Siachen, the world's highest battlefield

The Siachen glacier is regarded as the world's highest battlefield. Pakistan and India  both claim the area and have thousands of soldiers stationed there. The glacier has been in the news recently with the deaths in April of about 140 people, most of them soldiers, on the Pakistani side in an avalanche. Soon after, Pakistan's army chief said Pakistan favoured talks with India to demilitarise Siachen. The two countries have already held 12 rounds of talks over the disputed glacier.

Weather is the biggest foe. Bone-chilling winds whip the landscape and avalanches sweep soldiers into crevasses. The harsh sun burns the skin and, combined with the thin air and sub-zero temperatures, can induce acute depression.  Pakistan and India agreed to a ceasefire over the Siachen glacier in 2003 but thousands of troops are still deployed in the region.

Supplies must be flown in to the Forward Logistics Base by helicopter. India believes that the glacier is of great strategic and diplomatic value. Soldiers adjust to the high altitude by training on an ice wall at the snout of the Siachen glacier. A sign at the snout of the glacier declares it to be the world's highest battlefield.

It started in 1984 with Indian army seized control of the glacier, an area not demarcated by the Line of Control through divided Kashmir. Many more soldiers have died from the harsh conditions in Siachen than in combat. There is a famous local saying: "The land is so barren and the passes so high that only the best of friends and fiercest of enemies come by.''

Nik Wallenda historic tightrope walk over Niagara Falls

A man from a celebrated family of professional daredevils has completed a tightrope walk across Niagara Falls in a televised stunt. Nik Wallenda braved wind and heavy spray to make the 1,800ft (550m) walk from the US to Canada on a 2-inch (61mm) wire. Thousands watched from Goat Island, where he began the crossing, suspended 150 feet (46 metres) above the falls.

It is the first such feat over Niagara Falls in over a century. Mr Wallenda is the seventh generation of the famed Flying Wallendas. The family has performed for more than 200 years, including the signature act that gave the group their name, where two pairs of performers walk the wire, each supporting another aerialist on a pole.

Those two aerialists, in turn, carry a pole upon which the seventh member of the troupe balances in a chair. The family has suffered two deaths from falls while performing, including Mr Wallenda's great-grandfather in 1978.

Mr Wallenda wore a safety harness attaching him to the wire, a precaution insisted on by ABC, the US broadcaster which sponsored the live broadcast of his walk. Prior to the walk, he said he had not performed with a harness before, but that it would not take away from the event. After he arrived, Mr Wallenda was asked to hand over his US passport to officially enter Canada.

The 33-year-old had estimated the total cost of the walk would be around $1.3m (£830,000), including creating and installing the steel wire, as well as permits and security on both sides of the border. Legal liability had prevented ABC from funding all of Mr Walenda's costs and materials, so he had taken to online site IndieGoGo to raise further funds. 

Solar Floating Resort

Hotel conceptions utilizing solar energy are not really a new idea, especially when we consider the slew of green technologies flooding our modernistic avenues. However, a luxury floating hotel conception that would use low cost, dye sensitized solar cells certainly insinuates a scope of novelty and exoticism. Italian industrial designer Michele Puzzolante has conceptualized his floating masterpiece with exclusive self sustaining capacity in terms of power.

Designer conceptualizes a floating luxury resort, powered by solar cells

Christened simply as the Solar Floating Resort, the hotel has been envisaged as a fusion of both a cruise ship and an underwater platform. With its capacity of six 'resident' passengers, the craft will travel around the world along various paradisaical coasts. This navigating pleasure will be notched up to yet another level with a special arrangement that would allow its passengers to experience wild marine life forms.

The Solar Floating Resort will have a 20m (66ft) long deck with a myriad of spatial denominations. The comprehensive 110 sq m (1184 sq ft) interior space will include two double and two single bedrooms with bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, lounge area and bridge. Finally, the 'piece the resistance' of the whole structure will consist of an observation pod built into the hull of the craft. This underwater platform can be used for exhilarating views into the deep mysteries of the unfathomable ocean.

The designer has revealed very few technical specifications of the luxury craft. However, there are some structural considerations that relate to the aforementioned energy autonomy of the whole system. For example, the Solar Floating Resort will be constructed from dual layers of fiberglass reinforced balsa wood, 15mm (0.6 inches) in thickness. These layers will have a vacuum zone of 30cm (11.8 inches) width between them for enhanced insulation (which would lower energy loss).

The layers will also be embedded with dye sensitized solar cells both from the inner and outer sections. The two faceted techniques allows for solar energy to be captured from natural sunlight as well as interior artificial lighting. Moreover, the dye sensitized solar cells are generally accepted to be more cost effective and flexible than regular photovoltaic mechanisms.