Another tragedy rocks motorsport after Simoncelli is killed in MotoGP crash

Motorsport was mourning its second death in the space of a week after Italian Marco Simoncelli was killed in a crash at the Malaysian Moto GP.

The Gresini Honda rider lost control of his bike on the second lap of the circuit in Sepang and appeared to be hit by Colin Edwards and then Valentino Rossi as he slid across the track.

Agony: Marco Simoncelli's father is comforted as he waits outside a medical centre where the rider was taken following a crash at the Malaysian Grand Prix

The 24-year-old's helmet came off in the collision and he was taken to the medical centre for treatment, but died from his injuries.

Moment of horror: Simocelli loses control on the second lap before fatally colliding with Colin Edwards as Valentino Rossi ahead manages to escape

Simoncelli's death comes exactly a week after British racing driver Dan Wheldon, a former IndyCar champion and two-time Indy 500 race winner, was killed in a 15-car pile-up at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Buckinghamshire driver was 33.

Tragedy: Race marshalls attend to Honda rider Simoncelli (C) following his fatal crash just four minutes after the start of the Malaysian MotoGP race

The organisers cancelled Sunday's race as soon as the extent of Simoncelli's injuries became apparent.

A statement on the MotoGP official website read: 'On Sunday 23rd October, during the MotoGP race at the Shell Advance Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit, San Carlo Honda Gresini's Italian rider Marco Simoncelli suffered a serious accident in which he received critical injuries.

Moment of horror: Simoncelli loses control on the second lap

Collision: Simoncelli fatally falls off of his Honda after colliding into Colin Edwards

Fall: Edwards spins off the track along with Simoncelli's bike as the 24-year-old Italian devastatingly lies motionless

'The race was stopped immediately with the red flag and Simoncelli was transported by ambulance to the circuit medical centre where the medical staff worked to resuscitate him.

'Despite their efforts, Marco sadly succumbed to his injuries at 4:56pm local time.

Sorrow: Honda team members (above and below) react to the sad news

'Everybody involved in MotoGP extends its deepest condolences to Marco's family, friends and team at this tragic loss.'

Losing control: Simoncelli (No 58) crashed on the second lap of the race, riding between Edwards and Valentino Rossi

Emergency: Race marshalls quickly arrive at the scene to assist the stricken Simoncelli

Simoncelli, who won the 250cc world championship in 2008, clinching the crown in Sepang, stepped up to MotoGP in 2010.

His death was the first fatality in MotoGP since Japan's Daijiro Katoh died from his injuries sustained at the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix.

Wheeled away: Track officials remove Simoncelli's motorcycle after the dreadful accident

Newly-crowned champion Casey Stoner admitted immediately after the crash he had feared for Simoncelli.

'As soon as I saw the footage it just makes you sick inside,' the Australian told BBC2.

Cancelled: Rubbish covers the track after the race was abandoned early in Sepang

'Whenever the helmet comes off that's not a good sign.'

Tributes poured in for Simoncelli from teams and riders.

British MotoGP rider Cal Crutchlow wrote on Twitter: 'RIP Marco Simoncelli! A great rider and all round nice guy. My thoughts are with all his family & friends. I will never forget today.'

Delivering the news: MotoGp officials relay the tragic announcement

Formula One driver Mark Webber tweeted: 'R.I.P Marco A special talent that will be missed... Thinking of your loved ones, and all the motogp paddock..mark.'

A message on Simoncelli's Gresini Honda team website read simply 'CIAO "SUPER SIC'"'.

Support: Simoncelli girlfriend Kate is consoled by a TV crew member following her partner's tragic crash

Paolo Simoncelli, Marco's father, is comforted by his son's manager Carlo Pernat outside the medical center following the accident

The Rizla Suzuki team wrote: 'All at Rizla Suzuki are deeply affected by today's tragic events and send their deepest condolences to Marco's family and friends during this time of great loss.

'R.I.P Marco Simoncelli, 20 January 1987 - 23 October 2011 - A true competitor.'

