Sentinel satellite reveals Nepal quake movement

Europe's Sentinel-1a satellite has got its first good look at the aftermath of Saturday's big quake in Nepal.

The radar spacecraft is able to sense ground movement by comparing before and after imagery acquired from orbit.

Scientists turn this information into an interferogram - a colourful, but highly technical, representation of the displacement that occurs on a fault.

The new data confirms an area of 120km by 50km around Kathmandu lifted up, with a maximum of at least 1m.

"There's a peak of slip just to the northeast of Kathmandu. Basically, what we do is count the coloured 'fringes' in this interferogram and there are about 34, so that translates to more than a metre of uplift," explained Prof Tim Wright from the UK's Nerc Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET).

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There's nothing like America's most expensive weapons system ever

All three Lockheed Martin F-35 variants at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

America's most expensive weapons system ever built is on track for "initial combat use" by September 2016.

Business Insider recently toured Lockheed Martin's massive production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, where the three F-35 Lightning II variant aircraft are designed and manufactured.

The $400 billion and counting F-35 program has so far delivered 140 of the anticipated 2,443 jets to the US Department of Defense and five aircraft to foreign military buyers.

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How to watch Mayweather vs. Pacquiao

t’s the fight of the century! The most exclusive sporting event ever to be held! Anticipation for this Saturday’s Mayweather vs. Pacquiao boxing match has reached well past hype to record levels of fever pitch, never mind that many sports analysts predict a dud.

The action is expected to begin Saturday at about 11 p.m. EDT at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Here are your options for watching what may or may not be the greatest boxing match of all time:

In person: For the (private) jet set only
If you’ve already shelled out for a trip to Las Vegas or your private jet is fueled and ready to go, you’ll be happy to know there are plenty of tickets available on resale sites. Get ready for the sticker shock: Prices even for the worst seats are upward of $3,500. On StubHub, the highest priced ticket as of 4:30 p.m. ET was one ringside seat going for $351,005.25. A few rows back, you can get in for $117,005.25.

In your home: Pay-per-group
Most people will opt to watch from the comfort of their own home on pay-per-view: about $100 to watch in high definition and $90 in standard definition. Find a few friends or family members to go in on the cost together, and you’re looking at the most reasonable way to tune in. Depending on your cable provider, you can order over the phone, online or with your remote. The fight is expected to generate at least 3 million pay-per-view buys.

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American Airlines planes grounded by iPad app error

A faulty app caused American Airlines to ground dozens of its jets.

The glitch caused iPad software - used by the planes' pilots and co-pilots for viewing flight plans - to stop working.

The firm's cockpits went "paperless" in 2013 to save its staff having to lug heavy paperwork on board. AA estimated the move would save it more than $1.2m (£793,600) in fuel every year.

The company said that it had now found a fix for the problem.

"We experienced technical issues with an application installed on some pilot iPads," said a spokesman.

"This issue was with the third-party application, not the iPad, and caused some departure delays last night and this morning.

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Amazon: 1% of tree species store 50% of region's carbon

About 1% of all the tree species in the Amazon account for half of the carbon locked in the vast South American rainforest, a study has estimated.

Although the region is home to an estimated 16,000 tree species, researchers found that just 182 species dominated the carbon storage process.

Amazonia is vital to the Earth's carbon cycle, storing more of the element than any other terrestrial ecosystem.

The findings appear in the journal Nature Communications.

"Considering that the Amazon is massively important for the global carbon cycle and stores so much of the planet's biomass, finding out just how that carbon is stored and produced is very important if we want to understand what might happen in the future in different environmental conditions," explained co-author Sophie Fauset from the University of Leeds, UK.

The tropical forest covers an estimated 5.3 million sq km and holds 17% of the global terrestrial vegetation carbon stock.

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None shall pass: Texas prof flunks entire class, then quits mid-semester

A professor threw a Texas-sized tantrum flunking his entire class mid-semester and quitting after complaining that students mocked, threatened and ridiculed him, but the school said the failing grades won't all stand.

"I am frankly and completely disgusted,"Texas A&M Galveston, Professor Irwin Horwitz told his business management students in a blast e-mail, according to Inside Higher Ed. "You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level.

"I will no longer be teaching the course, and [you] all are being awarded a failing grade."

Horwitz said students had cheated, told him to "chill out," called him a "[expletive] moron" and spread false rumors about him. He told KPRC news he even felt unsafe in the classroom at times.

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US successfully tests self-steering bullets that can follow moving targets

The United States Department of Defense has carried out what it says is its most successful test yet of a bullet that can steer itself towards moving targets.

Experienced testers have used the technology to hit targets that were actively evading the shot, and even novices that were using the system for the first time were able to hit moving targets.

The project, which is known as Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance weapon, or Exacto, is being made for the American government’s military research agency, Darpa.

It is thought to use small fins that shoot out of the bullet and re-direct its path, but the US has not disclosed how it works. It only says that the programme has “developed new approaches and advanced capabilities to improve the range and accuracy of sniper systems beyond the current state of the art”.

