St Patrick's Day in Parnell

Pic taken at a 'local' watering hole at 10.30am on St Pat's Day - I was out doing research ;)

Malaria: GM mosquitoes offer new hope for millions

(Source: Guardian) Controversial strategy would mean releasing laboratory-created insects into wild.

The multimillion-dollar effort to eradicate one of the world's deadliest diseases received a significant but controversial boost yesterday when scientists announced the creation of genetically modified mosquitoes that cannot pass on malaria. Trials revealed that the GM mosquitoes could quickly establish themselves in the wild and drive out natural malaria-carrying insects, thereby breaking the route through which humans are infected.

The strategy is likely to prove contentious as it would require the unprecedented release of tens of thousands of GM organisms into the wild. But it has raised hopes among scientists, some of whom believe it may be powerful enough to finally bring under control a disease which strikes 300 million people a year and causes more than 1 million deaths, mostly of children in sub-Saharan Africa.

(UK): Explosion kills submariners under Arctic ice cap

(Source: The Guardian) A story reminiscent of a movie I saw as a kid called Ice Station Zebra:

Two British sailors were killed yesterday by an explosion aboard HMS Tireless, a nuclear submarine on exercise with US vessels under the Arctic north of Alaska, the Ministry of Defence said last night. In an emergency procedure, the vessel broke through the ice to surface following the blast.

Going Underground in Moscow

(Source: NZ Herald/ Independent) In the Soviet era, subterranean Moscow was filled with secret tunnels and nuclear bunkers. But Josef Stalin's paranoid underground facilities are about to be overtaken and dwarfed in scale by the high priests of Russia's prevailing religion: capitalism. In a move that has alarmed geologists and preservationists, Moscow's city fathers have announced plans to gouge out 80 per cent of the land beneath Moscow to create a city beneath a city.

Pics of the Day

Taken outside a pub in Devonport last Sunday.

Video: Lantern Festival

We went to the Lantern Festival - on yesterday and today in Auckland. Here's the video of a very colourful event - thousands of people, maybe 20,000 - 30,000 there. (click on the title above).

Some pics

Taken with Canon Ixus on low-light, macro setting: