Friday, November 28, 2008

David Attenborough's Tv documentries


Foremost among Attenborough's TV documentary work as writer and presenter is the "Life" series, which begins with the trilogy: Life on Earth (1979), The Living Planet (1984) and The Trials of Life (1990). These examine the world's organisms from the viewpoints of taxonomy, ecology and stages of life respectively.

They were followed by more specialised surveys: Life in the Freezer (about Antarctica; 1993), The Private Life of Plants (1995), The Life of Birds (1998), The Life of Mammals (2002), Life in the Undergrowth (2005) and Life in Cold Blood (2008). The 'Life' series as a whole comprises 79 programmes.

Attenborough has also written and/or presented other shorter productions. One of the first after his return to programme-making was The Tribal Eye (1975), which enabled him to expand on his interest in tribal art. Others include The First Eden (1987), about man's relationship with the natural habitats of the Mediterranean, and Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives (1989), which demonstrated Attenborough's passion for discovering fossils. In 2000, State of the Planet examined the environmental crisis that threatens the ecology of the Earth. The naturalist also narrated two other significant series: The Blue Planet (2001) and the British version of Planet Earth (2006) (which in its American cable television edition was narrated by actress Sigourney Weaver). The latter is the first natural history series to be made entirely in high-definition.

In May–June 2006, the BBC broadcast a major two-part environmental documentary as part of its "Climate Chaos" season of programmes on global warming. In Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth?, Attenborough investigated the subject and put forward some potential solutions. He returned to the locations of some of his past productions and discovered the effect that climate change has had on them. These two programmes were released on DVD under the title The Truth About Climate Change on 23 June 2008.

In 2007, Attenborough presented "Sharing Planet Earth", the first programme in a series of documentaries entitled Saving Planet Earth. Again he used footage from his previous series to illustrate the impact that mankind has had on the planet. "Sharing Planet Earth" was broadcast on 24 June 2007.

Life in Cold Blood is Attenborough's last major series. In an interview to promote it, he stated:

The evolutionary history is finished. The endeavour is complete. If you'd asked me 20 years ago whether we'd be attempting such a mammoth task, I'd have said 'Don't be ridiculous'. These programmes tell a particular story and I'm sure others will come along and tell it much better than I did, but I do hope that if people watch it in 50 years' time, it will still have something to say about the world we live in.

However, in subsequent interviews with Radio Times, Parkinson and on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, he said that he did not intend to retire completely and would probably continue to make occasional one-off programmes. The most recent documentary, Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (in which he makes a case for the science of evolution), was broadcast on Sunday 1 February 2009 at 9:00 pm on BBC One.

Although Attenborough's documentaries have attained immense popularity in the United States, several have never been made available on DVD in NTSC format, most notably those that cast doubt upon religious or politically conservative positions. These include:

  • Life on Earth, which examines the evidence for evolution.
  • State of the Planet
  • The Truth About Climate Change

eh.......another post this is about the grizzly bear


Male grizzly bears can reach and stand 2.44 meters (8 ft) tall on their hind legs; the females are on average 38% smaller.[1] This sexual dimorphism suggests that size is an important factor in the male's ability to successfully compete for and attract breeding opportunities. Their coloring ranges widely across geographic areas, from blond to deep brown or red. The grizzly has a large hump over the shoulders, which is a muscle mass used to power the forelimbs in digging. The hind legs are more powerful, however. The muscles in the lower legs provide enough strength for the bear to stand up and even walk short distances on its hind legs, giving it a better view of its surroundings. The head is large and round with a concave facial profile. In spite of their massive size, these bears can run at speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour (25 miles per hour). However, they are slower running downhill rather than uphill because of the large hump of muscle over the shoulders.


A grizzly bear skullGrizzlies can be distinguished from most other brown bear subspecies by their proportionately longer claws and cranial profile which resembles that of the polar bear.[2] Compared to other North American brown bear subspecies, a grizzly's pelt is silver tipped and is smaller in size. This size difference is due to the lesser availability of food in the grizzlies landlocked habitats.[3] They are similar in size, color and behavior to the Siberian Brown Bear

Manchester United F.C.


Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at Old Trafford in Trafford, Greater Manchester, and is one of the most popular football clubs in the world, with over 330 million supporters worldwide – almost 5% of the world's population. The club was a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, and has played in the top division of English football since 1938, with the exception of the 1974–75 season. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65.

Manchester United are the reigning English, European, and World Champions having won the 2007–08 Premier League, the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League, and the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup. The club is the second most successful in the history of English football and by far the most successful of recent times, having won 20 major honours since the start of Alex Ferguson's reign as manager in November 1986. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1. They won a second European Cup as part of an unprecedented Treble in 1999, before winning their third in 2008, 40 years almost to the day after their first. The club also holds the record for the most FA Cup titles with 11.

Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club,[9] and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport, with an estimated value of £897 million (1.333 billion / $1.8 billion) as of September 2008. Manchester United was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs, and its replacement, the European Club Association.

Alex Ferguson has been manager of the club since 6 November 1986, joining from Aberdeen after the sacking of Ron Atkinson. The current club captain is Gary Neville, who succeeded Roy Keane in November 2005.