Natural Phenomenon

7/28/2019 Natural Phenomenon

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NATURAL PHENOMENON

Hurricane

Structurally, Hurricane (a tropical cyclone) is a large, rotating system of clouds, wind and thunderstorm

activity. The primary energy source of a tropical cyclone is the release of the heat ofcondensation from

water vapor condensing at high altitudes. Because of this, a tropical cyclone can be thought of as a giant

vertical heat engine.

The ingredients for a tropical cyclone include a pre-existing weather disturbance, warm tropical oceans,

moisture, and relatively light winds aloft. If the right conditions persist long enough, they can combine

to produce the violent winds, incredible waves, torrential rains, and floods associated with this

phenomenon.

Condensation as a driving force is the primary difference which distinguishes tropical cyclones from

other meteorological phenomena. Mid-latitude cyclones, for example, draw their energy mostly from

pre-existing temperature gradients in the atmosphere. In order to continue to drive its heat engine, a

tropical cyclone must remain over warm water, which provides the atmospheric moisture needed. The

evaporation of this moisture is driven by the high winds and reduced atmospheric pressure present in

the storm, resulting in a sustaining cycle. As a result, when a tropical cyclone passes over land, itsstrength will diminish rapidly.

Condensation the process or result of becoming smaller or pressed together

Torrential pouring in abundance

evaporation A change from liquid to vapor form

Mudslide

A hillside shifts sending mud, rocks and trees rumbling down its slope. Homes and property are buried

or swept away. People are left homeless, injured or even killed.

Worldwide, thousands of people die every year from land and mudslides. In the United Sates alone, land

and mudslides cause an estimated $1 billion in damage and kill 25 to 50 people every year.

What Causes a Landslide?

First of all, a mudslide is one type of landslide. Steep hills and mountains are often the site of land and

mudslides. Slopes on these hills and mountains become weakened by many things:

erosion by rivers, glaciers or ocean waves fires leave slopes bare and vulnerable to rain heavy rain or snowmelt saturates the ground earthquakes weaken the structure of the slope - volcanic eruptions produce loose ashfall

deposits and debris slopes

traffic, blasting operations, machinery and even thunder can vibrate weak slopes the weight of snow, stockpiling of ore, waste piles, and even buildings can put stress on weak

hillsides

Once a slope is weakened, almost anything can set it off. Rain, earthquakes, and even blasting are

common causes.

If the hillside is dry, dirt and rocks can tumble down the grade. If, however, the slope is saturated with

water, a mudslide occurs. This more destructive flow can pick up rocks, trees, houses and cars. As the

debris moves into river and stream beds, bridges can become blocked or even collapse, making a

temporary dam that can flood neighboring areas.


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Rumble move slowly and making a continuous noise

Slope an elevated geological formation, a stretch of ground forming a natural or artificial

incline

Tumble to fall quickly and without control, to collapse

Saturated completely wet

Blizzard

A blizzard is a severe weather condition characterized by low temperatures and strong winds (greater

than 35 mph) bearing a great amount of snow, either falling or blowing.

In order to be classified as a blizzard, as opposed to merely a winter storm, the weather must meet

several conditions. The storm must decrease visibility to a quarter of a mile for 3 consecutive hours,

include snow or ice as precipitation, and have wind speeds of at least 32mph (7 or more on the Beaufort

Wind Scale).

According to Environment Canada a blizzard must have winds of 40 km/h or more, have snow or

blowing snow, visibility less than 1 km and a windchill of less than -25 degrees celsius. All of these

conditions must last for 4 hours or more.

When these conditions persist after snow has stopped falling, it is called a ground blizzard.

An extreme form of blizzard is a whiteout, where the downdrafts, coupled with snowfall become so

severe that it is impossible to distinguish the ground from the air. People caught in a whiteout can

quickly become disoriented, losing their sense of up and down as well as their sense of direction. Severe

blizzards can also occur in conjunction with arctic cyclones.

The word blizzard is a modern one of unknown origin; but it is likely from the surname "Blizard." It was

first widely used after the great American winter storm now known as the "Blizzard of 1880." Certain

types of blizzards in the northeastern United States are colloquially known as Nor'easters. Some believe

the origin of the word "blizzard" is from it's original use of scattered musket fire. An 1820 journalist was

the first to coin this word.

Precipitation water which falls from the clouds towards the ground, especially as rain or snowWhiteout a weather condition in which snow and clouds change the way light is reflected so

that only very dark objects can be seen

Downdraft A strong downward current of air

Disoriented Unable to find the correct way or place to go

Tsunami

Tsunamis are a series of very long waves generated by any rapid, large-scale disturbance of the sea.

Most are generated by sea floor displacements from large undersea earthquakes. Tsunamis can cause

great destruction and loss of life within minutes on shores near their source, and some tsunamis can

cause destruction within hours across an entire ocean basin.

Most tsunamis occur in the Pacific region but they are known to happen in every ocean and sea.Although infrequent, tsunamis are a significant natural hazard with great destructive potential. They can

only be dealt with effectively through programs of warning, mitigation, and education.

Displacement to force something or someone out of its usual or original position

Hazard something that is dangerous and likely to cause damage

Mitigation Mitigation is a reduction in the unplesantness, seriousness


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What lies beneath!

You would possibly never have guessed just by looking at it but the Earth actually consists of four layers.

The layer we are all familiar with the topmost layer called the crust. The Earth's crust is the dirt we dig in

to plant trees and flowers. Mountains and ocean floors also form part of it. It is more than 32 kilometers

thick in some places.

The Earth's crust floats on top of the mantle. The mantle is the Earth's midsection. It comprises rocks

and metals that are so hot they melt! The temperature inside the mantle is about 1,200 degrees Celsius.

