hot off the press..

Last week the final of the World Sauna Championships was called off after one of the finalists died. This competition is effectively an endurance challenge to see who can withstand temperatures of 110c for the longest period of time. The two finalists managed a commendable 6 minutes before being dragged out in a rather sorry, scorched state of ill health! Russian contestant Vladimir Ladyshenskiy sadly didn't survive. Whilst this is clearly a rather sad and tragic case, I must say that anyone coming up with such a hair-brained idea for a competition in the first place is clearly as mad as a hatter! What next... The World Acid-drinking Tournament (TWAT's)?!!

Solar tsunami

Isn't it amazing that we can now look at an x-ray image of the sun?! This week some boffins with large telescopes (presumably wearing very dark sunglasses) spotted a solar storm on the surface of the sun that resulted in massive amounts of plasma (solar gases!) being hurtled towards us, causing a spectacular light show in some northern regions.. Scary or what.... Or is this just a picture of a ballbearing that someone's heated up to a couple of thousand degrees...? Hmmmm.