Compressed 02:

A distraught mother listened on a mobile phone as her teenage daughter was eaten alive by a brown bear and its three cubs.

Olga Moskalyova, 19, gave an horrific hour-long running commentary on her own death in three separate calls as the wild animals mauled her.

She screamed: ‘Mum, the bear is eating me! Mum, it’s such agony. Mum, help!’

Her mother Tatiana said that at first she thought she was joking.

‘But then I heard the real horror and pain in Olga’s voice, and the sounds of a bear growling and chewing,’ she added. ‘I could have died then and there from shock.’

Link.

Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il toured a hydroelectric plant Sunday as his train traveled through Russia’s Far East on his first visit to the Cold War-era ally in nine years.

Kim crossed into Russia on his armored train Saturday at the invitation of President Dmitry Medvedev.

Link.

We’ll be leaving from Kings Cross St. Pancras in London and spend two months travelling overland by rail to Thailand via Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, China and Laos.

Update… I’m going to use this weblog instead: vectr.co.uk/thebigtrip.

Comb Jelly

Ever since I found out about these creatures, with waves of pulsating cilia rippling on their sides reflecting luminous colour I’ve been hooked. I’ve wanted to make a viable business out of installing aquariums filled with them in homes or hotel lobbies or something. From time to time, I’ve checked via google to see if anyone else has capitalised on my pipe-dream plan, and two companies have emerged over the last decade.

One is by an entrepreneur who has gone the Apple way and devised a complete solution to the problem:

“Alex realized that he would have to address every aspect of keeping jellyfish in home aquariums from supplying the actual jellyfish to finding a more convenient way of keeping them fed and alive. In the process, he actually ventured out to the bays of California where he captured his own jellyfish specimens so that he could tank raise moon jellies for his fledgling business venture. He even grew tanks of plankton on his roof top to provide nutrients for his breeding stock and his future customers jellyfish food. As a result, Jellyfish Art now offers a jellyfish starter kit complete with three moon jellies and enough food to keep them fed for up to six months. The Original Jellyfish Tank JellyfishArt’s first desktop jellyfish aquarium was entrepreneurial ingenuity at its finest.”

The Monaco version is available for around $3000 US plus extras (ie. Jellyfish and food).

That’s cool and all, but a ‘moon jelly’ aquarium with flashing lights isn’t the same as a ‘comb jelly’ aquarium. Can’t we have true alien-like Ctenephora husbandry?

more later

‘You are listening to Los Angeles’ – ambient soundcloud music married to LAPD radio transmissions

Brilliant layman’s explanation of what the Large Hadron Collider is attempting to achieve engineering-wise:

I just wanted to express my appreciation of this ampersand (Trajan Pro):