Ghost town - Bodie, California

Bodie ghost town on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County, California, United States, about 75 miles (120 km) southeast of Lake Tahoe, at an elevation of 8369 feet (2550 m). Gold was discovered in 1859 by prospector Wakeman S. Bodey, who the town was named after. Bodey died in November making a supply trip and becoming stranded in a blizzard. In 1876, the

Beaches in Southern Africa

Sun, sand, sea, skimpy swimsuits and the smell of coconut scented sun tan lotion. South Africa has a 3,000km coastline with thousands of beaches, some of which are more appealing than others. So if you’re after a beach holiday, you just need to decide what kind, and then choose the right beach. The West Coast has some unbelievably beautiful, long, lonely beaches, where you can walk for miles and

Megastructures - Millau Viaduct - France

World's Tallest BridgeWhen it opened on 17 December 2004, the spectacular Millau Viaduct set new standards in both planning design and construction - without mentioning the record it set as the largest cable-stayed bridge in Europe. At 2.4km long, and 270m above the river at its highest point, the Millau viaduct spans a 2km valley in the Massif Central mountain range and forms the final link in

Megastructures - The Akashi - Kaikyo Suspension Bridge

The Akashi Kaikyo Suspension Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world and it is probably Japan’s greatest engineering feat. It took two million workers ten years to construct the bridge, 181 000 tonnes of steel and 1.4million cubic metres of concrete. The steel cable used would circle the world seven times. It has six lanes and links

Living in Antarctica

Logistics and support for New Zealanders going to Antarctica are provided by Antarctica New Zealand. Although based in Christchurch, Antarctica New Zealand operates NZ's Scott Base, which is located on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound. The US base, McMurdo Station, is also on Ross Island, and members of the NZ and US programmes share flights to Antarctica

Current active volcanoes on Earth

Name of Volcano Location Status AkanJapanGreen AkutanAleutian Is.Green AlaidKurile Is.Green AmbrymS.pacificAlert Level 0 AnatahanMariana Is.Yellow AniakchakAlaskaGreen AobaVanuatuAlert Level 0 ApoyequeNicaraguaYellow ArenalCosta RicaOrange AsamaJapanGreen AsoJapanGreen Atka (Korovin)Aluetian Is.Green AugustineAlaskaGreen AvachinskyKamchatkaGreen AwuSangihe Is.Alert Level 0 AzulGalapagos

The worst ice storm in Canadian History was in 1998?

While freezing rain is not an uncommon Canadian experience, the ice storm that hit eastern Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick was exceptional. Environment Canada senior climatologist and resident climate expert, David Phillips, provides us with his analysis of how Ice Storm'98 stacks up in the record books. Ice storms are often winter's worst hazard. More slippery than

Unprecedented View Of Mysterious 'Night-shining' Clouds

NASA's AIM satellite has provided the first global-scale, full-season view of iridescent polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth’s surface.The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission is the first satellite dedicated to the study of these noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds. They are called "night shining" clouds by observers on the ground because their high altitude allows them to

World's Most Dangerous Animals

Deadliest animals in the world ranked by estimated number of human fatalities per year: 1. Mosquito over 2 million deaths per year resulting from malaria infection caused by mosquito bites.The mosquito is a member of the family Culicidae; these insects have a pair of scaled wings, a pair of halteres, a slender body, and long legs. The females of most mosquito

World's weirdest skycraper structures

Koning Keizer Admiraal Transmission Mast101.2 m- This was the tallest tower ever built for an illegal radio station. The tower was dismantled in soon after its construction in 2004.BREN Tower465.5 m- This guyed mast tower is used for scientic test research, primarily to measure raditation levels at different heights above the ground.- This tower was originally erected at Yuca Flat - Area 4 at the

How will Earth look 250 million years in the Future

On this pictures you can see how our planet look like in past and what it might look like far into the future...When the Earth is in its "Ice House" climate mode, there is ice at the poles. The polar ice sheet expands and contacts because of variations in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles). The last expansion of the polar ice sheets took place about 18,000 years ago.The Present-day world

Seven Underwater Wonders of the World

The sea is like an enchantress which casts a spell and traps everything in its net. The miracles of Nature's creations are not only visible in the terrestrial but also in the aqua world. The marine world abounds in unique species which are still unknown to the Science. These wonders are either bodies of water, occur underwater, or are surrounded by water and consist of archipelagoes, coral reefs,

The Victoria Falls

Described by the Kololo tribe living in the area in the 1800’s as ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ - ‘the Smoke that Thunders’ and in more modern terms as ‘the greatest known curtain of falling water’, Victoria Falls are a spectacular sight of awe-inspiring beauty and grandeur on the Zambezi River, bordering Zambia and Zimbabwe. Columns of spray can be seen from miles away as 546 million

The Cyrcle of Life

Live. Love. Burn. Die.Living when you're young, loving as you grow older, burning from the loss of a loved on, and dying, because that's really all that's left.