The molten rocks become lighter and rise up to wards the crust. Wherever there are cracks in the crust

or weak spots, the molten rocks (now called magma) escapes to the surface. What do you get? Lots and

lots of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions!

Deeper down is the Outer Core. The Outer Core is a 2,240km layer of melted iron and nickel. Here, the

heat traveling through the Outer Core (caused partly by the Earth's rotation) creates the Earth's

magnetic field. The magnetic field makes sure everything on the Earth's surface does not float away into

space. That's gravity! Right in the centre of the Earth is a solid ball of iron and nickel called the Inner

Core. The temperature of the Inner Core is almost as hot as the sun! Though it's hot enough to melt

iron, the tremendous pressure caused by the weight of all the layers compacts the center into the solid

ball.

Crust The earth's crust is its outer layer.

Mantle A mantle of something is a layer of it covering a surface

Nickel Nickel is a silver-colored metal that is used in making steel

Angry mountains of fire!

There are hot spots in the Earth's crust where heat melts underground rock. As the rock melts, gases are

released and mix with molten rock called magma. The magma bubbles and rises, cutting through the

rock, creating a channel. It then accumulates in a magma chamber deep underground.

Over time, high pressure caused by both the magma and gases build up in the chamber, forcing the

magma to rise and causing the volcano to form as a mountain. Then it violently explodes out the top --and even the sides of the volcano! Fiery rocks and ash rain down from out of the sky after an eruption.

But sometimes, lava, which is what the magma is called after it comes out of the volcano, quietly oozes

out of one or several holes ( calledvents ) with no explosion at all.

Magna hot liquid rock found just below the surface of the Earth

Ooze when a thick or sticky liquid oozes from something or when something oozes it, the

liquid flows slowly and in small quantities.

Vent a vent is a hole in something through which air can come in and smoke, gas, or

smells can go out.


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DISCOVERY CHANNEL

Supervolcano - The Truth About Yellowstone

The beauty of America's Yellowstone National Park masks one of the rarest and most destructive forces

on Earth - a supervolcano.

74,000 years ago, in Indonesia, a gigantic volcanic eruption shook the earth. It blasted a cloud of volcanicash out to a distance of 3,000 kilometers, and triggered a global volcanic winter. The crater left behind

by this eruption was larger than the city of London. This was no ordinary eruption. It was a super

eruption. At the time, the human race was in its infancy, with just a few thousand people occupying the

planet. But what if the next super eruption occurred in the heart of a country that's home to

300,000,000 people?

"If we see one of these huge cataclysmic events today, particularly in an industrialized country, for

example, another super eruption in Yellowstone, then the effects would be devastating not only for that

country, but for the whole planet."

"If a super eruption happened tomorrow, the consequences could be catastrophic. An area the size of a

continent would be completely devastated and there would be global effects for years afterwards."

By consulting with leading geologists and volcanologists from research institutes all around the world,

this programme asks the question: how likely is it that the Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt in our

lifetime? And what will the warning signs be?

When most people think about volcanoes, they think about ones like Mount St. Helens. In 1980, it re-

awakened after lying dormant for over 120 years.

Crater the round hole at the top of a volcano

in its infancy to be very new and still developing

dormant describes something that is not active or growing, but which has the ability to be

active at a later time

The 7/7 Bombers

A Psychological InvestigationWhat makes someone want to blow themselves and others - up?

Four bombs exploded in central London, killing 52 people and injuring over 700. And investigators

quickly uncovered another first: the suicide bombers were homegrown young British men attacking

their own country. Tonight's Horizon is a psychological investigation into the mind of a suicide bomber.

You are trying to build up a picture of someone's motivations and state of mind before they died.

The investigation uses research from around the world to explore the psychology of a fanatical mind.

I was full of self-belief. I was willing to give my life that day.

Uncovering research that confronts our expectations about who the suicide bombers are.

You don't have to be evil. You don't have to be mad. You just need to be in the right context.

The challenge is to understand what motivated these four men and to stop it happening again.

The past 25 years has seen a dramatic increase in suicide attacks. Since 1981, over 900 incidents have

killed more than 9,000 people in over 20 different countries. As the campaign to eliminate this new

threat intensifies, a small handful of scientists have dedicated their lives to investigating the psychology

of suicide bombers.


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You have to know your enemy. If you don't get to know your enemy, you will never be able to defeat

him.

You have to try and think about them as, as human beings rather than as killers and murderers.

You begin to empathize, er, with what they are going through without necessarily sympathizing. But

without the empathy, there is no hope of talking to people or understanding them.

Fanatical strong admiration for something, overenthusiastic

Empathize to be able to understand how someone else feels

Wild Africa

This programme will reveal why Africa is the richest and most diverse continent in the world for wildlife.

Cloaked in thick vegetation, the lush slopes of these mountains are home to a very special creature

indeed -- the mountain gorilla. Mountain gorillas are the largest primates in the world. With their

massive frames and thick dark fur, they are well built for mountain life.

These gorillas have very particular needs. They can only live on unstable volcanic mountains where the

regular turnover of soil encourages the growth of rich herbs and vines. And this is their problem: the

soils of the Virungas are so fertile that today's mountain gorillas face a new form of isolation --agriculture. But these terraced fields and the volcanic slopes on which they lie are under 2 million years

old, and gorillas are 10 million years old. They were in this part of Africa long before the Virungas were

even born, looking for opportunities, responding to change, colonizing new and emerging highlands. In

the future, the descendants of these gorillas will certainly face many more challenges, and not just from

us, but also from their dynamic mountain home.

