bringing mammoths back from the dead could take the form of injecting sperm into the egg of a relative, such as the Asian elephant, to try to create a hybrid.

Alternatively, scientists could attempt to clone a pure mammoth by fusing the nucleus of a mammoth cell with an elephant egg cell stripped of its DNA.

But Dr Agenbroad warned that scientifically valuable Siberian mammoth specimens were being lost to a lucrative trade in ivory, skin, hair and other body parts.

The city of Yakutsk in Russia's far east forms the hub for this trade.

Local people are scouring the Siberian permafrost for remains to sell on, and, according to Dr Agenbroad, more carcasses could be falling into the hands of dealers than are finding their way to scientists.

Japan transfer

"These products are primarily for collectors and it is usually illicit," he explained.

"Originally it was for ivory, now it is everything. You can now go on almost any fossil marketing website and find mammoth hair for $50 an inch. It has grown beyond anyone's imagination."

Dr Agenbroad added: "Russia says that any mammoth remains are the property of the Russian government, but nobody really pays attention to that."

The Yamal mammoth is expected to be transferred to Jikei University in Tokyo, Japan, later this year.

A team led by Professor Naoki Suzuki will carry out an extensive study of the carcass, including CT scans of its internal organs.

Mammoths first appeared in the Pliocene Epoch, 4.8 million years ago.

What caused their widespread disappearance at the end of the last Ice Age remains unclear; but climate change, overkill by human hunters, or a combination of both could have been to blame.

One population of mammoths lived on in isolation on Russia's remote Wrangel Island until about 5,000 years ago.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6284214.stm

Published: 2007/07/10 09:45:03 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

[genmirajborgza786]

Siberian window on the Ice Age
By Adam Fowler
BBC Radio 4's Pleistocene Park


A Russian biologist has been trying to recreate a fully fledged Ice Age eco-system in a remote corner of Siberia, complete, if possible, with woolly mammoths.


From the plane, the landscape was green - thousands of kilometres of seemingly empty tundra, forest and scrubland, punctuated by oxbow lakes, meanders and intricate waterways.
But from the small boat driven by Sergei Zimov along the Kolyma River, everything was blue.

The vast, cloudless sky was almost perfectly reflected in the water, which stretched for several kilometres between either bank and disappeared like a sea ahead.

Sakha - also known as Yakutia - is a huge Russian province in eastern Siberia, a place of large distances, long histories, and big ideas. Sergei Zimov's is one of the biggest.

Siberian 'desert'

At the end of the Pleistocene era - 10,000 years ago - woolly mammoths, rhinoceroses and tigers might have watched our progress from the riverside, and herds of horses, bison, musk-ox and Siberian antelope would have roamed the meadows and savannah to either side.


But now all I can see on the banks are dense willow shrubs, and the only predators are shifting clouds of mosquitoes waiting for me to disembark.
Ten thousand years ago, as the climate warmed, the grass gave way to moss and forest, habitats disappeared, and the large mammals went with them.

Or so the theory goes. But Sergei reckons climate had little to do with it and that all these animals would be thriving here now, if it hadn't been for man overhunting them to extinction.

New Pastures

And to prove his case, he is turning 160 sq km of Siberian "desert" back into the teeming wilderness of the late Ice Age, complete with grazing pastures and animals that have not been seen here for millennia.


Bison from Canada, then musk ox ... eventually we will have 20 mammals per square kilometre
Sergei Zimov

If we had travelled north we could have reached the Bering Strait and the US in one day by boat. Instead, we are going south, and back in time, to "Pleistocene Park".
"Moose," Sergei shouts, cutting back the outboard and standing up in the boat. We have travelled a few kilometres upriver and two adults - re-introduced to the area as part of the experiment - and a calf watch back, unperturbed.

"Eat! Eat!" Sergei implores. The moose are key to his grand plan. The more they eat, the more the grass will come back, replacing the moss and providing more pasture for his herds.

Spring floods

So far there are fewer than 100 large mammals at work, making progress painfully slow, but Sergei hopes to increase the herds and within five years have 10 times as many, enough he believes to dramatically accelerate their effect on the habitat.


But it has been a wet spring. Much of the new grass in Pleistocene Park is submerged under water and Sergei's grand plan will fail if our own changing climate deprives his animals of food.
But he is optimistic that the reindeer, horses and moose that he has already brought to the park will survive.

"Next year or two: bison from Canada, then musk ox, then eventually we will have 20 mammals per square kilometre," he says.

