Air Guitar World Championships won by Nanami Nagura

Air guitar just got serious - the world's best have been competing at the Air Guitar World Championships in Finland.

Nanami "Seven Seas" Nagura from Japan won the top prize, taking home a handmade electric guitar.

She said: "I love air guitar, I'm glad that I came to Finland and I'm glad that I fought the Air Guitar World Championships and won."

Watch her in action now!

From CBBC newsround

Tokyo native Nanami Nagura was crowned the new world air guitar champion Saturday at a tourney in Finland, the Air Guitar Japan Association said.

Nagura, 19, who used to belong to an all-girl air guitar idol group, is the first Japanese to win the title since Yosuke Ochi, one half of the comic storytelling pair Dainoji, claimed back-to-back victories in 2006 and 2007.

From The Japan Times 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/nanami-nagura/

'Big Ben' clock tower gets cleaned

Cleaners have been busy scrubbing the clock on the Elizabeth Tower at Westminster Palace.

Many people know the landmark as Big Ben - which is the nickname of the bell inside the clock tower.

The tower was named Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

The clock hands were frozen at 12:00 so the four cleaners could abseil in front of the clock face. (From CBBC newsround)

The tower holds the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world and is the third-tallest free-standing clock tower. The tower was completed in 1858 and had its 150th anniversary on 31 May 2009, during which celebratory events took place.The tower has become one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and is often in the establishing shot of films set in London.

The Elizabeth Tower (previously called the Clock Tower), named in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II in her Diamond Jubilee year,more popularly known as Big Ben,was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new palace, after the old Palace of Westminster was largely destroyed by fire on the night of 16 October 1834. 

The new Parliament was built in a Neo-gothic style. Although Barry was the chief architect of the Palace, he turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of the clock tower, which resembles earlier Pugin designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall. The design for the tower was Pugin's last design before his final descent into madness and death, and Pugin himself wrote, at the time of Barry's last visit to him to collect the drawings: "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all the designs for finishing his bell tower & it is beautiful."^[ The tower is designed in Pugin's celebrated Gothic Revival style, and is 315 feet (96.0 m) high (roughly 16 storeys).

The bottom 200 feet (61.0 m) of the tower's structure consists of brickwork with sand coloured Anston limestone cladding. The remainder of the tower's height is a framed spire of cast iron. The tower is founded on a 50 feet (15.2 m) square raft, made of 10 feet (3.0 m) thick concrete, at a depth of 13 feet (4.0 m) below ground level. The four clock dials are 180 feet (54.9 m) above ground. The interior volume of the tower is 164,200 cubic feet (4,650 cubic metres).

Despite being one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, the interior of the tower is not open to overseas visitors, though United Kingdom residents are able to arrange tours (well in advance) through their Member of Parliament.However, the tower has no lift, so those escorted must climb the 334 limestone stairs to the top.

Due to changes in ground conditions since construction, the tower leans slightly to the north-west, by roughly 230 millimetres (9.1 in) over 55 m height, giving an inclination of approximately 1/240. This includes a planned maximum of 22 mm increased tilt due to tunnelling for the Jubilee line extension. Due to thermal effects it oscillates annually by a few millimetres east and west.(in Wikipedia)

Is the loom bands craze 'inspiring art'?

Of course it is!
 Look at the video and find out how many things you can make out of loom bands!

Loom bands have been taking over playgrounds and living rooms as children from many different countries weave the tiny rubber bands into bracelets and other designs.

From BBC News

Unusual panda triplets were born in a Chinese zoo

A zoo in southern China has unveiled newborn panda triplets, thought to be the world's first known surviving trio.

The zoo says that the cubs are "the only panda triplets that have ever survived," but newborn mortality rates for pandas are high

Guangzhou's Chimelong Safari Park described the trio, who were born on 29 July, as "a new wonder of the world".

Their mother, Juxiao, was too exhausted to care for them at first but is now nursing the triplets with assistance from feeders throughout the day.

Female pandas are able to conceive for only two or three days a year, leading to a very low reproduction rate.

The cubs are "the only panda triplets that have ever survived," the zoo said in a statement released on Tuesday, but it added that the newborn mortality rate among pandas is "extremely high".

Panda cubs are 900 times smaller than their Mother.

Pandas have a low reproductive rate in captivity, the WWF says.

China's leading panda authority, the Sichuan Wolong National Natural Reserve, has said that although the pandas are still too young to call "surviving", they are the first known living panda triplets.

The cubs have not been named yet and their genders are yet to be announced.

The panda population is threatened by habitat loss as land is increasingly inhabited by humans with around 1,600 pandas left in the wild in China, according to the WWF.