The extraordinary wildlife that we see on Africa's mountains today is the product of a living landscape,

ever-shaping and always creating a great unfolding drama of life.

cloak covered by

primate a member of the most developed and intelligent group of mammals, including

humans, monkeys and apesvine any type of plant which climbs or grows along the ground and which has woody

twisting stems

The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean

The size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between

immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home -- the Earth. For the first time, we have the power to

decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young and

curious and brave, it shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing

and unexpected discoveries about the cosmos and our place within it. I believe our future depends

powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning

sky.

We're about to begin a journey through the cosmos. We'll encounter galaxies and suns and planets, life

and consciousness, coming into being, evolving and perishing. Worlds of ice and stars of diamond, atoms

as massive as suns, universes smaller than atoms. But it's also a story of our own planet, and the plants

and animals that share it with us. And it's a story about us, how we achieved our present understanding

of the cosmos, how the cosmos has shaped our evolution and our culture, and what our fate may be.

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads, but to find the truth we need imagination and


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skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation

from fact. The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant troves, of exquisite interrelationships, of the

awesome machinery of nature.

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we

know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some

part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because thecosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. The

journey for each of us begins here. We are going to explore the cosmos in a ship of the imagination,

unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies. It can take us

anywhere in space and time. Perfect as a snowflake, organic as a dandelion seed, it will carry us to

worlds of dreams, and worlds of facts. Come with me.

Before us is the cosmos on the grandest scale we know. We are far from the shores of Earth, in the

uncharted reaches of the cosmic ocean, strewn like sea froth on the waves of space, our innumerable

faint tendrils of light, some of them containing hundreds of billions of suns.

mote something, especially a bit of dust, that is so small it is almost impossible to see

trove a large amount of money or a large number of valuable metals, stones or other

objects found hidden somewhere and seeming to belong to no one

unfettered not limited by rules or any other controlling influence

Savannah

Savannahs - also known as tropical grasslands - are found to the north and south of tropical rainforest

biomes in countries located in tropical zones. The largest expanses of savannah are in Africa, where

much of the central part of the continent, for example Kenya and Tanzania, consists of tropical

grassland.

In some years, the rain is so intense that the advantage swings back to moisture-loving trees.

And with a run of real wetness, the rainforest would be quick to reclaim the land. The savannah seesaws

between grassland and woodland. The changes can take a few years or be more sudden.The beauty of savannah is that it responds so well to change, and change creates variety. The sweeping

patchwork of plains, woods and thickets offers shelter, shade, water-holes and a wide range of food,

somewhere there is bound to be a safe and bountiful haven for animals, whatever the weather.

Such a varied landscape has done one more thing: it's encouraged animals to be adaptable. And lands as

diverse as these have seen one group of animals become the masters of adaptability. To tell their story,

we must travel back in time to when one primitive group of primates took up the challenge of the

savannah. These were the ancestors of today's baboons. When the ancient forests were shrinking, fruit

became a highly prized commodity. To get by, baboons developed into experts at eating unripe fruit,

even if it wasn't always delicious.

Seesaw to change repeatedly from one emotion, situation, etc. to another and then backagain

Patchwork a mixture of different things


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The Human Mind

This programme uncovers what happens in our minds when we learn, remember and have original ideas.

Why can this man sense danger when others can't?

I suddenly thought it's time I've got to get the lads out.

How can an experience like this help me know whether to trust people? And how can this womanmaster complicated moves just by thinking about it? The answers lie in the most wondrous part of each

and every one of us, our mind.

During my career, I've seen huge advances in our understanding of the human body, but the human

mind is perhaps the final frontier in our understanding of ourselves. In this series we will be discovering

how it works and how we can all make the most of it.

In this first program, we'll be finding out how our mind learns about the world around us. We'll see an

amazing treatment that changed this boy from a couch potato into a top student. And I am going to test

my memory to the limit.("And you're going to be able to remember it". "No, I am not") And we will be

discovering how all this allows us to have new and original ideas.

Every waking second without our even realizing it, our mind is at work learning about the world aroundus. But our capacity to learn is even greater than we think. By discovering how our mind works, we can

improve our learning power and unlock our true potential.

Alison Ross is a woman who hopes to do just that. She wants to achieve what many of us only dream of,

take up a completely new challenge and leave her old life behind.

Alison Ross: After I left school at 17 with my handful of CSEs and GCSEs. Well actually it wasn't long after

that I met Steve and I was engaged when I was 17, married when I was 20 and all I wanted to do was to

have babies really.

But three children and 25 years later, there was still a thought niggling at the back of Alison's mind.

Maybe, one day she could become a midwife.

Alison Ross: I had such a really nice time when I had my children when I went into hospital to have them

and I remember thinking at the time that must be such a nice job to do, and so nice to be involved with

women at such a special time in their lives. and I just thought: um, maybe one day, maybe one day, I

could do something like that.

At 43, Alison wants to swap her life as a homemaker for the pressures and rewards of a midwife in a

busy hospital. For her, it's a huge challenge.

When I knew I'd got the place I think...

Couch potato A person who spends much time sitting or lying down, usually watching television.

Niggle to worry someone slightly, usually for a long time

Midwife A person, usually a woman, who is trained to assist women in childbirth.Global Dimming

Studies show that over the past 30 years the average amount of sunlight reaching the ground has been

reduced by 10%! While this isn't noticable to the eye, it has huge implications for our planet.

NARRATOR: At this point, whatever we did to curb our missions, it would be too late. Ten thousand

billion tons ofmethane, a greenhouse gas eight times stronger than carbon dioxide, would be released

into the atmosphere. The Earth's climate would be spinning out of our control, heading towards


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temperatures unseen in 4 billion years. But this is not a prediction. It is a warning. It is what will happen

if we clean up pollution while doing nothing about greenhouse gases. However, the easy solution --just

keep on polluting and hope that Global Dimming will protect us-would be suicidal.