We are on dry land now - very dry. It is the first time since arriving in this part of Siberia that the sound of my walking has been a rustle rather than a splosh.


What will the neighbours think of wolves, bears and Siberian tigers?


Sergei eventually finds a boggy patch and drops to his knees, grabbing great clumps of the wet moss that is so prevalent outside the park.
"See how easy it comes away. It has no roots so the moisture stays. The animals, their hooves, they disturb the moss and let grasses grow instead. The soil dries out, the animals deposit their fertiliser, the grass grows more; and more animals can graze."

Mammoth bones

Once the population of herbivores is dense enough, the last part of Sergei's plan is to re-introduce the predators. But what will the neighbours think of wolves, bears and Siberian tigers roaming near their land and settlements?

"OK, so one or two people will be killed, like in India," he replies, "but far more will die of alcohol in this place than from tigers."

There is one big flaw, though, and it is woolly with two great tusks. Where is Sergei going to get his mammoths? "Come," he says. "Back in the boat."

Four hours later, we reach a bend in the river where the bank sheds a five-metre thickness of Pleistocene mud and ice every spring.


I am stumbling through quicksand after Sergie who is picking up mammoth bones every three metres or so. He gives me some sludge to hold and tells me it is thawed mammoth dung.
This is where he brings Japanese scientists in search of preserved skin and meat, which, one day, might relinquish enough good quality DNA to recreate a mammoth.

Sergei has no real interest in their work, "but if you create a boy mammoth in a university, you need a girl mammoth, and they need somewhere to make baby mammoths. This will be their home."

Global impact

I returned from Pleistocene Park, exhausted, covered in mosquito bites and smeared with woolly mammoth poo. I thought I was going to see an experiment in the pursuit of academic knowledge about the extinction of mammals, but it was much more than that.

Sergei's grasslands could also have a significant role in slowing global warming. One of the dangers of future climate change is that it could melt the Siberian permafrost, releasing huge quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide, creating yet more global warming.

Grass insulates the permafrost better than mossy wetlands and so would slow the rate of thaw during any global warming that might be coming our way.

It is in all our interests to listen to Sergei Zimov. His grand vision could mean the mammoth will once again roam Siberia, and that humans might just be there to see it.

Pleistocene Park is on Radio 4 at 2100 BST on Monday 2 July then online for seven days at Radio 4's Listen again page.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/6246926.stm

Published: 2007/07/02 12:28:16 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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A GOOD ARTICLE


Gene reveals mammoth coat colour
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News



The coat colour of mammoths that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago has been determined by scientists.
Some of the curly tusked animals would have sported dark brown coats, while others had pale ginger or blond hair.

The information was extracted from a 43,000-year-old woolly mammoth bone from Siberia using the latest genetic techniques.

Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said a gene called Mc1r was controlling the beasts' coat colours.

This gene is responsible for hair-colour in some modern mammals, too.

In humans, reduced activity of the Mc1r gene causes red hair, while in dogs, mice and horses it results in yellow hair.

Blond ambition

Using ancient DNA extracted from the excavated mammoth bone, the international team of researchers were able to look at the variations in copies of the Mc1r gene.

Dr Michael Hofreiter, an author on the paper and an evolutionary biologist from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, said analysis revealed two different versions of the gene were present - a fully active and a partially active version.


The researchers propose that hair coloration in mammoths is likely to have been determined in the same way as in present-day mammals.
This means that mammoths with one copy of the active gene and one of the partially active gene would have had dark coats - most likely dark brown or black.

While mammoths with two copies of the inactive gene would have had paler coats - possibly blond or ginger.

The scientists said they were unsure why different-coloured mammoths existed.

Other research published in the same journal found that beach mice, whose coat colour is also controlled by the Mc1r gene, have varying colours for survival reasons.

The researchers said Florida beach mice were lighter than their mainland cousins because their pale fur helped them to hide from predators in their sand-dune habitat. But Dr Hofreiter said it was unlikely that mammoths had varied coats for camouflage.

He said: "They were very big - so even a blond mammoth would have been easy to spot."

Ground colour

Woolly mammoths ( Mammuthus primigenius ) were common about 50,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene epoch.

They were about the size of an Indian elephant, but with shaggy woolly coats and tusks measuring over 4m long. They are thought to have died out about 4,500 years ago.

Commenting, Pleistocene mammal expert Adrian Lister, of University College London, UK, said the study was of tremendous interest.

The preserved specimens of mammoth hair that had been unearthed were "usually a kind of orangey colour", but this could not be trusted, explained Professor Lister.

