The Daily: October 21
Titanic Violin Sold for £900,000 pounds
It has taken seven years to verify that it is the real deal, and now the violin played by Wallace Hartley aboard the Titanic over a century ago has been sold at auction for £900,000. The auction, which took place in Wiltshire, also saw crockery, newspaper clippings and photographs up for sale with prices ranging from ten to seven hundred pounds. The guide price of the violin was £300,000. After a frantic telephone bidding war, it took only ten minutes before the infamous instrument became the property of an anonymous British buyer. The violin has been verified after a lengthy process in which experts claimed deposits of sea water salt could still be found in the grain of the wood on the instrument.
Gravitational call out to relatives of Newton
The Lincolnshire Age of Scientific Discovery group is leading an investigation into tracing the descendants of Sir Isaac Newton. After the iconic apple incident at Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton published his 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' in 1687 which explained how the universal force of gravity, applied to any object in any part of the universe. Since the father of modern science had no children of his own, his great, great uncle – William Newton has served as the starting point for the project. Philip Newton, the twelfth great grandson of William Newton has expressed the hope that there will be a reunion in the near future in Lincolnshire and that relations will be discovered from all over the world.
It's raining diamonds out there
According to scientists thousands of tonnes of diamonds worthy of Elizabeth Taylor's attention are falling on Saturn and Jupiter every year. New evidence has recently come to light which reveals that lightening storms turn methane into carbon which, as it falls turns into graphite which hardens further into a rough diamond. While these "diamonds," last for a longer period on Uranus and Neptune, with their colder cores and atmosphere, it is only recently that Saturn and Jupiter have been revealed to house the gemstones. However on these two warmer planets, the diamonds end up melting into a liquid sea at the hot cores of the globes. Dr Kevin Baines said that at their biggest the rough diamonds would be a centimetre in diameter –certainly big enough to put on a ring.
Stop the badger cull?
After a recent legal challenge from a charity, there could be a stop to the badger cull in Gloucestershire. An extension of eight weeks was requested following the failure to kill the minimum amount of badgers over a six week pilot period. According to the Badger Trust, only 708 badgers have been killed when the target was 1,650 demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the cull. Furthermore it has been argued that rather than containing Bovine TB, the infection has spread due to the badgers emigrating and taking the infection with them. However a licence has been granted which will allow an extension of the badger cull in Somerset until the beginning of November.
How deadly is your house?
We all like to dabble in the macabre and morbid, but is this taking it too far? An website called "Died in House" which launched at the start of June this year is proving very popular in the U.S, and why not – when for only $11.99 you can find out whether your house is haunted or not. Requests have come pouring in from all over the country with California and Texas proving to be the most suspicious states. The founder of the site – Roy Condrey said that after a tenant of his in South Carolina expressed her concern that her home might be haunted, he decided to investigate and was astonished to find that the are no laws prohibiting disclosure of death in a property. While proving a boon to Condrey the venture has angered real estate agents who say their "stigmatized," properties end up generating additional costs.
It has taken seven years to verify that it is the real deal, and now the violin played by Wallace Hartley aboard the Titanic over a century ago has been sold at auction for £900,000. The auction, which took place in Wiltshire, also saw crockery, newspaper clippings and photographs up for sale with prices ranging from ten to seven hundred pounds. The guide price of the violin was £300,000. After a frantic telephone bidding war, it took only ten minutes before the infamous instrument became the property of an anonymous British buyer. The violin has been verified after a lengthy process in which experts claimed deposits of sea water salt could still be found in the grain of the wood on the instrument.
Gravitational call out to relatives of Newton
The Lincolnshire Age of Scientific Discovery group is leading an investigation into tracing the descendants of Sir Isaac Newton. After the iconic apple incident at Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton published his 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' in 1687 which explained how the universal force of gravity, applied to any object in any part of the universe. Since the father of modern science had no children of his own, his great, great uncle – William Newton has served as the starting point for the project. Philip Newton, the twelfth great grandson of William Newton has expressed the hope that there will be a reunion in the near future in Lincolnshire and that relations will be discovered from all over the world.
It's raining diamonds out there
According to scientists thousands of tonnes of diamonds worthy of Elizabeth Taylor's attention are falling on Saturn and Jupiter every year. New evidence has recently come to light which reveals that lightening storms turn methane into carbon which, as it falls turns into graphite which hardens further into a rough diamond. While these "diamonds," last for a longer period on Uranus and Neptune, with their colder cores and atmosphere, it is only recently that Saturn and Jupiter have been revealed to house the gemstones. However on these two warmer planets, the diamonds end up melting into a liquid sea at the hot cores of the globes. Dr Kevin Baines said that at their biggest the rough diamonds would be a centimetre in diameter –certainly big enough to put on a ring.
Stop the badger cull?
After a recent legal challenge from a charity, there could be a stop to the badger cull in Gloucestershire. An extension of eight weeks was requested following the failure to kill the minimum amount of badgers over a six week pilot period. According to the Badger Trust, only 708 badgers have been killed when the target was 1,650 demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the cull. Furthermore it has been argued that rather than containing Bovine TB, the infection has spread due to the badgers emigrating and taking the infection with them. However a licence has been granted which will allow an extension of the badger cull in Somerset until the beginning of November.
How deadly is your house?
We all like to dabble in the macabre and morbid, but is this taking it too far? An website called "Died in House" which launched at the start of June this year is proving very popular in the U.S, and why not – when for only $11.99 you can find out whether your house is haunted or not. Requests have come pouring in from all over the country with California and Texas proving to be the most suspicious states. The founder of the site – Roy Condrey said that after a tenant of his in South Carolina expressed her concern that her home might be haunted, he decided to investigate and was astonished to find that the are no laws prohibiting disclosure of death in a property. While proving a boon to Condrey the venture has angered real estate agents who say their "stigmatized," properties end up generating additional costs.