03/07/2008 by admin.

Columbia pictures has announced plans to direct a new film about the great detective, Sherlock Holmes.  In a comic remake, the film will star Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen.  Sarah will be pleased as she’s a fan of both actors - pity none will be Earth Detectives though…

New research suggests that the risk of extinction for many species has been seriously underestimated - by up to a hundred times greater in some cases.  Key factors have simply been ignored, including the ratio of the number of males to females.  Professor Alan Hastings from the University of California, Davis, said, ”There may be many species - and some will not be the large, charismatic ones, but things like insects and other smaller ones that are still very important - where we may be underestimating the risk by quite a bit.”The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has identified more than 16,000 species threatened with extinction. One in three amphibians, one in four mammals, one in eight birds and 70% of plants so far assessed for its Red Lists of Threatened Species are believed to be at risk.

Posted in Q54 Do you enjoy a bit of a mystery?, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q48 Have you ever played solitaire?, Q36 Should a good life cost the Earth?, Q11 Do you believe in justice?, Q20 Have your eyes ever deceived you?, Q.1 Does your life have a purpose? | No Comments »

29/05/2008 by admin.

The world’s rarest rhinoceros has been captured on film in the jungles of Java, Indonesia.  There are only 60-70 of the animals left in the wild. Curiously, the female rhino charged the camera, sending it flying. The footage provides a unique glimpse of the animal in its natural habitat.  Stephen Hogg, from WWF, who designed the hidden camera was baffled by the rhino’s attack, as they use infrared lights as illumination so as not to scare the animals away when the camera operates.  Perhaps the animal is rying to tell us something?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7424918.stm

Posted in Q76 Are you going to take action now to save our world?, Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q56 Do you believe rules are there to be broken?, Q51 Have you ever taken part in a protest?, Q54 Do you enjoy a bit of a mystery?, Q17 Can you speak another language? | No Comments »

21/04/2008 by admin.

A Yorkshire Terrier has been sent a polling card in his name to vote in the forthcoming local elections.  The card reads ‘Bobby Huckvale’ and advises the three-year old dog where to go to cast his vote on 1 May.  Swindon Council say the dog was sent the card because his details were on the electoral register.  Although knowingly providing false information on an electoral registration form is a criminal offence, we were struck that this particular dog had, in effect, been given the chance to ‘have his say’.  Assuming the 3Bs in BOBBY resemble hearts when turned sideways then an anagram of BOBBY HUCKVALE reads C UK HAY LOVE

Further East, and we find the secretive street artist Banksy’s been up to his tricks again, performing perhaps his most audacious stunt yet. In the heart of London’s  West End an image entitled ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ has appeared in the wall of a Post Office just yards from a CCTV camera.

A child in a red jacket is painting the writing on the wall whilst being filmed by a police officer accompanied by a barking dog.

Posted in Q58 Do things happen for a reason?, Q74 Do you like puzzles?, Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q56 Do you believe rules are there to be broken?, Q11 Do you believe in justice?, Q41 Do you like surprises?, Q.2 Are you an art lover? | No Comments »

18/04/2008 by admin.

An interactive video art Cyclorama installation on London’s Southbank is capturing panoramic images every 5 seconds for 3 days.  Eleven cameras take digital photos throughout the day. The Memory Project allows a person to reveal historical images on a scream; effectively letting people move to and fro in time within a sealed chamber!  Take a look…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7355753.stm

Posted in Q78 Do you want to be part of the picture?, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q37 Do you know how to have fun?, Q23 Do you believe all the laws of physics?, Q.2 Are you an art lover? | No Comments »

20/02/2008 by admin.

A meteor zipped across the U.S. Pacific Northwest sky early Tuesday morning before exploding, possibly littering eastern Oregon with marble- to basketball-size space rocks.  The meteor was caught on a surveillence camera in North-Western America. This is the dramatic footage…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7250000/newsid_7255600/7255695.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1 

Eyewitnesses describe the light as really bright - something unreal. An airline pilot has reported seeing the meteor hit the ground in a rural area outside of Seattle at about 6:45 on 19 February. A search has commenced for any fragments, focusing on an area around the ‘Blue Mountains’ or outside the town of Pendletown, Oregon.

People all over the world have different beliefs about meteors and meteorites. One thing they have in common though is a belief that meteors are extraordinary.  In the Philippines, for example, one must tie a knot in a handkerchief before the light is extinguished.  In Chile, one must pick up a stone when sees a meteor.

We’ve also discovered really amazing footage of a meteor that crashed to Earth in the USA in March 2007 - 3 months into our watch. Here:

http://tsr117.hi5.com/friend/video/3484654–12239959–Desert%2BMeteor%2BCaught%2Bon%2BFilm–view-html

A search to try to establish the credibility of the March 07 footage led us to discover that 1 day into the Whittenbury Watch a mysterious space object crashed into a house in New Jersey USA.  It was described as resembling a shiny lump of  ‘fools gold’. Take a look at the article here…

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070105-space-rock.html

Posted in Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q.5 Do you believe in fate? | No Comments »

03/08/2007 by admin.

It seems the squirrels are up to their old tricks again. A squirrel in Finland has developed a taste for Kinder Surprise Eggs, stealing them from a shop twice a day. Other sweets don’t interest it as much. The store manager has named the creature, The Kinder Squirrel! Let’s think about it – Kinder – isn’t that what our Earth needs us all to be, kinder to each other and to the animals which share our home.  Question 22

Further south, 14 squirrels have been arrested in Iran, accused of spying.  The bushy-tailed terrors have been suspected of carrying eavesdropping devices! The Foreign Office say the story is nuts!   Question 57

We wonder if a squirrel may have been up to mischief in Dorset, England too, where the bells in an ancient church have been silenced for the first time in 200 years.  Bell-ringers at Dorset Church were giving a demonstration when three ropes snapped and a fourth was found to be badly severed.   Police are investigating the attack and suspect sabotage. Still, it’s an intriguing mystery, and given the role of squirrels in ‘The Haymakers Survey’, we wonder if small teeth have gnawed through the ropes.  Sarah says it’s funny too that this has happened in Dorset – the place where Hobo the monkey showed up. She wondered if he had something to do with it!   Question 54
 

Posted in Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q54 Do you enjoy a bit of a mystery?, Q22 Do you love our Earth? FREE CHRISTMAS PRIZE DRAW! | No Comments »