"In most textbooks of the woolly mammoth, hair is usually shown as auburn to orangey colour because that's the colour of the hair when its dug out of the ground, but that could be an artificial result due to the burial or the leaching out of pigment," he said.

"Whether they were brown or orange isn't hugely important; it's the precedent and the potential that's important to me."

Dr Mark Thomas from the Centre for Genetic Anthropology, also at UCL, agreed: "It's the first time anybody has taken an extinct species and been able to say something about how the animal appears from its DNA.

"The possibilities from there are endless. For example, in future we might be able to look at genes that affect behaviour and come to conclusions about the animal's temperament."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5154892.stm

Published: 2006/07/06 18:01:49 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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check this out

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1184255110/html/1.stm

 

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Winemakers keep weather eye on climate
By Sam Wilson
BBC News, Napa Valley


Creating wine is all about getting the balance right.

You have to find the best location, with good soil, the right range of temperature, and rain at certain times of year. You must plant the right grapes.

And then you must get lucky with the weather.



So it is no wonder that winemakers are especially aware of the issue of climate change.

Some studies have suggested that the wine map could be changed completely if global warming proceeds apace over the coming decades.

In North America's most renowned wine-growing region, Napa Valley in California, current conditions are near-perfect.

"You have the climate, you have ideal soils and a history of winemaking that goes back to the turn of last century. It's a combination of those things that makes Napa Valley unique," says Jeff Virnig, winemaker at Robert Sinskey Vineyards.

A subtle variation of temperatures and conditions in different places means "you can pretty much grow any grape variety here in this valley".

Alarmed

Some scientists say global warming could turn that all on its head.



ALSO IN THIS SERIES:


A study by the America's National Academy of Sciences last year suggested that the area of the US suitable for growing premium wine grapes could decline by 81% by the end of the century.
Findings like that have alarmed wine industry figures around the world.

Pancho Campo, a Spaniard who put on the first international Global Warming and Wine conference last year, urged attendees to "spread the word... It might not help sell wine today, but global warming will bite us all in 20 years' time".


The headlines read that Napa's going to hell in a handbag
Terry Hall
Napa Valley Vintners

He had particular reason for concern, as studies suggest Spain would be one of the first wine-growing areas to become unviable.

The effects on cooler regions, however, might be beneficial, at least initially.

In Bordeaux, for instance, recent vintages have been acclaimed, following a succession of warm summers that have allowed it to ripen its grapes more consistently than before.

The US study suggested that climate change could make viticulture much more successful in northern parts of Europe, at the expense of Spain, Italy and the south of France.

'No crisis'

At Napa's Sinskey Vineyards, they believe the worst-case scenarios are alarmist.

"The sensational aspects that you hear - that's doom and gloom," says owner Robert Sinskey.


As a farmer who has seen many unexpected weather events in his time, he is reluctant to say definitively that the climate is in flux.
"What we can say is we have an impression that change is happening. Are we in crisis mode? No we're not."

In any case, Napa Valley growers believe their proximity to the Pacific coast may protect them from the worst effects of climate change.

"As the interior of California heats up, coastal regions actually cool off," says Terry Hall, a spokesman for Napa Valley Vintners.

This is because hot air inland rises, drawing in cool, moist air from over the sea.

"2005 was the warmest year ever in the US," he says. "For us [in Napa], it was a very cool year.


If we were to see dramatic change, we'd have to kiss our business goodbye... But I think there'd be bigger concerns
Robert Sinskey
Vineyard owner

"The headlines read that Napa's going to hell in a handbag," he says. In fact, he says, "microclimate cooling may be as big an issue for us as global warming."

Napa's refusal to panic over climate change does not mean it is unconcerned, however.

Mr Hall says it is vital not just to accept that climate change is under way, but to "make that a cornerstone of your agricultural decisions".

That might mean planting different varieties, or thinning fewer leaves from the vines to provide more shade.

In Sinskey's case, it means trying to make practices as environmentally friendly as possible.

Organic buffer

Walking round the vineyard, winemaker Jeff Virnig shows how he allows grass and plants to grow between the vines, to recycle organic material into the soil. The grass is grazed by sheep.

"One of the reasons we've gone to organic farming practices is we figured we'd be better able to buffer against extremes of weather," says Mr Virnig.

By raising the level of organic material in the soil, he explains, it can hold more water, which is useful both in dry and wet periods.

The winery is also decked with solar panels, that produce 75% of the power needed on the site. Its trucks and tractors run on biodiesel.


