Dental zebra

A zebra appeared to dance with death by leaning it head into the jaws of a hippo but it emerged without any injuries. It went in to do a really strange thing-clean the hippo's teeth.

The hippo is one of world's most aggressive animals and can kill with one snap of its powerful jaws. People who came the zoo where the animals live were amazed to see the zebra craning its neck into the mouth of the water-loving mammal. But their surprise increased when they realised the striped creature was cleaning the hippo's teeth.

The extraordinary specetacle was captured by Jill's Sonsteby, a photographer, at Zurich Zoo, in Switzerland.

The 34-year-old,from Jackson ville, Florida, USA said: "The zebra was in the was same enclosure as the hippo the and its baby. The hippo opened its mouth and let the zebra in there to clean it"

"There was no harm done to the zebra. Everybody was snapping pictures of the sight. It was so great to be there at that moment," he said.

President Twitter

Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Barack Obama’s record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating through Twitter.
The popular social network is operating as a Web-based clearinghouse for public statements on weighty subjects (the federal budget) and the mundane (personal grocery lists). Forget press releases. Gibbs and his deputy, Bill Burton, are now sharing news in Twitter messages. So far 33,000 people have signed up to follow Gibbs and more than 6,000 are tracking Burton.
"Wow unreal game... POTUS watched OT in his office right off the Oval Office all of us are so proud of our great team," Gibbs tweeted during the men's Olympic hockey finals last Sunday, when the Americans lost the gold medal game to Canada in OT (overtime). POTUS is the acronym for President Of The United States.
As Obama’s team continues an online strategy set in place during the campaign, it seems only natural that they would make it a piece of a broader communications plan that extends across the government. UN Ambassador Susan Rice tweets about diplomacy, Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela tweets about the Western Hemisphere and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke tweets about trade.
With a news cycle now measured in seconds rather than days, administration officials recognize they must use the same tactics as the critics who assail them and the reporters who cover them.

(Electronic) Bugs In British Trash

Microchips have been placed in garbage bins in Britain to monitor how much people throw away. A pro-privacy group warns in a new report that more than 2.6 million of the chips have been surreptitiously installed in what is seen as a first step toward charging those who toss too much.

Proponents say it's a bid to push recycling. Opponents say it stinks.

"They should mind their own business," said Terry Williams, an unemployed Londoner who thinks the government is meddling. "I believe they have gone too far. It's not like we are throwing away anything that is illegal."

The advocacy group Big Brother Watch found through a series of Freedom of Information requests that many local governments, called councils in Britain, are installing the microchips in trash cans distributed to households, but in most cases have not yet activated them -- in part because officials know the move would be unpopular.

The microchips are part of the British information grid, which already includes a heavy reliance on closed-circuit television surveillance and cameras to monitor the population, particularly in public transportation system.

Colourful Winter

Russia’s far eastern Amur region has received yellow-coloured snowfall as shown in the inset. High winds in Mongolia mixed clouds with dust winds in Mongolia mixed clouds with dust and sand, crossed northern China and dumped the unique yellow coloured snow in the Russian region, RIA Novosti news agency reported. “This type of precipitation is not harmful to the residents of the area and no additional analysis will be done,” Elena Pechkina, a regional meteorologist was quoted as saying by the agency. The meteorologist said this type of snow was not rare. However, it usually falls in the region in the end of March or early April. In South Korea, however, where the phenomenon took place in 2006, people had been warned that the yellow snow could pose health hazards.