We’re halfway done with 2011, a year marked by remarkable, revolutionary uprisings in the Middle East – uprisings facilitated and documented on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media.
When the governments in Egypt and Syria tried to control the flow of information from citizens by blocking Internet access and other forms of communication, the worldwide perception of these acts was that they were sinister and cruel. People were silenced. It was as if their vocal chords were cut; it was as if we, outside the Middle East, were blinded.
Was the impact so dramatic because today Internet access has reached the status of a basic need – like clean water or electricity?
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The marathon-length Qingdao Haiwan Bridge would easily span the English Channel and is almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the American state of Louisiana.
The vast structure links the centre of the booming port city of Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong Province with the suburb of Huangdao, spanning the wide blue waters of Jiaozhou Bay.
The bridge is expected to carry over 30,000 cars a day and will cut the commute between the city of Qingdao and the sprawling suburb of Huangdao by between 20 and 30 minutes.
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If you travel through north eastern Spain the chances are that you will see something like above structure, pictured in Ourense in Galicia. Known as hórreo and often centuries old, these structures served a vital purpose for the local communities. Can you guess what they were for?
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Women drivers are more likely to be involved in an accident, according to scientists. Researchers looked at 6.5million car crashes and found a higher than expected number of accidents between two female drivers.
They also discovered that women have a tough time negotiating crossroads, T-junctions and slip roads.
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THEY’VE been married for 35 years, but until Friday night, Sue King had never seen her husband Rod’s face.
That’s because the 59-year-old Port Lincoln man hadn’t shaved in 41 years.
After side-stepping his work’s clean-shaven policy for a decade, Mr King finally had to toe the company line to keep his job and shaved off his 20cm-long beard.
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If you are a Star Wars fan, and I know some of you are, you’ll probably want to see this Star Wars Kinect Xbox 360 bundle. Everyone else, please move on to the next news post.
Via