DR PETER COX: If we carry on pumping out the particles, it would have terrible impacts on human

health. I mean particles are involved in all sorts of respiratory diseases -- that's why they're being

brought under control. And of course they affect climate anyway, if you, if you fiddle with the balance ofthe planet, the radiative balance of the planet, you affect all sorts of circulation patterns, like monsoons,

which would have horrible effects on people. So it would be extremely difficult, in fact impossible, to

cancel out the greenhouse effect just by carrying on pumping out particles -- even if it wasn't for the fact

that particles are damaging human health.

NARRATOR: Instead, we have to take urgent action to tackle the root cause of both global warming and

Global Dimming -- the burning of coal, oil and gas. We may have to make very difficult choices about

how we live and how we generate our electricity. We have been talking about such things for 20 years,

but so far very little has been done in practical terms. The discovery of Global Dimming makes it clear

that we're rapidly running out of time.

DR PETER COX: One of the real driving forces is that you leave an environment, ah, that's comfortable

for your children. And (if) we carry on going the way we're going, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna

leave an environment that's much worse than the environment we lived. And it would be down to what

we did, when we were using that environment. And that would be tragic, really, if that happened.

Next week: Horizon celebrates the 100th anniversary of when Einstein burst onto the scientific scene

with his Theory of Special Relativity. In the first of two drama documentaries, we explore how his work

transformed our understanding of the universe.

Curb to control or limit something that is not desirable

Methane An odorless, colorless, flammable gas, CH4, the major constituent of natural gas,

that is used as a fuel and is an important source of hydrogen and a wide variety of

organic compounds.Fiddle o make small changes to something to try to make it work

Journey of Life - Seas of Life

Steve travels back 3.8 billion years to when life began. Journeying round the oceans, he explores life's

first laboratory and discovers how the incredible variety of sea creatures arose, from the first microbes

to hagfish and dolphins.

For modern cephalopods, brainpowers overcome the need for a protective shell. They're simply

smarter than the average fish.

So why didn't the seas become dominated by clever cephalopods? That's because just when it looked

like brain might triumph over brawn, fish chanced upon a masterstroke, and that masterstroke was a

skeleton made of a new material -- bone. With it, new bony fish diversified like never before. The bony

skeleton was a landmark development, providing stronger structural support, greater protection, more

effective gills and improved agility.

Then for even more subtle maneuvers, fish evolved two pairs of matching fins, jointed to both sides of

their body by bones. This really was a winning combination and its legacy would stick. Guess what? Its

why we humans have a pair of arms and a pair of legs.

But even bony skeletons have drawbacks.


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"Have you ever tried racing into the sea? It's virtually impossible to run through, and that's because

water is 800 times denser than air. And once youre in, it's either sink or swim. Now if bony fish were

ever to dominate the seas, they'd have to overcome the same two problems -- how to move fast in the

dense liquid, and how to stay afloat despite heavy bones."

To stop sinking, fish needed the equivalent of buoyancy tanks on a submarine.

"Less gas, and we sink , more we rise."

But whereas a sub uses compressed air, a fish must carry its gas supply in its bloodstream. The answer

was for fish to come up with an onboard float--the swim bladder, a large gas-filled sac that inflates and

deflates as needed.

Gas diffuses back and forth between the swim bladder and the bloodstream, letting fish float effortlessly

at any depth. Despite being heavy-boned, the fish is, in effect, weightless.

Cephalopods Any of various marine mollusks of the class Cephalopoda, such as the octopus,

squid, cuttlefish, or nautilus, having a large head, large eyes, prehensile tentacles,

and, in most species, an ink sac containing a dark fluid used for protection or

defense.

Gills The area around the chin and neck

Sac a structure resembling a bag in an animal

Wild Africa Deserts

By traveling through the African deserts, Wild Africa reveals that given enough time, a diverse variety of

animals and plants can make a living in even the harshest conditions.

Africa is dominated by deserts, from the Kalahari in the south to the mighty Sahara in the north. These

are fascinating worlds, each one unique, all a challenge. Yet life can conquer them and in the most

surprising ways. This is an epic journey across Africa's magnificent deserts, a story of survival against the

odds.

Africa. Seen from space, great swathes of sand and rock cover more than half the continent. In the farsouth, bordering the Atlantic is the world's most ancient desert, the Namib. For eighty million years,

cold, dry winds have swept in from the ocean, denying the land moisture and piling enormous sand

dunes against the shore.

Beautiful but impossibly dry, in a good year, the Namib gets just five centimeters of rain; in a bad year, it

rains only sand. But buried within the dunes, there is treasure. Fragments of dead animals and plants

swallowed long ago by the sand are swept to the surface, offering a crucial lifeline.

Beetles, many different species have found ways to harvest this bounty. Along with termites and lizards,

they're the foundations for a delicate chain of life in the Namib.

against the odds If you do or achieve something against (all) the odds/against all odds, you do or

achieve it although there were a lot of problems and you were not likely to succeedswathe a long strip or large area especially of land

dune a small hill of sand beside a beach or in a desert


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Alien Neighbors

Popular fantasies about the appearance and intentions of alien beings are as varied as human

imagination. But do aliens really exist? If they do, are they as advanced as human beings? Let's begin the

wild journey of searching for the alien neighbors.

2042 A.D., powerful orbiting telescopes scour the heavens for signs of life. They focus on a dim yellow

globe. Spectrum analyser results, negative, no oxygen, no life. The autotracker zooms into another

world, a pale blue dot, oxygen signal affirmative, and there appears to be water, this could be it. The

scenario belongs to the future, but the future is almost here. Life on earth may have begun with a bang

when microorganisms hitching a ride on a comet or asteroid, crash-landed on our planet.

