Some recent news items

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"Bring a change of underwear" department:

Haohan Qiao, translating in English to ‘Brave Men’s Bridge”, in Hunan Province, China, opened to the public on 20 September 2015. Originally made of timber, it was converted to a glass based bridge using glass panes 24mm thick and 25 times stronger than normal glass. The suspension bridge is 180 metres high and a scary 300 metres long.

China is currently building another glass bridge that will be 430 metres long and 300 metres high. It will be the longest and highest bridge of its kind in the world.

A news report on 7 October notified that people on the Brave Men’s Bridge ran off the bridge in a mass stampede and panic when some of the glass began cracking. 

Park officials said that the cracking was caused by a tourist dropping a metal thermos flask.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/glass-bottomed-bridge-in-china-cracks-under-pressure/story-fnizu68q-1227560473880

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"We're gonna need a bigger blog."

Footage was recently released of what is believed to be the largest great white shark ever caught on film. The footage was taken by shark researcher Mauricio Hoyos Padilla two years ago, but not released until this week due to his only recently having found it on his computer. Nicknamed “Deep Blue”, the shark is 6 metres in length, was heavily pregnant and swimming close to researchers in metal cages off the coast of Mexico's Guadalupe Island.

This is not Big Blue but will give an idea of the biting power and rows of serrated teeth of the Great White:

Some comparative sizes:

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"Glow in the dark" department:

Below are photos taken from inside the 20km exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear plant, which went into meltdown after a tsunami and earthquake struck Japan in March 2011. Photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski donned protective gear to visit the ghost towns of Futaba, Namie and Tomioka in September 2015.

The photographer, Arkadiusz Podniesinski, stands on one of the main streets of Futaba. The writing above him says: “Nuclear energy is the energy of a bright future.”

A street that has been taken over by nature. 

 Four years after the catastrophe – which drove 160,000 people from their homes – much of the region is still too dangerous to enter.

The KFC Colonel and mannequins left standing in a supermarket. 

“Here time has stood still, as if the accident happened yesterday,” says Podniesinski of the most-contaminated areas.

An aerial photograph of abandoned vehicles.

An aerial photograph of dump sites, taken by a drone. 

 Contaminated radioactive topsoil from the fields has been bagged for removal and there have been efforts to clean deeper layers. To save space, the soil is stacked in layers.

A restaurant table with crockery left behind by guests.

The huge task of decontaminating the area, site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, continues. Thousands of workers move from street to street through villages, spraying and scrubbing the walls and roofs of houses.