How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?

By 2025, 1.8 billion people could be living in water-scarce areas desperate enough for mass migrations, and another 3 billion could live in water-stressed areas. Today about 750 million people live below the water-stress threshold of 1,700 cubic meters per person per year and more than 1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. Water tables are falling on every

Loch Ness Lake

Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland, one of the most celebrated holiday destinations in the UK. Wild and beautiful, the surrounding countryside isn’t just scenic, it’s teeming with wildlife and yet a host of visitor attractions and Inverness, Scotland’s fastest growing city, are all within easy reach. The area boasts a great

Deepest Lake in the World

Situated in south-east Siberia, the 3.15-million-ha Lake Baikal is the oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m) lake in the world. It contains 20% of the world's total unfrozen freshwater reserve. Known as the 'Galapagos of Russia', its age and isolation have produced one of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.The

Beautifull Fall colors

One of the nicest things about living in northern climes is the ever changing seasons. For a few weeks, nature puts on one of its most spectacular displays as native trees and shrubs finish out the growing season in a brilliant display of fall colors. Jack Frost usually gets credit for the beautiful colors, but, in reality, fall color is

Strange and interesting images from Google Earth

Last year, one of the Google Earth Community members ‘Valery35′ found a huge picture (36 miles tall) of Santa on Google Earth.This giant pink bunny (Google Earth coordinates 44.244273,7.769737) in Prata Nevoso, Italy, was built by a group of artists from Vienna, according to published accounts. It's 200 feet long and answers to the name "Hare."National Geographic partnered with Google Earth on a

Strange storm in Iowa

On a recent crisp autumn afternoon in Iowa, video cameras captured an unusual and visually dramatic result of two air masses colliding. Clouds split into a series of stripes and swept across the sky. These so-called undular bores are created by atmospheric conditions that destabilize the air in a particular way. In the case of Des Moines, Iowa, they formed on Oct. 3 when a group of

Most amazing place in Norway - ...Pulpit Rock

Pulpit Rock or Preikestolen, Prekestolen in Norwegian, is one of the areas most profound turist attractions. This natural rock formation with a 25 meter squared plateau stands 604 meters above the sea. Thousands of tourists visit the Rock every year. The trip takes about two hours by foot, but the rock formation can also be enjoyed from the sea by boat. The original name of the rock formation is

The Most Dangerous Roads in the World - Part 2.

1. Magnificient Guoliang Tunnel Road in China- Road that does not tolerate any mistakesIn our post about The Most Dangerous Roads in the World we mentioned a few roads that imperil the lives of motorists, or just make it really miserable. The following roads did not quite make the list, but continued to pop up in conversations around the world. They may not be "deadly" as such, but certainly

The Most Dangerous Roads in the World

1. Bolivia's "Road of Death"North Yungas Road is hands-down the most dangerous in the world for motorists. If other roads could be considered impassable, this one clearly endangers your life. It runs in the Bolivian Andes, 70 km from La Paz to Coroico, and plunges down almost 3,600 meters in an orgy of extremely narrow hairpin curves and 800-meter abyss near-misses. A fatal accident happens there

New Dinosaur Species Found In Montana

A dinosaur skeleton found 24 years ago near Choteau has finally been identified as a new species that links North American dinosaurs with Asian dinosaurs. The dinosaur would have weighed 30 to 40 pounds, walked on two feet and stood about three feet tall. The fossil came from sediment that's about 80 million years old.A paper on the finding was published in September's issue of the Journal of

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Shatters All-time Record Low, Report Scientists

Scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center said today that the extent of Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its minimum for 2007 on Sept. 16, shattering all previous lows since satellite record-keeping began nearly 30 years ago.The Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 16 stood at 1.59 million square miles, or 4.13 million square kilometers, as