Finding themselves in a mild and watery world, the single-celled organisms could have slowly evolved

into the rich and varied life forms that exist today. There are clues that this may have been what

happened, but what do these early microorganisms look like and from which planets or moons might

they have come? Single-celled organisms are just one example of life that might exist in the depths of

space, there could also be intelligent life out there, way beyond our own solar system.

Some people go as far as to say that aliens have already appeared on earth, that governments have

hidden them away in secret military establishments. Today, serious efforts are being made to search forlife on other worlds. Radiotelescopes listen for signals transmitted from civilizations at least as advanced

as ours. Seth Shostak works for SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, the offshoot of an

earlier NASA program.

"People in the last century thought about possibly searching for aliens using lights and stuff like that, but

in fact, radio searches began in this century, and really, after the war. It was 1960 that the first really

scientific radio search was conducted."

(..invaders from Mars, weird and fascinating beings of a super intelligence.)

Popular fantasies about the appearance and intentions of alien beings are as varied as human

imagination. Paul Davies is a physics professor and writer of popular science. He has studied the cultural

presence of aliens in human history."When most people think about intelligent alien beings, they have something very much like ourselves

in mind, that they would look like us, think like us and behave like us, but they would be sort of super

beings. And when you look back in history, stories of angels and giants and Greek gods and so on,

they're always presented in this human or semi-human form. I think that's just some sort of deep

cultural needs to believe in something like ourselves but better."

Scour to search a place or thing very carefully in order to try to find something

Hitch a ride to get a free ride in someone else's vehicle as a way of travelling

Offshoot something which has developed from something larger which already existed


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Wild Europe: Genesis

An epic three billion year story begins, with the unraveling of clues as to how Europe's stunning

landscapes and wildlife were created. Witness Oxford roamed by dinosaurs, the Jura vineyards of France

swallowed under tropical seas, St Petersburg buried under desert sands and the mightiest event of all,

the birth of the Mediterranean.

Europe, an ancient continent. Within its borders lies unrivalled richness of both natural and human

wonders.

At its northern limits, Europe reaches into the icy wastes of the high Arctic. To the south and west, its

fringes have been shaped by the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Far to the east, it is bounded by

the primeval forests of Russia,rubbingshoulders with Asia. These boundaries enclose an area just half

the size of North America, yet 713,000,000 people make Europe their home. It's hard to find a space

unmarked by human occupation.

The Europe that we see today is the product of a long and complex history. Thousands of years of

settlements, invasions, revolutions and inventions have allowed us to reorder nature's ancient patterns

to suit our needs.

On a human time scale, the story of the changing face of Europe seems immense, but there is an even

more extraordinary story to be told, one that stretches back half a billion years, and tells of the events

that have really shaped the continent. 8,000 years ago, the skyscrapers of Frankfurt would have risen

over endless primeval wildwood, stretching from Lisbon to Leningrad.

Over the last 2 million years, Europe has seesawed between perishing cold and stifling heat. During the

Ice Ages, Amsterdam and London would have been smothered by huge glaciers.

Fringe border

Primeval ancient

Smother to stop the breathing of, choke, suffocate

FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation

FBI, one of world's most secretive crime-fighting organizations, its mission is to help protect you, your

communities, and your businesses from the most dangerous threats facing USfrom international and

domestic terrorists to spies on U.S. soil...from cyber villains to corrupt government officials...from

mobsters to violent gangs...from child predators to serial killers. Learn more here about their work with

law enforcement and intelligence partners across the country and around the globe.

If threw these nails out into the crowd, extremely deadly shrapnel.

Once the FBI knows what materials were used to build the bomb and how it was concealed, agents

make a public appeal for information about the bomber.

Today in showing you this backpack of this reconstructed bomb here, we believe we've given every

possible opportunity to recount to the public to refresh their memories and perhaps can followadditional information.

But Sachtleben reveals another secret for rebuilding bombs.

Actually go to a bombing range and use, and sometimes, thousands of pounds of explosives inside of a

vehicle that we think similar to the one used, detonate it. Go out, measure the crater, measure where

the pieces were, were found, collect the evidence that we find there and compare it to what we had at

the bombing scene.


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There is also another reason for these dramatic recreations. These images give jurors an unforgettable

look at the devastation a bomb can cause.

Sometimes, we'll actually go to our explosive range and reconstruct the device, detonate it, film that, so

we can go into court and show that to the judge and jury.

Eric Rudolph, the man accused of the bombings of both the Olympics and the abortion clinic in Atlanta

has yet to face a jury, he remains at large. But thanks to the Explosives Unit, McVeigh and Kaczynski will

never again pose a threat to society. However, the FBI's ultimate goal is to catch terrorists before they

strike.

Bridgeport, Texas, the residents of this sleepy farm town outside Dallas have no idea that their lives are

in danger. That's because the people caught on this surveillance video are planning a terrorist attack.

The suspected bombers are members of the Ku Klux Klan. They are scheming to destroy the Mitchell

Energy refinery as a diversion for another crime, an armored car heist which would fund the war they

are planning against the US government.

But these terrorists are unaware that the FBI is watching their every move, that's because one of their

own is secretly working undercover for the FBI as an informant.

Shrapnel small pieces of metal that are scattered by a bomb

recount to describe how something happened

at large If someone dangerous is at large, they are free when they should not be:

Heist rimed robbery

The Great Wall

The Great Wall of China was built mainly to protect the Chinese Empire from the Mongolians and other

invaders. The Wall has been periodically rebuilt and modified throughout history by each reigning

Chinese dynasty, extending from Kansu, in the west, to the Yellow Sea, in the east. For centuries, the

Wall was known as "the longest cemetery in the world." It was also said to be the only human work that

can be seen from the moon.

