“Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.

Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.

There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.

But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.

Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.

"Security forces are armed to the teeth out on the street, and they're also doing everything to crush our uprising on the internet. Journalists, and especially those with cameras, are being taken away by the police." President Hosni Mubarak had tried to shut down internet service providers during 18 days of protest before stepping down as Egyptian leader on Friday.

Mostafa Boshashi, head of the Algerian League for Human Rights, said: "Algerians want their voices to be heard too. They want democratic change."At the moment people are being prevented from travelling to demonstrations. The entrances to cities like Algeria have been blocked."

At least five people were killed in similar protests in Algeria in January, when the Interior Ministry said 1000 people were arrested…”

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-- “Singer Amir Eid has placed an anthem for them on YouTube, filmed in part at epicenter Tahrir Square. Its refrain sums up the mood: “I’m Not Turning Around.”

In the video for “Sout Al Horeya,” Eid walks through the crowd singing, and the camera captures smiling, peaceful, determined demonstrators singing his lyrics and holding up signs displaying the message. “We’re dreaming our dreams and tomorrow is coming and it’s ahead of us,” he sings with the crowd, “in every street in my country, freedom, we lift our heads to the sky, and the most important thing is our rights.”

Video footage from Tahrir Square and across Egypt went viral practically as soon as the #Jan25 protests started. Musicians like UK rapper Master Mimz have released anti-Mubarak songs in solidarity as well. Even Wyclef Jean joined in today. But until “Sout Al Horeya,” posted yesterday, it’s been hard to find music videos filmed at Tahrir Square itself, showcasing songs by Egyptian artists channeling the spirit of the still-incomplete revolt…”

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"Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (left to right) along the diagonal in this gorgeous cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie about 1,500 light-years away, born of Orion's well-studied interstellar clouds. In fact, clouds of gas and dust adrift in this region have intriguing and some surprisingly familiar shapes, including the dark Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula near Alnitak at the lower left. The famous Orion Nebula itself lies off the bottom of this colorful star field. Recorded last December with a modified digital SLR camera and small telescope, the well-planned, two frame mosaic spans about 4 degrees on the sky."

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-- I was watching these while procrastinating during the finals last semester...haha This is one of the craziest features the series! Some of those cables across the valley are 20+ years old and have actually stretched quite a bit over the years. Some span 1500ft+ and are 700ft above the ground.

-- I'd drive this thing everywhere! hahaha

“Bishnu Shrestha, who had just retired from the Indian army where he served as a Gorkha soldier, held off a horde of robbers that tried to rob a train in India. From the article onRepublica:“The band of about 40 robbers, some of whom were travelling as passengers, stopped the train in the Chittaranjan jungles in West Bengal around midnight. Shrestha– who had boarded the train at Ranchi in Jharkhand, the place of his posting–was in seat no. 47 in coach AC3.

“They started snatching jewelry, cell phones, cash, laptops and other belongings from the passengers,” Shrestha recalled. The soldier had somehow remained a silent spectator amidst the melee, but not for long. He had had enough when the robbers stripped an 18-year-old girl sitting next to him and tried to rape her right in front of her parents. He then took out his khukuri and took on the robbers.

“The girl cried for help, saying ´You are a soldier, please save a sister´,” Shrestha recalled. “I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister,” he added. He took one of the robbers under control and then started to attack the others. He said the rest of the robbers fled after he killed three of them with his khukuri and injured eight others…“Fighting the enemy in battle is my duty as a soldier; taking on the dacoits in the train was my duty as a human being,” said the Indian army nayak.

Essentially, one man took on 40 armed thieves with only a khukuri…”

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-- Classic! Embedding disabled by request, please click image to watch!

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-- The politeness and the conduct are hilarious, but this is a sad scene overall..

"On Friday, a metre-sized asteroid called 2011 CQ1 was spotted zipping only 5480 kilometres above the Earth's surface. That is the closest near miss on record, beating the previous record holder, a rock that buzzed Earth in 2004 called 2004 FU162, by a few hundred kilometres.

When something that small comes close to our planet, Earth's gravity is sure to bend its orbit. In this case, the approach was so close that the little asteroid's path bent by 60 degrees, reports Don Yeomans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Short of collisions with a planet, that's the biggest orbital change ever recorded by observers. It was large enough to shift the asteroid from one category of objects into another..."

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-- Usual Suspects just in case by some miracle you have no idea what's going on here. Whatuhfuck?!

“Genghis Khan has been branded the greenest invader in history - after his murderous conquests killed so many people that huge swathes of cultivated land returned to forest.

The Mongol leader, who established a vast empire between the 13th and 14th centuries, helped remove nearly 700million tons of carbon from the atmosphere, claims a new study.

The deaths of 40million people meant that large areas of cultivated land grew thick once again with trees, which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

And, although his methods may be difficult for environmentalists to accept, ecologists believe it may be the first ever case of successful manmade global cooling.

‘It's a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era,’ said Julia Pongratz, who headed the research by the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology.

‘Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth's landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture,’ she told Mongabay.com.

The 700million tons of carbon absorbed as a result of the Mongol empire is about the same produced in a year from the global use of petrol…”

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-- Remember that clip of cats in zero-gravity? Well they took some pigeons along as well it would appear. Interesting that they can still fly pretty well! Even if it is upside down...