MARCO SIMONCELLI: 1987 - 2011

1987: Born in Cattolica, Italy on January 20.
1996: Runner-up in the Italian Minimoto Championship.
1999: Champion of the Italian Minimoto Championship.
2000: Claims a back-to-back title in the Italian Minimoto Championship and is runner-up in the European Minimoto Championship.
2001: Moves up to the the Italian 125cc Championship and wins the title in his rookie year.
2002: Wins the European 125cc title.
2003: Takes part in his first full season in the 125cc World Championship with the Matteoni Racing team.
2004: Joins the Rauch Bravo team and wins his first Grand Prix at a rain-soaked Jerez.
2005: Completes another 125cc campaign with the Nocable.it Race team and finishes fifth in the final standings.
2006: Moves up to the 250cc class riding for Gilera. Finishes the season in 10th overall with a sixth place finish at the Chinese Grand Prix his best result.

2008: June - Wins his first 250cc race at the Italian GP in Mugello in controversial circumstances when Hector Barbera crashed into him after Simoncelli appeared to try to block him off.October - Wins the 250cc World Championship after a successful season with Gilera with a third place finish in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.
2009: Finishes third overall in the 250cc World Championship behind Japan's Hiroshi Aoyama and Spain's Barbera.
2010: Moves up to ride in his debut MotoGP season for Honda. Finishes 16 of the 18 races en route to eighth place in the championship.
2011: May - Collides with Dani Pedrosa while battling for second in the French GP. The resulting crash saw Pedrosa break his collarbone and Simoncelli receive a ride-through penalty, eventually finishing fifth. Simoncelli accepted he needed to re-evaluate his driving style and at times be more cautious.June - Claims his first MotoGP pole at the Catalan GP but a poor start resulted in a sixth placed finish.October 23 - Killed in a crash during the Malaysian GP in Sepang.

Eastern Turkey hit by 7.3 magnitude quake

Eastern Turkey has been hit by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, the US Geological Survey reports.

 

 

The quake struck at 13:41 (10:41 GMT), some 19km (12 miles) north-east of the city of Van.

The extent of any damage or injuries is not yet known, although Turkey's Anatolia news agency reports that several houses have collapsed.

Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.

Two earthquakes in 1999 with a magnitude of more than 7 killed almost 20,000 people in densely populated parts of the north-west of the country.

While the US Geological Survey put Sunday's quake at a magnitude at 7.3, Turkey's Kandilli observatory gave it a preliminary magnitude of 6.6.

Anatolia reported that rescue workers were trying to reach people thought to have been trapped under the wreckage of a seven-storey building in the city of Van, close to the Iranian border.

A Reuters news agency reporter in the town of Hakkari, around 100 km (60 miles) south of Van, said he felt his building sway for around 10 seconds, but there was no immediate sign of casualties or damage in Hakkari. 

Avoid alcohol three days a week, doctors warn

 

Drinking alcohol daily leads to a higher risk of liver disease, the Royal College of Physicians has warned

 

A night of drinking should be followed by two or three alcohol-free days, doctors have advised.

The liver needs time to recover if people are consuming more than just a small alcoholic drink, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has said.

Government advice is a maximum of 21 units per week for women and 28 for men - but the RCP said it should also take into account how often people drink.

The Department for Health said it had no plans to change its guidance.

Sir Ian Gilmore, special adviser on alcohol and former president of the RCP, said: "In addition to quantity, safe alcohol limits must also take into account frequency.

"There is an increased risk of liver disease for those who drink daily or near daily compared with those who drink periodically or intermittently.

"We recommend a safe alcohol consumption limit of between 0 and 21 units a week for men and 0 and 14 units a week for women provided the total amount is not drunk in one or two bouts and that there are two to three alcohol free days a week.

"At these levels, most individuals are unlikely to come to harm."

In an interview with Radio 4's Today show, Sir Ian added: "If someone drinks one drink a day, one small drink every day of their life, they're most unlikely to run into harm. But if you are going out and having a lot to drink then you should perhaps rest your body."

The latest NHS figures showed that alcohol-related hospital admissions reached record levels last year.

More than a million people were admitted in 2009-10, compared with 945,500 in 2008-09 and 510,800 in 2002-03. Nearly two in three of those cases were men.
Hazardous drinking

In a written submission to MPs on the House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee, the RCP said government advice on sensible drinking limits should be regularly reviewed.

It said: "Government guidelines should recognise that hazardous drinking has two components: frequency of drinking and amount of drinking.

"To ignore either of these components is scientifically unjustified.

"A very simple addition would remedy this problem, namely a recommendation that to remain within safe limits of alcohol consumption that people have three alcohol-free days a week."

The RCP also quoted a recent report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists that recommended safe limits for drinking alcohol by older people should be drastically cut.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists suggested a "safe limit" for older people was 11 units per week for men and or seven units per week for women.