These aren't miniatures, they are life-size. So far, the Chinese have only dug up 10% of the site. And

already thousands of warriors and some 10,000 weapons have been discovered. Look closely at the

faces, each one is different. The Terracotta Army was sculpted from its real-life counterpart. The army is

drawn up in battle formation. At the rear, a command post of senior generals give commands. Their age

and status shown by their spreading waistlines. In all, it took almost 700,000 men 38 years to complete

the construction of Emperor Qin's tomb. Once China was united, and he had reorganized his empire, Qin

sent 300,000 soldiers to the northern frontier to drive back the ever-threatening nomads. When their

job was done, Qin ordered his army to stay. And with an extra half a million peasants, they built the first

Great Wall of China.

The wall was made with compressed earth. It's a technique still used every day in the Chinese

countryside. First, wooden planks are laid parallel to one another as wide apart as the wall's thickness,then earth is shoveled between the planks, watered and packed down by human feet. Then the planks

are built upwards, and the wall continues to grow layer by layer. It is a cheap and fast way to make a

wall. A hundred times easier, it has been calculated, than building with stone. That's how Qin built 4,000

miles of wall in just 12 years.

Surprisingly, these walls can last a very long time. The walls of this ancient city are nearly 2,000 years

old, preserved by the extreme dryness of the Gobi Desert's climate. The wall protected China but it took

a terrible toll on its people. Millions of men died of exhaustion while working on the wall. Some say the


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dead were used as mortar and buried in it. They said that the bones of the dead were so numerous, it

turned the mortar of the wall white. No one escaped the terrible rule of the Emperor Qin. Every peasant

paid his taxes and contributed to the growing wealth of his empire. The greatness of China was built on

the backs of the poor. And the history of the Qin Dynasty is laced with tales of sadness. There is a fairy

tale in China as well-known to the Chinese as the story of Snow White or Robin Hood is to us.

drawn up arranged in orderplank a long narrow flat piece of wood or similar material, of the type used for making

floors

fairy tale a traditional story written for children which usually involves imaginary creatures

and magic

Forbidden City

A walled enclosure of central Beijing, China, containing the palaces of 24 emperors in the Ming and Qing

dynasties. Formerly closed to the public (hence its name), it is now a vast museum and a major tourist

attraction

His mission now was to report on the latest bad omens, typhoons off the Cantonese coast, a comet seen

above the Gobi Desert. These things spoke of Heaven's weariness and a chaos that could end anemperor's rule.

When the Forbidden City emerged out of the North China Plain at the start of the 15th century, it was

the biggest complex of palaces in the world. It still is. It was designed to reflect the eternal glory of the

Ming Emperors. One hundred thousand men built it and at night their kilns lit up the surrounding plains.

One hundred million bricks, two hundred million tiles, timber from the trees of southern nanmu, trees

that took four years to get here by river and the Grand Canal. When the work was over, the people

vanished, leaving the city to an emperor and a court who served him. Sealed off from the world, it

aspired to contain all the cosmos within its walls, a universe within a universe.

At the center of this controlled universe, the imperial throne. All power flowed from this room. Around

it, a fabled 9,999 rooms, the yellows were for power, the reds for good luck, and everywhere the

imperial dragons to bring the rains and make the land prosper. One carving of dragons decorated a

single piece of marble so vast that it was transported in winter along a highway of ice. When it was

found to be too big, legend has it that the emperor's soldiers whipped the marble until it buckled and

moved on. There were 18 provinces in the empire. And intelligence reports and tax ledgers arrived in

the Forbidden City every day. An empire of 150 million people, Han Chinese, Mongol, Manchu, was

governed from here by the world's oldest and most sophisticated bureaucratic machine.

Omen something that is considered to be a sign of how a future event will take place

Kiln a type of large oven used for making bricks and clay objects hard after they have

been shaped

Buckle to bend or become bent, often as a result of force, heat or weakness


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Human instincts

This is a journey of self-discovery. Why ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things? Why

we risk danger even death to save our children even a stranger? Millions of years of evolution has made

us generous to our families.

What makes this toothless jawbone which has lain here for 200,000 years unique is that this person

must have been fed soft or pre-chewed food for weeks on end, allowing time for new bone to form over

the empty sockets. And that kindness saved this persons life.

We humans alone have evolved this remarkable instinct to help others more vulnerable than ourselves.

Here in Canada, that instinct to help others was put to the ultimate test when a mother was called upon

to protect her son. Steven Paroline is lucky to be alive. Six years ago, he set offon a camping trip into the

remote mountain forest with his brother, his mother and sister Molisa.

Oh, it's pretty exciting, in the morning I felt a bit nervous and like something bad was gonna happen or,

something, but I kinda shoved this sign and I was feeling pretty happy when we got going.

They had almost reached the campsite when without warning, the horses began to snort and rear,

something was wrong.I saw its head poke out of the trees, on the left side of me and I thought oh it was just a coyote, and

then it came on, its kind of, they have very slick movements. And it just kinda like glided out and I kinda

looked around, thats not a coyote.

In fact, it was a cougar, a mountain lion capable of killing prey twice its size. The cougar went straight for

Steven, it didn't even look at the rest of us, it just went directly towards Steven. (It) set its paws straight

on the saddle, huge eyes, seeing and staring at me you know.

Face to face with death, six-year-old Steven didnt stand a chance.

Steven kinda fell off, and then as he was standing up the cougar, uhm, it reached on his head like this

with its paws and just ripped open his head.

Seeing her son in terrible danger, his mother Cindy reacted without hesitation. With a primal scream,

she launched herself at the cougar to fight for her son.