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

Submerged stone structures lying just below the waters off Yonaguni Jima are actually the ruins of a Japanese Atlantis—an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago. That's the belief of Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan who has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years. Each time he returns to the

Spectacular Hubble Image Of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has delivered an unrivalled snapshot of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672. This remarkable image provides a high definition view of the galaxy’s large bar, its fields of star-forming clouds and dark bands of interstellar dust.NGC 1672, visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is seen almost face on and shows regions of intense star formation. The greatest

Amazing Ocean Facts

Deep Waters The record for the deepest free dive is held by Jacques Mayol. He dove to an astounding depth of 282 feet without any breathing equipment. The deepest spot on Earth, Challenger Deep, is 35,802 feet (11,034 m) deep. It is found in the Mariana Trench, one of the many deep valleys of the Pacific Ocean. The pressure here is over 8 tons per square inch. Movie director James Cameron

Global Warming Will Bring Violent Storms And Tornadoes, NASA Predicts

NASA scientists have developed a new climate model that indicates that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common as Earth's climate warms.Previous climate model studies have shown that heavy rainstorms will be more common in a warmer climate, but few global models have attempted to simulate the strength of updrafts in these storms. The model developed at NASA's Goddard

Northwest Passage Opens: Arctic Sea Ice Reaches New Low

The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has now (September 16, 2007) shrunk to its lowest level since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, opening up the Northwest Passage – a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable. Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: "We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3

Bird Completes Epic Flight Across The Pacific

A female bar-tailed godwit, a large, streamlined shorebird, has touched down in New Zealand following an epic, 18,000-mile-long (29,000 km) series of flights tracked by satellite, including the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird. The U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center tracked the odyssey of the bird as part of an ongoing collaborative effort with colleagues in California

Enormous Spider Web Found In Texas

An arachnaphobe’s worst nightmare, the gauzy, insect-laden web drew more than 3,300 curious visitors over the three-day holiday to this 376-acre park on the shore of Lake Tawakoni, 50 miles east of Dallas. On Labor Day, the park recorded 1,275 people visiting just to see the web.“When I first saw it,” said Park Superintendent Donna Garde, “I was totally amazed. What ran through my mind was that

Marine Team Finds Surprising Evidence Supporting A Great Biblical Flood

Did the great flood of Noah's generation really occur thousands of years ago? Was the Roman city of Caesarea destroyed by an ancient tsunami? Will pollution levels in our deep seas remain forever a mystery?These are just a few of the questions that are being addressed by a new environmental marine research team from Tel Aviv University and the non-profit research and education organization,

Crater Mystery Cracked in Michigan

Eighteen hundred million years ago, an area that now spans the U.S.-Canadian border near Lake Huron was battered by a rain of molten debris and mega-tsunamis caused by what is thought to be the second largest impact in Earth's history. But the source of that collision has long been a mystery. Now, telltale signs of what's called the Sudbury impact of southern Ontario — including shocked quartz

Weird Creatures Found on Deep-Sea "Mountain Range"

Abundant new and rare marine species have been discovered on a deep-sea mountain range in the middle of the North Atlantic, scientists say. Exotic worms, colorful corals, unusual sea cucumbers, and a plethora of weird fish are among the creatures that scientists spotted on a recent expedition to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater range that divides the North Atlantic Ocean in two. At least

"Extinct" River Dolphin Spotted in China

A confirmed sighting of a baiji dolphin just months after it was declared "extinct" has prompted scientists to launch an against-all-odds plan to save the last of the rare Chinese river dwellers. A team of marine-life scholars led by Wang Ding, a scientist at China's Institute of Hydrobiology, examined digital video footage recently taken along the eastern section of the Yangtze River. The video

New 7 Wonders vs. Ancient 7 Wonders

The 105-foot-tall (38-meter-tall) "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was among the "new seven wonders of the world" announced July 7 following a global poll to decide a new list of human-made marvels. The winners were voted for by Internet and phone, American Idol style. The other six new wonders are the Colosseum in Rome, India's Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Jordan's

Grand Canyon pictures

The Grand Canyon is more than a great chasm carved over millennia through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau. It is more than an awe-inspiring view. It is more than a pleasuring ground for those that explore the roads, hike the trails, or float the currents of the turbulent Colorado River. This canyon is a gift that transcends what we experience. Its beauty and size humbles us. Its timelessness