The RCP's submission to MPs added: "The current guidelines are based predominantly on evidence for younger age groups and there is concern that current guidelines are not appropriate for older people."

Speaking to the BBC News Channel after his address to the Royal College of GPs' conference in Liverpool, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said alcohol abuse needed to be addressed.

"Essentially in this country we have two ways in which people abuse alcohol. One is binge drinking - far too much drink at one time - the other is chronic alcohol abuse and we need to act on both, and we are acting on both." 

Zombie craze continues to infect popular culture

This weekend an estimated 3,000 people dressed as zombies took to the streets of Brighton. It's the latest proof, if any was needed, that the undead are really on the march - culturally at least.

If the zombie craze has passed you by then you probably haven't been hanging out with any children lately.

In my own random poll, conducted outside a set of school gates not far from BBC HQ, every one of the little rascals I spoke to admitted playing one particularly popular zombie killing game, despite its 18-certificate rating.

Ten-year-old Mark very obligingly offered to give me a demonstration.

He asked his mum if I could come round to play, she said yes, then there I was watching Mark and his friends destroying an army of zombies dressed as Nazis.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

    Maybe zombies speak to austerity Britain in a way other monsters don't”

Dr Marcus Leaning University of Wincester

The conversation between them went a little like this:

"Shoot! Shoot!"

"He's only got one eye."

"Uggh, that looks gross."

"You've just shot his head off."

It was a brief but gory glimpse into the world of zombie video games, a niche market which makes millions of dollars a year and consumes millions of hours of our youngsters' leisure time.

But it's not just games.

The undead's insatiable appetite for publicity has, in recent years, seen ever-growing legions of them appearing on our TV and cinema screens.

If news of the blockbuster series like The Walking Dead or Dead Set or of Brad Pitt's latest zombie movie World War Z has passed you by, then perhaps you haven't been hanging out with anyone at all.
Beach of the dead

But if you do still need convincing that the zombie has truly arrived as something of a cultural phenomenon then a trip to Brighton this weekend would have done the trick.

Some 3000 people, dressed in zombie costumes, groaned their way through Brighton city centre

 

and along the sea front.

"For fun," one man with fake blood running down his face told me when I asked him why he'd come to the event.

"Why do people go walking, or why do others jump out of planes? We like our fun on the ground, with make-up," he explained.

But some media critics and cultural commentators have begun to wonder whether this explosion of zombie enthusiasm is, as well as a bit of fun, an expression of something else.

After all, it's often been argued that the boom in sci-fi tales of alien attack in 1950s and 1960s America was in some way an expression of the fear of Soviet invasion.

So what might the current zombie craze tell us about the world we're living in now?
Mass of rotting flesh

Dr Marcus Leaning, programme leader for media studies at the University of Winchester, believes the shambling mass of rotting flesh now colonising our cultural space is well worthy of academic attention.

 

"Zombies are incredibly popular, the growth is phenomenal - not only are they in films, TV shows and fan productions on YouTube, but there's a vast growth in books, with zombie survival guides selling very, very well on Amazon," he told me.

"You even see small garden ornaments dressed as zombies - zombie garden gnomes."

In fact, Winchester is soon to become the first university in the UK to offer a study module devoted entirely to zombies.

"We're living through the hardest economic times in most young people's memories," Dr Leaning said.

"Maybe zombies speak to austerity Britain in a way other monsters don't."
Living dead

Nick Pearce, director of the left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), is a man who spends much of his time reflecting on the interplay of democracy, economy and citizenship.

A man perhaps well qualified then to explore whether art is indeed, in the case of zombies, imitating life.

He gallantly rose to the challenge and was soon attempting to put the flesh on the bones of a theory linking zombies to the underlying social reality.

"Even before the global economic crisis we saw young, unskilled young men finding it much harder to get a foothold in the labour market," he told me, "and since the crisis we've seen a rocketing of youth unemployment."

"There is something in the idea that if you can't see a future, if you don't have a sense of progress for yourself personally, then you are stuck in the present tense, and this would lend itself to the notion of a kind of recurrent nightmare of repeatedly being a living-dead."
System eating itself

In fact, the idea that zombies offer some kind of commentary on the monotony and emptiness of our modern lives can be found in some of the best films of the genre.