Robert Sinskey believes that as someone who makes a living off the land, he has a responsibility to work in "the most efficient, least intrusive way possible".
He says that also makes good business sense.

"Our customer base are highly educated. If they're not practising green, they're thinking about it. If we can inspire in any way and also be true to the spirit, and non-damaging, there's a security in doing business that way."

And if the worst-case scenarios come to pass, getting the right acidity and crispness in his pinot noir will be the least of his problems.

"If we were to see dramatic change, we'd have to kiss our business goodbye," he says.

"But I think there'd be bigger concerns than our business. We'd be concerned about basic survival."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6896365.stm

Published: 2007/07/13 11:25:10 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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Google cookies will 'auto delete'
Google has said that its cookies, tiny files stored on a computer when a user visits a website, will auto delete after two years.
They will be deleted unless the user returns to a Google site within the two-year period, prompting a re-setting of the file's lifespan.

The company's cookies are used to store preference data for sites, such as default language and to track searches.

All search engines and most websites store cookies on a computer.

Currently, Google's are set to delete after 2038.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in a statement: "After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies."

He said the company had to "find a way to do so without artificially forcing users to re-enter their basic preferences at arbitrary points in time."

So if a user visits a Google website, a cookie will be stored on their computer and will auto-delete after two years. But if the user returns to a Google service, the cookie will re-set for a further two years.

Privacy campaigners

Privacy campaigners want to give users more control over what the search giant holds on to and for how long.

Google has pointed out that all users can delete all or some cookies from their web browser manually at any time and can control which cookies from which websites are stored on a computer.

There are also tools online which can prevent the company and other firms leaving cookies on a computer.

In recent months, it has introduced several steps to reassure its users over the use of personal information.

In March the search giant said it would anonymise personal data it receives from users' web searches after 18 months.

The firm previously held information about searches for an indefinite period but will now anonymise it after 18 to 24 month

None of the other leading search engines have made any statements over anonymising IP addresses or shortening cookie lifespan.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6901946.stm

Published: 2007/07/17 04:40:35 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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Global broadband prices revealed
Broadband users in 30 of the world's most developed countries are getting greatly differing speeds and prices, according to a report.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report says 60% of its member countries net users are now on broadband.

The report said countries that had switched to fibre networks had the best speeds at the lowest prices.

In Japan net users have 100Mbps lines, 10 times higher than the OECD average.

Japan's price for broadband per megabit per second is the lowest in the OECD at $0.22 (0.11p), said the report. The most expensive is Turkey at $81.13 (£40.56).

In the US, the cheapest megabit per second broadband connection is $3.18 (£1.59) while in the UK it is $3.62 (£1.81).


CHEAPEST ENTRY LEVEL BROADBAND PER MONTH*
Sweden $10.79
Denmark $11.11
Switzerland $12.53
US $15.93
France $16.36
Netherlands $16.85
New Zealand $16.86
Italy $17.63
Ireland $18.18
Finland $19.49
*Source: OECD. Figures for October 2006

Subscribers to Japan's fibre networks can also upload at the same speed they can download, which is not possible with ADSL (broadband over a telephone line) and most cable subscriptions.

Sweden, Korea and Finland also offer 100Mbps net connections, as all four countries have switched to fibre optic networks.

The OECD represents 30 of the leading democratic economies, from Australia to the US, France to Japan.

"Broadband is very quickly becoming the basic medium for sevice delivery on both fixed and wireless networks," said the report.

JupiterResearch telecoms analyst Ian Fogg said: "It's very hard to draw comparisons across 30 countries globally because there are different trends happening in each of them.

However, he said the entry price for broadband was an incredibly important criteria to compare.

"Because the market is very fragmented consumers care about cheap prices."

According to the report, broadband prices for DSL connections across the 30 countries have fallen by 19% and increased in speed by 29% in the year to October 2006. Cable prices and speeds followed a similar trend.


BT (in the UK) has been very slow to switch across (to ADSL2+).
Ian Fogg, JupiterResearch

The least expensive monthly subscription for always-on broadband was in Sweden, where $10.79 (£5.40) per month bought a 256kbps connection. The country with the most expensive entry point for broadband access was Mexico, where it cost $52.36 (£26.18) per month for 1mbps.

Mr Fogg said: "In many of the OECD countries those people without broadband and making the transition are feeling their way and are very conscious of price. They haven't seen the need to go to broadband historically."

The entry-level price points do not take into account bundled deals, such as incorporating free broadband with a TV contract, which are becoming increasingly important to the market.