It was just like instinct you know, I guess she figured that she'd be ok or, she didn't really think about it

was just a reaction to what was happening.

on end continuously

set off begin a journey

Iran's Nuclear Secrets

Iranian negotiators talk candidly about why they deceived the world over their nuclear program for 18

years. The diplomatic to-ing and fro-ing covered in the program was filmed in the first six months of this

year. But it takes on a new complexion now we know that Iran later abandoned the diplomacy andchose to start enriching uranium again.

Mohamed Elbaradei's on the trip to New York. The Uranium problem is following him around. It's an

opportunity to spread a little diplomacy, not with the Americans; they want Iran sent to the UN Security

Council which could even lead to military intervention.

But there are three European countries who don't want that, the United Kingdom, France, and

Germany, the so-called EU three. They prefer diplomacy. Their starting point is this Iran must suspend its


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nuclear enrichment program. "Navilla, you'll not believe I'm here." "No." this is another of Iran's nuclear

negotiators. "He doesn't do this for me." "no, I didn't." "Why is her to do that?" "You need to reform you

ever pollution. So..." "I need to reform myself. "This is rather than Navilla's concern. "You are in my bad

book soon".....

I've seen big headline saying everybody is a spy, you know, and in Iranian newspaper, but I don't think

that's it. Obviously, when Iranian delegation come here we sit, you know around the table, you knowhave a cup of coffee and discuss the problems you know they explain to me their point of view and I

explain my point of view. And they do the same that Americans do the same. You know that's part of the

diplomacy, I mean that people deal at different levels, you know at the public relation level, at the

diplomatic level, at the intelligence level at so many different levels there are different types of

intercourse.

I mean I know you want things specific, timing and stuff, but don't be too rigid, eh?

The important thing is you know go through once you start an agreement and a dialogue I think the

focus will not be on the suspension or what have you the focus will be how the framework is being

implemented to go.

This is a problem, problem both the Europeans are concerned is that both the Europeans as well asnegotiators have lost credibility in Iran. It's not a problem of confidence on their side; it's a problem of

confidence on our side as well as confidence in our own sort of credibility at home.

Intercourse The exchange of ideas by writing, speech, or signals

Framework a system of rules, ideas or beliefs that is used to plan or decide something

The Genius of Photography

The desire for photography is an ancient one.

The Roman writer Pliny recounts the legend of a young woman who traced the outline of her departing

lover shadow on the wall.

Inspired by this, her father made the first sculpture and so western art was born, but all the poor girlreally wanted was a snapshot.

It wasn't until the 1830s, that science found a way to satisfy her desire that by then had it become a part

of scientist.

"No, it's no accident that the only conceptions of the photography happened to coincide with the era,

that we call now romanticism, because many of the ideas and concerns are the/ Romantic Movement,

find themselves embodied in the experiments towards photography.

That's say Courige will be lying on a hillside and looking up in his half gazed eyes he sees dazzling in sun

and he thinks how can I possibly capture this evanescent moment.

And photography, this thing which captures a moment from time and fixes it in place is a kind of answer

to this romantic struggle. "

It had been known for centuries what a camera obscura could do.

The breakthrough came with the observation that certain chemicals were light-sensitive.

"As if it was well-known for at least a century before 1839 that's for example, silver salts, silver

chlorides, silver nitrate reacted and responded to light, darkened and therefore images could be made.


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The problem that was difficult to solve was to stop the image being made to find a way, if you like fixing

the image stop it developing and eventually becoming black.

I mean we have, for example, an account published in 1802 by Hanfree Davian in the Journal of the

Royal Institution where he discusses experiments that he and Tom Wager would have been making, if

experimenting with these silver salts.

They sought a piece of leather and they may try to make contact prints where they literally put a piece

of technical specimen on... directly onto it, expose it to light and then for a moment, they actually saw

an image come up and then heartbreakingly, I suppose, the image kept going black until it disappeared.

So as early as 1802, well before the announcement of the . . . a marketable photographic process in

1839, we find at least these two people and probably many more who have experienced photography

momentarily. "

Among the proto-photographers struggling to fix the fleeting shadows was Henry Fox Tolbert, M. P. the

master of Lake Cork cabby and a world authority on botany and cuneiform writing.

But there was one flaw in this polymath's list of accomplishments, he couldn't draw photography.

"Here is Henry Tolbert to his accomplished in all sort of things, but he has absolutely no idea how to take

that complicated colorful three dimensional world and get it down to lines on a piece of paper.

And it was then he started thinking about the camera obscura and started thinking about chemistry and

when he went back to Lake Cork in sometimes the spring of 1834, his fertile mind started putting all

these things together. "

Recount to tell a story, describing how something happened

Evanescent lasting for only a short time, then disappearing quickly and being forgotten

The Panama Canal

A ship canal, about 82 km (51 mi) long, crossing the Isthmus of Panama in the Canal Zone and

connecting the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It was begun by the French in 1881. The United

States gained construction rights after Panama declared its independence in 1903, and the canal wasopened to traffic on August 15, 1914.

Some say he is angered by interference from Washington, my wager. Or perhaps he's taken a lucrative

railroad job back home. We just dont know, we can only surmise.

Without a word of explanation, the enigmatic Stevens walked off the project in March 1907.

Roosevelt was furious, he turned to the army. He wanted the canals new leader to be a man who

couldnt resign. Colonel George Goethals is a military engineer expert in building locks.

I am told the army men are never successful as executive heads of large enterprises. However, I now

consider I am commanding the army of Panama. And the enemy we are going to combat is the Culebra

Cut. Any man working here who does his duty will have no cause for complaint.

Everything about the canal would be revolutionary. The locks would be the largest concrete structures

on earth. A huge system of cranes and cables delivered the cement, 6 tons of it in a single bucket. The

Americans threw vast sums of money and 48,000 men at the project.