 

Some of Brighton's 'un-dead' said they dressed as zombies just for fun

 

In one of the most celebrated scenes from George A Romero's 1978 film, Dawn of the Dead, a couple stand and watch zombies pacing aimlessly through a shopping mall.

"What are they doing? Why do they come here?" the woman asks.

"Some kind of instinct. Memory. What they used to do," comes the reply. "This was an important place in their lives."

Paul Gilding, former chief executive of Greenpeace and author of a new book The Great Disruption, is another thinker happy to engage with the idea that something more profound might lie behind the recent boom in zombie culture.

There's a good reason, he suggested, why the anti-capitalist protesters on Wall Street and elsewhere have sometimes dressed in zombie costumes to underline their point.

"The system is eating itself alive," he said. "The idea that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet is just not physically possible."

"The old system is dead, in this case it's the walking dead. That's why we have this diffuse protest movement, sometimes with very vague demands and expectations, because no-one has the solution. We just know the current thing isn't going to work."

So have zombies really been rising in such numbers in recent years because they're a metaphor for our times?

Many of the undead that I bumped into in Brighton would say that that's thinking too hard. 

 

Golden Joystick Awards: Portal 2 named ultimate game

 
GT5, Fallout: New Vegas and Portal 2 were all among the winners

Portal 2 has been crowned the ultimate game of the year at the Golden Joystick video game awards.

It beat competition for the top prize from the likes of LA Noire, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Gran Turismo 5.

With more than two million votes cast across 14 categories, organisers claim it is the biggest video games award ceremony in the world.

However this year, with no game winning more than one award, there was no particular standout title.

Angry Birds continued its seemingly unstoppable rise to the top of the smartphone gaming world, with the best mobile award for its Rio edition.

The biggest seller of the last 12 months, Call of Duty: Black Ops, had a quiet ceremony by the series' standards, picking up just one award, best shooter.

In the best sports game category FIFA 11 pipped its rival Pro Evolution Soccer.

But the big winner at the awards was Portal 2 - a first person puzzle-platform game that sees players trying to make it through a series of chambers by using a special gun to create portals.

The game has also been praised for its humour, with Stephen Merchant - from The Office and Extras - providing the voice for one of the characters.
Sonic 'honoured'

Arguably the second most significant prize is the one to watch award, and that went to Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - good news for its makers ahead of next month's release.

Meanwhile, the outstanding contribution gong was won by Sonic The Hedgehog, who is celebrating 20 years since first being unveiled by Sega.

David Corless, Sonic brand director, said the hedgehog was a timeless character who had transcended video games and whose appeal had been extended by the boom in smartphone gaming.

"It's quite rare in any forms of media that TV or cartoons for kids can endure for such a long time. Even in a video game it's quite rare.

"The fact that Sonic is still around and still doing as well as he is is fantastic, and testament to the little blue blur as we call him."

Mr Corless added that Sonic's traditional rivalry with Nintendo's Mario was now a thing of the past.

"It was a Blur versus Oasis thing about 10 or 15 years ago, but they recently joined forces and appeared in some games together.

"We've put all those dark days behind us," he joked.

Steve Jobs vowed to 'destroy' Android

 

The relationship between Steve Jobs and Google chairman Eric Schmidt soured over Android

 

 Steve Jobs said he wanted to destroy Android and would spend all of Apple's money and his dying breath if that is what it took to do so.

The full extent of his animosity towards Google's mobile operating system is revealed in a forthcoming authorised biography.

Mr Jobs told author Walter Isaacson that he viewed Android's similarity to iOS as "grand theft".

Apple is suing several smartphone makers which use the Android software.

According to extracts of Mr Isaacson's book, obtained by the Associated Press, Mr Jobs said: "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

He is also quoted as saying: "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."
Sour times

Apple enjoyed a close relationship with Google prior to the launch of the Android system. Google products, including maps and search formed a key part of the iPhone's ecosystem.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

    I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Steve Jobs Apple co-founder

At that time, Google's chief executive, now chairman, Eric Schmidt also sat on the board of Apple.

However, relations began to sour when Google unveiled Android in November 2007, 10 months after the iPhone first appeared.

In subsequent years, Apple rejected a number of Google programs from its App store, forcing the company to create less-integrated web app versions.

Android has subsequently enjoyed rapid adoption and now accounts for around 48% of global smartphone shipments, compared to 19% for Apple.

But its growth has not gone uncontested. Apple has waged an aggressive proxy-war against Android, suing a number of the hardware manufacturers which have adopted it for their tablets and smartphones.