Mr Fogg said many countries had seen a jump in broadband speeds over the last few years as many ISPs utilising existing telephone lines had started to push ADSL2+.

ADSL2+ is a technology which doubles the frequency band of a typical ADSL connection over a phone line, in effect doubling the amount of data which can be sent downstream to a user.

The theoretical maximum speed of an ADSL2+ line is 24Mbps, still much slower than speeds over fibre optic networks.

"ADSL2+ hasn't happened everywhere and it's happened at different times in different countries," explained Mr Fogg.

"France was the first country in the western world to use the technology, about two or three years ago.

"BT (in the UK) has been very slow to switch across. The only option for UK customers has been to get it from competitors, notably Be, which is owned by O2, and Sky."







Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6900697.stm

Published: 2007/07/16 13:01:58 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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Intel and $100 laptop join forces
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News



Chip-maker Intel has joined forces with the makers of the $100 laptop.
The agreement marks a huge turnaround for both the not-for-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) foundation and Intel.

In May this year, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of OLPC, said the silicon giant "should be ashamed of itself" for efforts to undermine his initiative.

He accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop - the Classmate PC - below cost to drive him out of markets in the developing world.

"What happened in the past has happened," Will Swope of Intel told the BBC News website. "But going forward, this allows the two organisations to go do a better job and have a better impact for what we are both very eager to do, which is help kids around the world."

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, said: "Intel joins the OLPC board as a world leader in technology, helping reach the world's children. Collaboration with Intel means that the maximum number of laptops will reach children."

Intel inside

The new agreement means that Intel will sit alongside the 11 companies, including Google and Red Hat, which are partners in the OLPC scheme.

It will also join rival chip-maker AMD, which supplies the processor at the heart of the $100 laptop.

"Intel's apparent change of heart is welcome, and we're sure they can make a positive contribution to this very worthy project for the benefit of children all over the world," read a statement from AMD.


Initially there are no plans to switch the processor to one designed by Intel. However, the servers used to back-up the XO laptops, as they are known, will have Intel technology at their core.

Decisions about the hardware inside the XO laptop would be made by OLPC, said Mr Swope.

"OLPC will decide about which products they choose to offer or not offer," he said.

OLPC, however, indicated that it would consider using Intel chips in its machines in the future.

Walter Bender, head of software development at OLPC, told the BBC News website that he believed OLPC would eventually offer different computers with different hardware.

"I think we will end up with a family of products that run across a wide variety of needs," he said. "Intel will be part of that mix."

Price test

In addition, the partnership will have a practical pay off for software developers.

"Any software you build is going to run at least on our two platforms," said Mr Swope.


An application developed for the XO laptop should work on the Classmate and vice versa.

"That's the exciting thing for me," said Mr Bender.

Currently both laptops are being tested in schools around the world. In parallel, OLPC is finalising orders for the first batch of computers.

Participating countries are able to purchase the XO in lots of 250,000. They will initially cost $176 (£90) but the eventual aim is to sell the machine to governments of developing countries for $100 (£50).

Intel says it already has orders for "thousands" of Classmates, which currently cost over $200 (£100).

Like the OLPC machine, Intel expects the price to eventually fall.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6897950.stm

Published: 2007/07/13 17:08:46 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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Game trailers prompt pixel wars
Just as movie trailers have become a crucial element in any film's marketing campaign, trailers for video games have become part of a new battleground to win the hearts and minds of gamers.
At E3 in Santa Monica, California, last week, new trailers for many of the most-anticipated games of the year were unleashed on to the public.

Trailers for two games in particular, Halo 3 and Killzone 2, are vital weapons for Microsoft and Sony in the struggle for pre-eminence.

Ever since the original Killzone was announced, it has been touted as a "Halo killer" and that debate continues to rage even though both games have moved on to sequels, and are running on next-generation hardware.

Any new information released by developers, from snippet of game detail to new screenshot and high definition video is discussed, debated and agonised over when it hits the net.

Ellie Gibson, editor of GamesIndustry.biz, said game trailers definitely have become as important as movie trailers.

"More and more gamers are online and used to using sites like YouTube and they want to see what they are going to play and not just read about it in magazines and look at screenshots."

Snap judgements

Within minutes of release, copies of trailers spread across the net via dedicated game trailer websites and You Tube, and thousands of gamers pour over the pixels making snap judgements.

But trailers can boost hype and anticipation and, if done badly, can sound the death knell, said Ms Gibson.

"There's a real danger for publishers. In the past they could pick and choose which screenshots are released. But when gamers are demanding to see how a game looks and plays it's much more difficult; they have to be more honest."