The size of the project is monstrous; there's no question of that. We are tackling something that is

probably one of the largest engineering feats ever undertaken by humanity.

61 million pounds of dynamite were used on the canal. In 120 degree heat, it's highly volatile. The

Culebra Cut became known as hells gorge. But nothing would stand in Goethalss way.


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Surmise to guess something, without having much or any proof

Feat something difficult needing a lot of skill, strength, bravery, etc. to achieve it

The Apache Helicopter

The enemy calls it "The Angel of Death". It sneaks up on its target delivering a lethal payload of

weapons. A lot of time the enemies here have never heard us never seen us. It's a complete surprise to

them and err..... we kind of like it that way. This is the Apache Longbow, the latest version of a military

classic. The Apache helicopter has been around since the early 1980 and it's widely regarded as the most

successful combat proven and then attack helicopter on the planet. But what new tricks can you teach

this old war dog when it already seems to be invincible on the modern battlefield. The Apache

helicopter has fought in every US conflict since it took to the sky during the Panama War. Today's

Longbow alter invaluable support to the fight against insurgents, flying dangerous missions throughout

Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is the heart of Alabama, the US headquarters for Apache training. I am here to get a closer look at

the Longbow and see it deliver its payload as the regiment model says they are trained to kill. And with

the new Longbow, they have the perfect partner. So, how does the Longbow's new technology make the

Apache even more invincible than before. With the fire control radar system located just above the

rotor blades. The Apache can gather and process more information from the battlefield and deliver to

the crew within seconds. Pilots now have the ability to scan, detect and classify up to a 128 targets and

prioritize the 16 most dangerous threats. Then they can transit that information to other aircraft. So

they can initiate a precision attack or in less than a minute.

There isn't any target that we can't engage with this system now. This has turned individual warriors

into a combined super weapon working as a smart network in the dazed digital battlefield. It can detect

targets in very poor weather condition. So how can a close combat helicopter strike with precision from

a much safer distance. That's with the next generation of smart hellfire missile coming. The only real

weapons chain we had from the alpha model to the delta model in the Longbow is the what we call RF

missile. It's coincided with the FCR and its mogul firearm frigate missile. Once we identify the target, or

pick it up on the radar we can initiate, fire the weapon system and fly away and the missile itself will

track that target and destroy it.

Sneak up on move closer without being noticed

Payload an explosive warhead carried in a missile

The Apache Helicopter

A very wise man once said that nothing to fear but fear itself. I can tell you, he never had to face the

Apache helicopter at night.

State-of-the-art sensors located on the rotating torque on the nose of the Longbow, transmit thermal

images to a small display unit in the pilot incarnate helmet and offer improved vision over a long ranges.

Coming out of nowhere in a pitch black night, you never have a chance to see it coming; it's a living

nightmare on a battlefield.

Look at that, that keg has no chance. Just like that, I think that's what fear is all about -- flexibility and

ferocious firepower -- this smart helicopter is set for another 25 years of frontline combat service.

Incarnate in human form

Keg a small barrel

Ferocious fierce and violent


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Armed robot

It's the world first weaponized robot and it can be armed with everything from a machine gun to a

rocket launcher. We shot rocket off the system before. We shot forty millimeter grenade off the system

already, anything can be shot by a human can be shot by this. It's no wonder TIME magazine ?? this

sinister looking little robot one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century. That's why I am headed to

army research and development center to see how bad this little monster is in person. And lucky for me,I have been given exclusive access to the next set of live demonstrations.

This smart wheeled assassin is controlled by a soldier, calling the shot at a safe distance from the enemy.

This sort of robot would be used to extend the standoff between the soldier and the enemy. A soldier

can drive his weapon remotely up to 800 to 1000 meters away and be able to fire his weapon from the

safe distance of obscurity. Bob Quinn, the General Manager of talent robot Exfoster Miller, the designer

of Sword. It's the first armed robot we'll actually see action giving the soldier a powerful ally on the

today's frontline.

The Sword will carry out many of the same duties as a regular soldier, checkpoint security, guarding

observation post or even acting as a lone sniper. Now instead of standing in soldier to clear out buildings

filled with insurgents, the job can be done by a robot, that of course can dramatically reduce fatalities

on the frontline.

The technology evolved from the talent, the vehicle designed for surgeon rescue missions and bomb

disposal units. These robots are being used in the battlefield every day for explosive ordnance disposal

missions. The initial count of over 8000 missions where a small robot to defeat improvised explosive

devices in the site, in the road and inside buildings. The team first equipped it with lightweight platform

that can work in all kinds of condition. It can travel through snow, bend, climb stairs and even go under

water down to the depths of 100 feet to find its target. The smart device could reach inside enemy

buildings and the dark alleyways and head down streets filled with insurgents then they decided to

weaponize it. First person behind the idea came from a sergeant here and pick it to the arsenal at the

explosive ordnance disposal group Sergeant David Platt, David Platt was with Towen at World Trade

Center doing search and rescue missions. He came back with an idea not just using an arm, and a claw

and a hand that will reach out and pick up the unexploded ordnance device but actually put a weapon

system including a machine gun onto the robot.

Now they've created a deadly combat weapon and its presence alone pacts an incredible psychological

punch. Even without having the fire or do anything, just having some bodies walk around the corner and

come upon facing a weapon and they have no idea what it is. It is total shock and awe.

Staff Sergeant, Scott Smith, is one of the engineers at the helm ofthis Sword Project ( ... at that point it's

good that way it's err ... ). He added the bank a video surveillance camera to give the operating soldier a

unique view of the battlefield, right now we have .......

Sinister making you feel something bad or evil

Fatality a death caused by violence

at the helm of officially control an organization

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Natural Phenomenon