Sunday, February 15, 2009

A woman who held the Guinness World Record for having the world’s longest fingernails has lost them in a four-car accident in her hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States.

66-year-old Lee Redmond was seriously injured after she was ejected from the sports utility vehicle (SUV) she had been a passenger in. It had collided with one car, causing it to collide with two other cars on Tuesday February 10. She is expected to make a full recovery.

“[Her nails] were damaged beyond repair,” reported the BBC, quoting Guinness World Records, who also said that Redmond’s nails were “a fundamental part of her life and unique character”. The cause of the crash is not yet known and an investigation is ongoing.

Redmond is credited by the Guinness Book for having a combined fingernail length of 28 feet, the longest on record. She has been growing all eight fingers and two thumbnails since 1979. Her longest of all nails was her right thumb, which was 2ft and eleven inches long.

Before Redmond was named as the record holder in 2006, Shridhar Chillal from India had the longest at a combined length of just over twenty feet.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The anti-poverty group Oxfam says global warming is altering the human food supply and threatening some of the world’s poorest people with hunger. At the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali, the group argued developed countries should pay to address the problem, and costs could top $50 billion a year.

Climate change, which many scientists believe is fuelled by human activities, alters rain cycles and causes increased droughts and flooding. Rising temperatures mean some traditional crops do not grow as well as they used to. The United Nations predicts that in some African countries, crop yields could fall by half.

Oxfam researcher Kate Raworth says coping with these issues will be expensive.

“Oxfam has estimated that for all developing countries to adapt to climate change will cost at least $50 billion a year,” she said. “And for that to be done with justice we believe that the rich and the most polluting countries should pay the vast share of the money to make possible for those countries most vulnerable and least responsible for causing the problem to cope with the new realities they have to deal with.”

The report released by Oxfam at the conference on Tuesday says some countries are already feeling the effects of a warming planet. In South Africa, farmers are planting faster-maturing crops to adapt to unpredictable rainfall.

Bangladeshis are creating floating vegetable gardens that can thrive in spite of floods. But Mozaharul Alam, who heads Bangladesh’s climate adaptation effort, says overall improvements to the food system still leave many families vulnerable.

“Most of the agriculture is subsistent in nature,” said Alam. “So if [there is] any failure of the crop on the ground, even if there is food available in the market, unless the people has the buying capacity, that availability of the food in the market has no meaning to the vulnerable family.”

Oxfam argues the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada and Australia should be among the major sources of funds to help developing countries solve their climate change problems.

These countries have agreed in principle, but one task of the Bali Conference is to find out how much individual countries are willing to spend on climate-related issues. It also aims to begin deciding how to divide those resources between prevention of further climate change, and adaptation to the changes that are already taking place.

The conference involves thousands of scientists, government officials and development group representatives, and runs for another 10 days.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Half-a-million people have fled their homes in and around the Indian state of Orissa after Cyclone Phailin made landfall.

Wikinews interviewed specialists in meteorology about the devastation the cyclone has caused.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Monday, July 7, 2008

The United States bridge that collapsed almost a year ago, spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is close to being reconstructed. The final sections of the northbound lanes of the new Interstate 35W St. Anthony Falls Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota were put in place on July 5. The final segment was raised with a barge-mounted crane from the Mississippi River below. A temporary bridge now connects the two segments.

The remaining seven-foot gap will be closed in several days with concrete which is poured in place. The segments for the southbound lanes will now be raised and connected. The segments were cast in a work area which was on the 35W roadbed and were then moved to Bohemian Flats, near the University of Minnesota West Bank campus. A crane places each segment on a barge for delivery upstream to the bridge site.

The bridge may be completed as early as September, well ahead of the scheduled opening date of December 24th.