It was about keeping a promise
GamesIndustry.biz editor Ellie Gibson on Killzone 2

In 2004, a trailer for Halo 2 raised expectations for the game, leaving some players disappointed when they finally got their hands on the title.

And two years ago the original E3 trailer for Killzone 2 caused a furore when it was discovered that the action was not being played on final PlayStation 3 hardware and was not genuine in-game footage.

Jaws dropped when the trailer was first shown as it promised a level of graphical realism and immersion never before seen in a videogame. Almost immediately interest in the PlayStation 3 console rocketed.

But that surge of interest quickly turned to bitterness when the truth emerged. Hardcore games website Joystiq referred to the trailer as "infamous", adding that it was "an unbelievable and completely improbable feat of gaming technology, quickly debunked as rubbish".

In an effort to repair the damage caused by the trailer, the developers, Guerrilla, launched a new trailer at E3 last week designed to win over the doubters.

It is almost identical to the 2005 trailer but crucially is running on finished PS3 hardware.

'Visual fidelity'



"In many ways, the visual fidelity of the updated presentation matches the highly polished look of the debut trailer," said Joystiq.

"A critical eye could note a few rough jagged edges, and textures that are a far cry away from Hollywood renders," it added.

Ms Gibson said: "It was about keeping a promise. It was very well received; many journalists said they were surprised at just how good Killzone 2 is looking.

"It shows how much attention Guerrilla paid to getting that trailer right and showing off the game in the best light."

She added: "It looks like it's going to be great fun to play and is very cinematic and exciting graphically. On the other hand it does look like it's going to be another shooter, killing aliens and running around in a grey, industrial backdrop. We already have a lot of games like this."

Forensic approach

The lengths that gamers and gaming website will go to in their analysis of trailers is startling.

Website GameVideos.com placed the original Killzone 2 trailer from 2005 in a split screen with the latest trailer to try and reveal differences. Frame by frame the video examines graphical effects and animation.



Why Bungie would release a video not at absolutely tip-top shape in terms of video compression is beyond me
Halo fan vents his spleen

A similar forensic approach has been applied to the Halo 3 trailer. The games has been in development for three years but this is the first time that action from the single-player campaign has been revealed in detail.

"Halo 3 is arguably the most-hyped game in history," said Ms Gibson.

"People are expecting something very special and Bungie has very high expectations to live up to, and perhaps can never live up to.," she added.

On the highly popular Halo fansite, HBO, Claude Errera wrote: "Ever since the E3 trailer was released last week, I've seen occasional 'it doesn't feel right' posts describing the emotions generated by the trailer."

The quality of the game's graphics has come under great scrutiny and last week's trailer continued the debate.

One Halo fan on the HBO website said the way in which the trailer had been captured digitally had affected the look of the game.

"Why Bungie would release a video not at absolutely tip-top shape in terms of video compression is beyond me," he wrote.

But, one thing is for certain. The debate about both games will continued at a frenzied pace until September 25, when Halo 3 is released, and sometime in 2008 when Killzone 2 hits the shops.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6902472.stm

Published: 2007/07/17 11:06:27 GMT

© BBC MMVII

 

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Tiscali buys Pipex broadband unit
UK internet firm Pipex has sold its broadband and phone business to Italian rival Tiscali for £210m ($426.6m).
The sale of the division follows a four-month strategic review of Pipex by investment bank UBS.

The purchase of Pipex's broadband unit - which was put up for sale in March - is expected to lift Tiscali's UK broadband customer base to 1.9 million.

Tiscali also unveiled a first-half core profit of 60m euros (£40.7m; $82.7m), up 45% on last year.

Consolidation

Pipex is one of the last big independent broadband providers still to be operating in the UK, following a number of recent deals such as the purchase of PlusNet by BT.

The prospect of a sale has therefore been closely watched by rivals such as BT, BSkyB and Virgin Media.

Pipex itself has expanded through a number of acquisitions in the past few years.

In March 2006 it bought the Homecall voice and line rental business from Phones4U for £44m. It has also acquired Toucan from IDT Telecom and Bulldog's broadband customers from Cable & Wireless.

The company also used Baywatch star David Hasselhoff in a recent advertising campaign to attract customers.

In addition to its Pipex brand, the firm also sells internet services under the Nildram, Bulldog and Freedom2Surf names - each itself formerly an independent internet service provider.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6897687.stm

Published: 2007/07/13 13:49:29 GMT

© BBC MMVII