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Japan Gets Bigger As Land Rises From The Sea

Japan has grown in size after a 300m-long strip of new coastline emerged from the sea, rising up to 10m-high in some places.

The expansion of the overcrowded nation took place near the town of Rausu on Hokkaido island at the country's northern tip.

The emergence of the additional stretch of shoreline, revealing what used to be the sea floor, initially sparked fears a major earthquake was imminent, similar to the 9.0-magnitude seismic shock and tsunami of March 2011.

The double disaster, which led to meltdowns and radioactive leaks at the Fukushima nuclear plant, killed almost 16,000 people and destroyed the lives of thousands more.

But geologists believe the phenomenon was probably a result of a nearby landslide, caused by melting ice and snow, pivoting the submerged area of land into the air.

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9/11: Iranian General accuses US of organising September 11 terror attacks

A top Iranian military commander has accused the United States of carrying out the 9/11 terror attacks in order to justify an invasion of the Middle East "with the goal of ruling it".

Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, the commander of Iran’s ground forces, made the comments in an interview with Iran’s state-owned Al-Alam news channel, which broadcasts in Arabic as opposed to Farsi.

According to a translation by the US-based Middle East Media Research Institution, he referred to the current conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and told the interviewer: "These wars in the middle and these threats stem from a comprehensive American strategy.

"After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Americans felt that a new force was beginning to materialise, namely the union between Sunnis and Shias. The basis of this force was the blessed Islamic Revolution in Iran, this force is Islam, or the Islamic world.

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‘Dancing with the Stars’ Recap: Season 20, Episode 7, Who was Eliminated?

This was unexpected: Despite high scores throughout the season, “Hunger Games” star Willow Shields and her partner, Mark Ballas, were eliminated on Monday night’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

This would seem to prove that some stars have young fan bases who often don’t vote, or maybe Mark’s choreography this season was too creative. But for sure, we now have our shock elimination that will make “DWTS” judges talk for years to come.

Showing her age, 14-year-old Willow cried and couldn’t speak. The judges looked shocked, and so did the pros. Mark thanked Willow for taking risks, especially at such a young age. Tom Bergeron said he wasn’t going to be a TV host for a moment and instead acted as a dad; he hugged the choked-up star. As the show ended, the other couples huddled around Willow to offer comfort.

Forced to sweat it out until the end with Willow and Mark were the equally unexpected Rumer Willis and Val Chmerkovskiy, although they did struggle last week with “Bootylicious” jazz.

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Why Nepal is so vulnerable to quakes

The pictures emerging from the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, are shocking.

Durbar square, a Unesco World Heritage Site, has been reduced to rubble. The famous Dharahara Tower has been toppled to leave just a stump.

Nepal is used to quakes – this is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. You only have to look at the Himalayas to understand that.

The mountains are being built as a consequence of the Indian tectonic plate driving under Central Asia (the Eurasian tectonic plate). These two great slabs of the Earth's crust are converging at a relative rate of about 4-5cm (two inches) a year.

The upward climb of Everest and its sister mountains is accompanied by numerous tremors.

David Rothery, a professor of planetary geosciences, at the Open University, UK, commented: "The Himalayan mountains are being thrust over the Indian plate; there are two or three big thrust faults, basically. And some very gently dipping fault will have been what moved, and gave us this event. Casualties are reported in Kathmandu, but we now wait to see how widespread the problems are."

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Nepal earthquake: 'Nine out of 10 soldiers' in rescue mission

Nine out of 10 Nepalese troops are said to be involved in search and rescue operations, as the country pleads for more foreign aid to deal with a massive earthquake that killed 4,000 people.

Almost the entire army and police has joined the quake effort, officials say.

China, India, the UK and US are among those sending aid from abroad. Nepal says it needs everything from blankets and helicopters to doctors and drivers.

Some 200 climbers stranded by the quake on Mount Everest are being rescued.

About 60 of the climbers had been brought to safety by helicopters on Monday, according to Tulsi Gautam, the chief of Nepal's tourism agency.

He told the BBC that helicopters were only ferrying two people at a time because of the risk of flying at such a high altitude. The climbers had been unable to leave the mountain because of avalanches triggered by the earth tremors.

The quake is now known to have injured at least 7,000 people. Vast tent cities have sprung up in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, for those displaced or afraid to return to their homes. Several aftershocks have been reported - the latest on Monday night.

Across the country, thousands are camping outside for the third night since the quake struck on Saturday. There are shortages of water, food and electricity, while disease is also a concern.

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Building Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo

This is the result of a serious labor of passion. 

It was one of the stars of the LA Auto Show, and having revealed the one-off Benz in the metal, Mercedes has released a making-of video detailing how the AMG Vision Gran Turismo quickly went from the sketch pad to show floor.

More than just a virtual plaything for Gran Turismo fanboys, the concept was ultimately brought to life, albeit without an engine. The designers were encouraged to let their imaginations go wild given the car was never destined for the road, yet the Benz boys worked hard to make the car attractive to gamers.

So as well as giving it drop-dead gorgeous looks with plenty of futuristic styling, the Vision GT comes with a twin-turbo V8 rated at 577-hp and 590 lb-ft of torque that makes all the right sounds.

