Topic: DRUGS - on August 27, 2007 at 4:09:00 PM CEST
Inside an Afghan opium market
Travelling on Afghanistan's main Jalalabad to Torkham road, you eventually arrive at Shaddle Bazaar, a market of around 30 shops in the eastern province of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan.
At first glance, it looks like any other normal market offering everyday goods.
But in reality, this is one of Afghanistan's biggest opium markets.
bbc.co.uk Afghanistan opium at record highguardian.co.uk Afghanistan's opium production doubles in two years
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Topic: NATURE - on August 27, 2007 at 4:03:00 PM CEST
Piranha on Steroids
Be careful - your place in the food chain may get re-shuffled... How to reduce the urge to go skinny dipping Eat your heart out, Barry Bonds!
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Topic: SPORT - on August 27, 2007 at 4:02:00 PM CEST
The 'Bubble Baba Challenge': wilderness, water and 400 rubber women
Some Russian men and women apparently have more than enough imagination to spare — 400 of them recently used inflatable sex dolls as flotation devices to raft down the wildwater Vuoksa river.
The Fifth Bubble Baba Challenge (in Russian, baba stands for 'woman,' only unlike the other word for woman, zhenschina, conveys not a ounce of respect) took place outside the village of Losevo, about 110km from St Petersburg.
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Topic: Terror - on August 27, 2007 at 1:05:00 PM CEST
Whale harpooned, hauled in by Japanese boat in front of whale-watching tourists
Eco-tourists on a whale-watching vessel, looking forward to observing the mighty creatures in their natural habitat, were instead greeted by the sight of a harpooned whale being dragged in by a Japanese whaling vessel on Friday.
At about 10:44 a.m. on Friday, a whale was spotted spraying water from its blowhole near a whaling boat, about 3.5 kilometers away from the whale-watching vessel off the coast of Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula. But when the vessel approached, the passengers on board found that the whalers had harpooned the Baird's beaked whale, and it was hauled in by the whaling boat about 20 minutes later.
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Topic: Green - on August 27, 2007 at 1:04:00 PM CEST
Forecast for solar power: Sunny
Solar power has long been the Mercedes-Benz of the renewable energy industry: sleek, quiet, low-maintenance.
Yet like a Mercedes, solar energy is universally adored but prohibitively expensive for most people. A 4-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system costs about $34,000 without government rebates or tax breaks.
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Topic: INVENTIONS - on August 27, 2007 at 1:01:00 PM CEST
Practical Fuel Cells for Electronics
A new scheme for creating a compact device that efficiently converts methanol into hydrogen could make it practical to incorporate fuel cells into laptop computers and other portable electronics. Such a device could allow a laptop to run for 50 hours and be recharged instantly by swapping in a small fuel pack.
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Topic: Green - on August 27, 2007 at 12:59:00 PM CEST
Sony develops a bio battery powered by sugar
Battery test cells have generated up to 50 milliwatts, or enough electricity to power music playback on a memory-type Walkman. Sony said in a statement released in Japan on Thursday that the output is the highest for a bio battery of this type.
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Topic: CARS - on August 27, 2007 at 12:57:00 PM CEST
Speed Freaks: The 10 Fastest Green Cars on the Planet
Among old-school gearheads, conventional wisdom is that gasoline is where the fun is, was and always will be (until the pumps run dry). Alternative-fuel automobiles -- hybrids, diesels, electrics and the like -- are dorky, cumbersome and slow. But a growing body of evidence suggests environmental consciousness doesn't have to mean boring. To wit: 10 cars -- funky, fun and each the fastest for its power source, from an American-built ethanol-fueled roadster that runs like the wind, to a three-seat urban buggy from France that runs on the wind.
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