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Dan Fredinburg, Google Executive, Killed On Mount Everest After Nepal Earthquake

Dan Fredinburg, a Google executive, was killed on Mount Everest in an avalanche triggered by the massive, 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Nepal on Saturday. At least 17 climbers died on the mountain.

Jagged Globe, the company Fredinburg was hiking with, posted a statement mourning his loss.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dan’s family and friends whilst we pray too for all those who have lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies ever to hit this Himalayan nation," it reads in part. The statement also said that two other climbers sustained non-life threatening injuries.

Tom Briggs, the company's marketing director, told The Guardian that Fredinburg and the others "saw the avalanche coming and were able to make a run for it but the camp was right in the middle of it."

Fredinburg headed up privacy for Google X, the company's secretive ideas lab, and had worked at the Internet giant since 2007. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was involved with initiatives ranging from Google's self-driving car to "Project Loon," which aspires to provide balloon-powered Internet access to remote areas. He also co-founded Google Adventure, which, according to the entrepreneur hub Startup Grind, aims to "translate the Google Street View concept into extreme, exotic locations like the summit of Mount Everest or the Great Barrier Reef off Australia."

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Nepal earthquake: Rescue effort intensifies

Rescue efforts in Nepal are intensifying after nearly 2,000 people were killed on Saturday in the worst earthquake there in more than 80 years.

Many countries and charities have offered aid to deal with the disaster.

Seventeen people have been killed on Mount Everest by avalanches - the mountain's worst-ever disaster.

Meanwhile a powerful aftershock was felt on Sunday in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, and more avalanches were reported near Everest.

The 6.7 magnitude tremor, centred 60km (40 miles) east of Nepal's capital Kathmandu, sent people running for open ground in the city.

Screams and the sound of an avalanche could be heard as an Indian mountaineer was interviewed by phone from near Everest by Reuters news agency.

The death toll from the original earthquake could rise, as the situation is unclear in remote areas which remain cut off or hard to access.

Many mountain roads are cracked or blocked by landslides.

Scores of bodies have been ferried to hospitals in Kathmandu, many of which are struggling to cope with the number of injured.

More than 700 have died in the capital alone.

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7 Nights of Skinny Suppers from a Celebrity Nutritionist

“Just two weeks of lean dinners can help with weight loss,” L.A. celebrity nutritionist Christine Avanti, says. The problem is that we often get sick of grilled chicken by Day 3. We got Avanti, who also moonlights as a chef, to create a week-long menu of recipes, exclusively for InStyle. The combo of lean proteins (she had us at BBQ chicken and sushi) and healthy carbs help you feel satiated without tasting like cardboard. Good bye midnight snack—we’re coming for ya, two-piece!

Monday: Oven-Roasted Chicken Breast, 
Rice or Quinoa, Carrots, and Zucchini

3 oz oven-roasted skinless chicken breast
3⁄4 cup cooked brown rice or quinoa
1⁄2 cup steamed carrots
1⁄2 cup frozen grapes
1  tsp extra virgin olive oil
Your choice of herbs and spices
1 cup steamed zucchini
Water, tea

Pair oven-roasted chicken breast (prepared at home or store-bought) with brown rice or quinoa, steamed zucchini, and carrots. Munch on frozen grapes for a sweet ending.

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The man who wants to control the weather with lasers

(CNN) - Is there anything laser can't do?

From cutting diamonds to preserving endangered sites, all the way to building terrifying weapons and turning your eyes from brown to blue, there is apparently no end to the list of applications for laser.

Swiss physicist Jean-Pierre Wolf is working on yet another impressive addition to that list: using focused laser beams to affect the weather.

It sounds like black magic, but it's actually a cleaner version of cloud seeding, a form of weather modification that has been used for several years -- most famously by China in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, when they launched rockets to seed the clouds and prevent rainfall during the opening ceremony.

But it's hard to tell how effective cloud seeding actually is, and it involves the spraying of chemicals into the atmosphere, something which it surely doesn't need.

Laser is therefore a completely clean alternative to traditional cloud seeding: it's light, and nothing but light.

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How do drone strikes go wrong?

However impressive technologically advanced weapons are, they still rely on human beings to guide them. That's where missions go awry.

Two hostages, Warren Weinstein, an American, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian, were killed in Pakistan.

Mr Obama says he takes "full responsibility" for their deaths.

The loss of these two men shines a spotlight on the efficiency of US operations. White House officials have provided few details about the raid, but few doubt that it was a drone strike.

Officials have said for years drone strikes are precise. But no matter how sophisticated the machines are, they're still controlled by humans.

That's usually where the problem lies.

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Hubble issues 25th birthday image

The Hubble Space Telescope has celebrated its silver anniversary with a picture featuring a spectacular vista of young stars blazing across a dense cloud of gas and dust.

The "Westerlund 2" cluster of stars is located about 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina.

Hubble was launched on Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 April, 1990.

Engineers expect the observatory to keep operating for at least another five years.

"Even the most optimistic person to whom you could have spoken back in 1990 couldn't have predicted the degree to which Hubble would rewrite our astrophysics and planetary science textbooks," commented Nasa Administrator Charlie Bolden.

"A quarter of a century later, Hubble has fundamentally changed our understanding of our Universe and our place in it."

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WWI: Battle of Gallipoli centenary marked with services

Events are due to take place to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign, one of the bloodiest of World War One.

Prince Charles and Prince Harry will be among those attending services at the site of the battle at Cape Helles on the Turkish peninsula on Friday.

The leaders of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey will also attend the events.

About 141,000 died in the campaign, including 10,000 Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) soldiers.

Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in modern-day western Turkey - then part of the Ottoman Empire - in April 1915.

Their aim was to move inland and capture the capital Constantinople (now Istanbul) in order to force the Ottomans, who were fighting alongside the Germans, out of the war.

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How to find tickets for the world's hottest event

It is the hottest ticket in town - and not just in boxing. Floyd Mayweather will take on Manny Pacquiao at Las Vegas's MGM Garden Arena on 2 May.

The odds of getting a ticket are as low as poor Charlie Bucket's, the character who hoped to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory in the famous Roald Dahl book.

In the end, Charlie had to rely on pure fate to see his dream fulfilled.

The vast majority of the world's boxing fans will need luck and lots of cash to get them a ringside seat for the fight of the year.

Tickets for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will cost between $1,500 (£999) and $7,500 (£4,997), and will go on sale at 12:00 Las Vegas time (20:00 BST) on Thursday.

Even though the arena has 16,500 seats, only 1,000 or so tickets will be made available to the public.

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What our descendants will deplore about us

How will the future view us? Tom Chatfield asked some of the world’s best minds, and discovered that we will be seen as barbaric in ways we may not even realise.

I had a discussion that made me ask a disconcerting question: how will I be viewed after I die? I like to think of myself as someone who is ethical, productive and essentially decent. But perhaps I won’t always be perceived that way. Perhaps none of us will.

No matter how benevolent the intention, what we assume is good, right or acceptable in society may change. From slavery to sexism, there’s plenty we find distasteful about the past. Yet while each generation congratulates itself for moving on from the darker days of its parents and ancestors, that can be a kind of myopia.

I was swapping ideas about this with Tom Standage, author and digital editor of The Economist. Our starting point was those popular television shows from the 1970s that contained views or language so outmoded they probably couldn’t be aired today. But, as he put it to me: “how easy it is to be self-congratulatory about how much less prejudiced we are than previous generations”. This form of hindsight can be dangerously smug. It can become both a way of praising ourselves for progress rather than looking for it to continue, and of distracting ourselves from uncomfortable aspects of the present.

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Chile's Calbuco volcano erupts

The Calbuco volcano has erupted for the first time in 42 years, billowing a huge ash cloud over a sparsely populated, mountainous area in southern Chile.

Chile’s Onemi emergency office declared a red alert following the sudden eruption at around 18.00 local time (21.00 GMT), which occurred about 1,000km (625 miles) south of Santiago, the capital, near the tourist towns of Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt.

An evacuation radius of 20km has been established, authorities said. As night fell, about 4,000 people had so far moved out of the area.

President Michelle Bachelet is scheduled to travel to the affected area on Thursday.

There are no reports of deaths, missing persons or injuries, interior minister Rodrigo Penailillo said. He urged residents to evacuate and warned of possible lahars, a mix of water and rock fragments that flow down a volcano’s slopes and river valleys.

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Real Madrid’s Javier Hernández breaks Atlético resistance at the last

Madrid’s derby may have been Atlético’s this season, but Europe still belongs to Real. Atlético were down to 10 men, exhausted, and willing the clock to run down, hoping for extra time and penalties, when Cristiano Ronaldo burst up the right and fed Javier Hernández to score the goal that sent the European champions through to the semi-finals. They had finally beaten their city rivals – for the first time since they met in last year’s final.

There had been seven derbies since then, but eight was the number. As Hernández put the ball in the back of the net, the scoreboard read 88 minutes. At last, Real had beaten Atlético and at last they had found a way through, without four of their usual starters, too. Over 180 minutes, one goal had been enough and Real had got it. They had searched for it for much of this game, far more than Atlético had, but had not always been sure of finding it. Yet Carlo Ancelotti had preached patience and it proved a virtue.

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“We’re alive and when we’re alive we’re very dangerous. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” Ancelotti smiled afterwards, adding: “I’m joking: I’m not a philosopher. But we can compete with anyone, no problem.” As for Diego Simeone, he was left expressing his “pride” in his team. “When I was a boy I was taught to compete and that if you go home having given everything you go happy even if you have lost. Lots of coaches would envy me having players who run for 90 minutes like my players do, despite the difficulties they faced,” he said.

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Is this three-deck, zero-emissions super jumbo plane the future of flight

(CNN) - Designer and aviation enthusiast Oscar Vinals is slightly addicted to crafting concept planes.

Last year, he came up with the design for the AWWA Sky Whale, a futuristic aircraft that he said would revolutionize green air travel and carry an astonishing 755 passengers. Now, he's bested himself.

With his newest design, the AWWA-QG Progress Eagle, he imagines the future of travel as a triple-decker aircraft with zero carbon emissions.

Rather than relying on traditional fossil fuels, the plane (which he envisions taking to the skies in 2030) would rely on six hydrogen engines to lift the plane off the ground. The aircraft would also be fitted with a rear engine that would double as a wind turbine, and solar panels on the roof and wings.

"The best aspect of the Progress Eagle would be its capacity to generate its own energy," says Vinals. He adds that the flight would also be "noiseless."

Vinals also envisions the plane, which would carry up to 800 passengers (275 more passengers than the largest aircraft today could handle), would have a new passenger class in the front of the plane.

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Earth Day: leading scientists say 75% of known fossil fuels must stay in ground

Three-quarters of known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground if humanity is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a group of leading scientists and economists have said in a statement timed to coincide with Earth Day.

The Earth League, which includes Nicholas Stern, the author of several influential reports on the economics of climate change; Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a climate scientist and adviser to Angela Merkel; and the US economist Jeffrey Sachs, urged world leaders to follow up on their commitments to avoid dangerous global warming.

Spelling out what a global deal at the UN climate summit in Paris later this year should include, the group demanded governments adopt a goal of reducing economies’ carbon emissions to zero by mid-century, put a price on carbon and that the richest take the lead with the most aggressive cuts.

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Robert Lewandowski inspires Bayern Munich’s rout of Porto

As you were, then, Pep. This was an extraordinary Champions League quarter-final second leg at the Allianz Arena. Chiefly, of course, for Bayern Munich’s magisterial passage into the semi-finals, Pep Guardiola’s team turning around a 3-1 first-leg deficit to go to half-time 5-0 up, having reduced Porto to a collection of bewildered, ill-fitting parts.

Almost as remarkable, in a perverse kind of way, was Porto’s own first-half collapse. They were abject in losing 6-1, undone by Bayern’s ruthless exposing of weakness on the flanks via classically Guardiola-ish switches of play and a bravura performance of centre-forward craft and strength from Robert Lewandowski.

“We were very bad in the first half,” Porto’s manager, Julen Lopetegui, said. He was wrong though. Porto were not quite as good as that.

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Legacy of Agent Orange

As April 30 approaches, marking 40 years since the end of the Vietnam War, people in Vietnam with severe mental and physical disabilities still feel the lingering effects of Agent Orange.

Respiratory cancer and birth defects amongst both Vietnamese and U.S. veterans have been linked to exposure to the defoliant. The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange onto Vietnam's jungles during the conflict to expose northern communist troops.

Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj travelled through Vietnam to meet the people affected, four decades on.

If you are on the plane taking off from Danang airport in Vietnam, look through the window on your right - between the departure building and the yellow wall separating the airport from densely populated neighbourhoods - you will see an ugly scar on the already not very pretty face of the Vietnam War.

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Language school ditches 'Isis' name

An English language school and education group called "Isis" is having to change its name because of the associations with extremism.

A spokesman said it had become increasingly difficult to attend international language events under the Isis banner.

There were also a few "negative comments" for staff wearing Isis T-shirts, said the spokesman.
The re-branding has adopted the name Oxford International Education Group.

The chain of language schools and education providers has been called Isis since 1991, taking its name from the part of the River Thames at Oxford that is called the Isis.

Recruiting students

But the group has decided it is no longer practical to keep the name, when there are so many negative connotations of violent extremism, with Isis one of the names attached to the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

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Russia sets its sights on Middle East

Russia's decision to go ahead with the sale of the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran has angered its critics in the West and alarmed the Israeli government in equal measure.

For some it has raised additional question-marks over the fate of any putative nuclear deal between Iran and the international community.

But more significantly it may also mark a renewed effort by Moscow to bolster its diplomatic profile in the Middle East.

The decision to sell the S-300 to Iran is not new, the contract goes back to at least the latter part of 2010.

But for a variety of reasons - concern about Iran's nuclear activities and with intense lobbying from Israel and the West - the Russians never went ahead and delivered the system.

It is not yet clear exactly which version of the S-300 will be sold to Iran.

It is no longer the most sophisticated of Russia's air defences, but it is nonetheless a highly capable system and much better than those the Israelis and Western air forces have faced in the region during recent campaigns.

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Three dead as severe storms hit New South Wales in Australia

Three people have died in New South Wales as powerful storms batter the Australian state.

The two men and a woman were found dead in Dungog north of Sydney, one of the worst affected areas, where homes have been washed away by flooding.

Some 215,000 homes are without power in Sydney and across New South Wales.

People have been urged to head home, as Australia's weather agency warned more severe weather would hit parts of the state on Tuesday night.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has issued a severe weather warning for the Sydney area, Hunter and Illawarra forecasting "damaging and locally destructive winds, damaging winds, heavy rainfall and damaging surf".

Winds of up to 135km/h (85 mph) were recorded in some areas, with up to 200mm of rainfall forecast for Tuesday.

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Spain pupil kills teacher 'with crossbow'

A student armed with a crossbow has killed a teacher at a school in Barcelona, Spain, local media say.

The suspect, reportedly a 13-year-old boy, has been arrested. His motive is unclear. Police have not confirmed the weapon used or whether he was a pupil at the Instituto Joan Foster.

At least four other people were injured in the attack.

The teacher killed was protecting another during the incident, El Mundo newspaper reports.

According to Spanish media reports, the boy, said to be also armed with a knife, arrived at a class on Monday morning when he injured a teacher and her daughter, who was a student of hers.

Hearing screams, a male teacher who was there as a substitute entered the classroom and was killed.

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The truth about wolves

Reputation: Wolves have two public images. They inspire feelings of fear for their mad-eyed drooling, biting of children, and killing of livestock. But they also draw admiration for their strong, family-centric society, and as flagships of wild nature.

Reality: These extreme views of wolves are deeply held, but are rooted in history rather than modern-day reality. In the highly modified landscapes of Europe and North America, it is time to rethink the meaning of wolf.

How many wolves are there in Europe? If I'd answered this question a year ago, I might have suggested 1000. I would have been wrong, by an order of magnitude.

"If we'd been back in the 1970s then we'd have been talking about an endangered species," says John Linnell of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research in Trondheim, and a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe.

Read the full article here.

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Kim Jong-Un climbs North Korea's highest mountain

Kim Jong-Un has climbed the highest mountain in North Korea, state-run media claims.

Photos of the country's leader show him standing on a snowy mountaintop, with the sun behind him.

His father, Kim Jong-Il, is said by the state to have been born on the mountain, however many historians say he was actually born in Russia.

Reports say Kim Jong-Un reached the 2,750-metre peak alongside hundreds of fighter pilots and party officials.

"Climbing Mount Paektu provides precious mental pabulum more powerful than any kind of nuclear weapon," the Rodong newspaper quoted him as saying to troops.

The purpose of the visit is said to have been to see pilots from the Korean People's Army who have completed a tour of battle sites in the area.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "pabulum" as "bland or insipid intellectual matter, entertainment".

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In Alpine villages, Hobbits lurk

No one will believe you are going to Middle Earth. Most visitors arrive in Zurich ready to shop on Bahnhofstrasse and sightsee in the Niederdorf old town. Or they use the Swiss city as a jumping-off point to explore the resorts of St Moritz, Klosters or Davos.
But head southwest, past the misty mountains and jagged peaks that tower over the city of Lucerne and the lake town of Interlaken, and up the deeply cloven valley that winds from Lake Thun into the heart of the Bernese Oberland region – and with a little imagination you could find yourself staring into the verdant Elvish valley of Rivendell or in the middle of a huffing and puffing Hobbit walking party.
That’s because the steep-sided cliffs, glacial grottoes and fertile dells of forests and wildflowers were the true inspiration for JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth sagas: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Naturally, the stunning Alpine villages of Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald and Wengen – and the soaring Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks that guard them – are not some sort of hidden secret; travellers have been exploring these valleys since the Berner Oberland Bahn railway opened in 1890. But their role in the creation of Tolkien’s fantastical Middle Earth epic is less known. The author acknowledged as much in the 1950s in a little-known letter to his son, Michael. “From Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains,” he wrote, “the journey... including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods... is based on my adventures in Switzerland in 1911.”

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THE 25 BIGGEST TURNING POINTS IN EARTH'S HISTORY

EARTH IS BORN
Birth of a planet
Earth grew from a cloud of dust and rocks surrounding the young Sun. Earth formed when some of these rocks collided. Eventually they were massive enough to attract other rocks with the force of gravity, and vacuumed up all the nearby junk, becoming the Earth. The Moon probably formed soon after, when a planet-sized chunk of rock smashed into the Earth and threw up a huge cloud of debris. This condensed into the Moon.

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
First organisms
Nobody knows exactly when life began. The oldest confirmed fossils, of single-celled microorganisms, are 3.5 billion years old. Life may have begun a bit earlier than that, but probably not while huge rocks were still raining down on Earth. Life may have begun in warm alkaline vents on the seabed, or in open water, or on land. We don't know, and we don't know what the first organisms were like.

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The dramatic boom and bust of The Golden Age

For a period of barely 100 years, The Netherlands boasted the most powerful empire in the world – a power driven by markets rather than privilege.

And one of its successful areas was its art market: the great painters Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer contributed to a cultural explosion known as The Golden Age.

And like the tiny country they lived and worked in, these painters experienced good fortune as well as bad – enjoying prestige, wealth and prosperity before falling into poverty.

Vermeer’s fortunes in particular were tied to those of the Republic: 1672, when the artist turned 40, was its ‘year of disaster’, as English, French and German forces tried to invade from different directions. The Dutch survived – but their global supremacy did not, and Vermeer also fell upon hard times before dying soon after.

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These are the world's most powerful passports

A passport from a country on good diplomatic terms with its peers is a powerful tool, allowing holders to travel across borders with ease.

Financial firm Arton Capital, which specializes in helping wealthy individuals obtain multiple citizenships, sometimes through immigrant investor programs, has put together a ranking of the world's most powerful passports.

The ranking shows which passports give holders the most global mobility, based on how many countries can be visited without a visa, or by getting one upon arrival.

Developed countries with advanced economies fare the best. Tied for first place are U.S. and U.K. passports, which give holders access to 147 countries.

Passports from the world's most populous country, China, offer quick access to 74 countries. Indian passport holders aren't so lucky, with 59 easy destinations. A Russian passport provides 98 country options.

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Game of Thrones, season five news and rumours

Could ignoring George RR Martin's books be a stroke of genius for Game of Thrones?

One episode in, and fans have noted that the show is already veering quite significantly away from Martin's books. But not everyone thinks this is a bad thing ...

"A decision to diverge may be the best thing that ever happens to Game of Thrones," says Telegraph writer Charlotte Runcie.

"This way, it won’t just be viewers who haven’t read the books who’ll be staring in open-mouthed shock when a character gets bumped off with no warning. We’ll all be in it together."

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Wi-Fi on planes opens door to in-flight hacking, warns US watchdog

Hackers on commercial flights could now bring down the plane they are on by using the on board Wi-Fi, a US government watchdog has warned.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) does not suggest it would be easy to do but it points out that as airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration attempt to modernise planes and flight tracking with internet-based technology, attackers have a new vulnerability they could exploit.

The GAO says: “Modern aircraft are increasingly connected to the internet. This interconnectedness can potentially provide unauthorized remote access to aircraft avionics systems.”

The report highlights the fact that cockpit electronics are indirectly connected to the passenger cabin through shared IP networks. The connection between passenger-accessible systems and the avionics of the plane is heavily moderated by firewalls, but information security experts have pointed out that firewalls, like all software, can never be assumed to be totally infallible.

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Why Beyoncé speaks for a generation

“The woman that every woman aspires to be.” That’s how one of my university peers describes Beyoncé. And she speaks for many. Few musicians today have inspired a genuine cult of personality. But Beyoncé, the undisputed wearer of pop music’s crown, has done just that. “All hail Queen Bey!” cry her horde of devoted fans, who call themselves the BeyHive, an apt name for the followers of a star who generates such deafening buzz. When she dropped her self-titled album out of the blue in December 2013, I witnessed the spectacle of ‘Beyoncé syndrome’ first hand. On a tense night during final exams, I watched in awe as my fellow students set aside term papers and study guides to get drunk – ‘drunk in love’, that is. Students swarmed to every computer in the library to watch Beyoncé gyrate across a beach and profess her love for her megastar husband Jay-Z. As an outside observer, I marveled at the new video album’s infectious effect and wondered about its cause. What makes Beyoncé so gripping? Why is her voice – in song, speech, and even silence – so resonant for so many, especially millennials?

Beyoncé is a true Renaissance woman: a musician, a business mogul, a feminist, a mother, and a brand whose cultural gravity seems to emanate not from any one of these talents but from all of them in concert.

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Explosive ripples suggest the Sun has "seasons"

It's not just Earth weather that's erratic. Our own star, the Sun, also goes through changes.

It's known to go through an 11-year cycle, becoming more or less active. At its peak it explosively fires charged particles out into space, creating powerful sun storms that in turn trigger spectacular auroras on Earth.

Now it seems it has a second, shorter cycle, which lasts about 330 days. In other words, the Sun has a seasonal cycle that lasts almost one Earth year.

Earlier studies had suggested this. Researchers have confirmed it using records of solar activity spanning several decades.

The Sun is an enormous ball of extremely hot gas, which carries an electric charge. The gas is being churned around at very high speeds, and the Sun itself is in constant motion. This means the Sun is magnetic.

"If you move a charge you create a magnetic field. That's what's happening inside the Sun," says Louise Harra of University College London in the UK, who was not involved with the present study.

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Coloured Pluto comes into view

The New Horizons probe, which is bearing down on Pluto, has captured its first colour image of the distant dwarf planet.

The picture, just released by the US space agency, shows a reddish world accompanied by its biggest moon, Charon.

New Horizons is set to barrel past Pluto on 14 July.

It will acquire a mass of data that it will then return to Earth very slowly over the course of the next 16 months.

At the current separation of nearly five billion km, it takes 4.6 hours for radio signals to come back. And the bit rate is painfully slow.

But the encounter is set to be the major space event of 2015. It will complete the reconnaissance of the "classical nine" planets of our Solar System; New Horizon's flyby will mean everyone has been visited at least once by a space probe.

However, not since the Voyager 2 satellite passed Neptune in the late 1980s has a new world been revealed up close in the same way as will occur in mid-July.

Today, our best pictures of the 2,300km-wide Pluto come from the Hubble telescope. They are just blobs that make it very hard to discern anything of scientific certainty.

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Asiana plane skids off runway at Hiroshima, Japan

Air safety authorities in Japan are investigating how a South Korean Asiana Airlines plane skidded off a runway on landing at Hiroshima airport.

The 74 passengers and seven crew members used emergency chutes to evacuate the Airbus 320 in the incident late on Tuesday.

Local media reported that at least 20 people had minor injuries.

Transport ministry officials said a plane wheel may have clipped a radio facility near the runway on landing.

The structure, known as the localiser, helps aircraft find the landing strip. A fragment was found on the plane's left wheel, Japan's national broadcaster NHK reported.

Images from the scene showed apparent damage to the 6m (18ft) tower, with mangled metal torn down.

An aviation safety official told AFP news agency that the left side of the plane's tail was damaged and the country's transport safety board was investigating.

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The invisible world viewed by drones

A few metres above the ground, a drone glides through London’s streets. It sees a man, scans his face, and quickly looks up his criminal record. Elsewhere, a traffic drone spies on vans and cars, checking their emissions and identifying illegal drivers. Another hovers in a living room, sees a little girl has a cat on her T-shirt, makes an algorithmic decision, and feeds a cat-related advert to her parent’s phone.

This is a near-future vision of the life of the urban drone, imagined by design agency Superflux. As part of an exhibition at the V&A Museum in London, a team led by Jon Ardern and Anab Jain designed and built a series of drones to explore how these flying machines will soon populate our cities.

The video they created, above, depicts how these machines will perceive an invisible world of information within our cities. They scan buildings, vehicles and people, track faces and geolocation, and look up personal data on distant databases somewhere in the cloud. And all this is done with existing technologies.


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Lockheed’s U-2: The spyplane from Area 51

Imagine driving a car whose engine cuts out if you drive it only a few miles below its maximum speed. A car so finally balanced that placing your coffee cup on anything other than the cup holder could cause it to swerve uncontrollably. You have to drive it – for anything up to 15 hours – in a diving suit. And when it comes to parking you can’t look out the windows, but have to rely instead on the directions of another driver guiding you to your destination from another car.

Congratulations – you might just make it as a Lockheed U-2 pilot.

The U-2 was one of the Cold War’s most infamous aircraft, a plane designed to fly over unfriendly territory too high for enemy fighters or missiles, and take pictures of unparalleled detail - and, as it has just been revealed, helped spur the development of the secret Area 51 airbase.


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Porpoises, whales and dolphins use 'sound searchlights'

Researchers in Denmark have revealed how porpoises finely adjust the beams of sound they use to hunt.

The animals hunt with clicks and buzzes - detecting the echoes from their prey.

This study showed them switching from a narrow to a wide beam of sound - "like adjusting a flashlight" - as they homed in on a fish.

Researchers think that other whales and dolphins may use the same technique to trap a fish in their beam of sound in the final phase of an attack.

This could help prevent porpoises, whales and dolphins' prey from evading their capture.

By revealing these acoustic secrets in detail, researchers are hoping to develop ways to prevent porpoises, and other toothed whales, from becoming trapped in fishing nets.

The study, published in the journal eLife, was led by Danuta Wisniewska of Aarhus University.
She and her colleagues worked with harbour porpoises in a semi-natural enclosure at a conservation research centre on the coast of Denmark.


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Being overweight 'reduces dementia risk'

Being overweight cuts the risk of dementia, according to the largest and most precise investigation into the relationship.
The researchers admit they were surprised by the findings, which run contrary to current health advice.
The analysis of nearly two million British people, in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, showed underweight people had the highest risk.
Dementia charities still advised not smoking, exercise and a balanced diet.
Dementia is one of the most pressing modern health issues. The number of patients globally is expected to treble to 135 million by 2050.
There is no cure or treatment, and the mainstay of advice has been to reduce risk by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Yet it might be misguided.


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Bangladesh Islamist politician Kamaruzzaman hanged

An Islamist politician convicted of war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan has been hanged at a prison in Dhaka.

Mohammad Kamaruzzaman of the Jamaat-e-Islami party was found guilty of genocide by a domestic war crimes tribunal in May 2013.

Kamaruzzaman, 62, was convicted of crimes including the killing of at least 120 unarmed farmers.
He had refused to seek clemency from Bangladesh's president.

Kamaruzzaman was the third most senior figure in Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist opposition party.
He is the second war crimes suspect in Bangladesh to be executed.

In December 2013 Abdul Kader Mullah, assistant secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami since 2010 and a former editor of an Islamist newspaper, was hanged after being found guilty on five of six counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes.


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Target Pluto fastest spaceship set for epic encounter with our remotest planet

It is the fastest spaceship ever launched and has been hurtling towards its target at a staggering 36,000mph for the past nine years. But now Nasa engineers are preparing to put their robot craft, New Horizons, on its final course – to the tiny world of Pluto.

Scheduled to reach its target on 14 July, New Horizons has already covered more than three billion miles since its launch, a distance that means signals from the spacecraft now take about 4.5 hours to reach our planet.

And the spaceship is travelling at such a speed that even tiny grains of dust have the potential to inflict serious damage if they strike the craft. “We have got round that problem in a very ingenious manner,” the mission’s principal investigator, Alan Stern, told the Observer. “We have given the craft a bullet-proof jacket. To be more precise, we have covered it in Kevlar, the material used to make body armour. That should protect it.”


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