Motorola was one of the first to be targeted, although it is Samsung that has borne the brunt of Mr Jobs' ire.

The South Korean firm is currently banned from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and Germany because of a combination of patent infringements and "look and feel" similarities. A smartphone ban is also pending in the Netherlands.

Samsung is counter-suing Apple for infringing, it claims, several wireless technology patents which it holds the rights to.
Defence mechanism

Patents blogger Florian Mueller, who has been following the court cases closely, said Apple would be conscious of its past, where other companies exploited some of its early ideas.

"If Apple doesn't want the iPhone and iPad to be marginalised the way it happened to the Macintosh at the hands of the Wintel duopoly, it has to use the full force of its intellectual property to fend off the commoditization threat that Android represents," he told BBC News.

Mr Mueller - who has previously undertaken consulting work commissioned by Microsoft - was also critical of Eric Schmidt's dual role at the time: "The fact that Eric Schmidt stayed on Apple's board while he was preparing an iOS clone was an inexcusable betrayal of Steve Jobs' trust."

Mr Schmidt resigned from the Apple board in August 2009. He was later quoted by Bloomberg as saying: "I was on the board until I couldn't stay on the board anymore."

German satellite falls to Earth

 
The Rosat spacecraft had some robust parts that should have survived all the way to the surface

A big German spacecraft has made an uncontrolled fall from the sky.

The Roentgen Satellite (Rosat) re-entered the Earth's atmosphere between 01:45 and 02:15 GMT.

Just as for Nasa's UARS satellite, which plunged into the atmosphere in September, there was high uncertainty about the final moments of Rosat.

But if the timings are correct, any wreckage would probably have dived into the Indian Ocean - although no eyewitness reports have yet come in.

If anything did manage to make landfall, the likely areas to be affected would have been Myanmar and China.

What made the redundant German craft's return interesting was that much more debris was expected to survive all the way to the Earth's surface.

Experts had calculated that perhaps as much as 1.6 tonnes of wreckage - more than half the spacecraft's launch mass - could have riden out the destructive forces of re-entry and hit the planet.

In the case of UARS, the probable mass of surviving material was put at only half a tonne (out of a launch mass of more than six tonnes).

The difference is due to some more robust components on the German space agency (DLR) satellite.

Rosat was an X-ray telescope mission and had a mirror system made of a reinforced carbon composite material. This mirror complex and its support structure were expected to form the largest single fragment in what could have been a shower of some 30 pieces of debris to make it through to the surface.

But again, as was the case with UARS, any Rosat wreckage was strongly tipped to hit the ocean, given that so much of the Earth's surface is covered by water.
Destructive design

UARS' final resting place was tracked to a remote region of the Pacific, north-east of the Samoan islands.

Rosat's operating orbit meant it could have come down anywhere between 53 degrees North and South latitude - a zone that encompasses the UK in the north and the tip of South America in the south.

Future spacecraft sent into orbit may have to meet stricter guidelines that limit the amount of debris likely to fall back on to the planet, but these rules are still some way from being introduced said Prof Richard Crowther, an expert on space debris and adviser to the UK Space Agency.

"Up until now we've designed satellites to survive the harsh environment of space, and we haven't given much thought to designing them for destructive re-entry," he told BBC News.

"But in future, we will have to consider whether we have got this balance right, and perhaps satellites should be designed in such a way that we can ensure more of what comes down is destroyed in the atmosphere and doesn't hit the surface.

"Unfortunately, there is a whole legacy of spacecraft - 50 years of satellites - and we are going to have to put up with this situation for quite some time, I'm afraid."
Science success

Rosat was launched in 1990 to survey the X-ray sky. It mapped more than 100,000 sources of this high-energy radiation. X-rays tend to come from the hottest and most violent parts of the cosmos, such as the regions around exploded stars and the "edges" of black holes.

The spacecraft worked for eight-and-a-half years before its star tracker failed and it could no-longer work out its position and point correctly. It was shut down in February 1999.

Tracking stations will typically witness the uncontrolled return of at least one piece of space debris every day; and on average, one intact defunct spacecraft or old rocket body will come back into the atmosphere every week.

Something the size of Nasa's UARS satellite is seen to enter uncontrolled perhaps once a year.

Much larger objects such as space station cargo ships return from orbit several times a year, but they are equipped with thrusters capable of guiding their dive into a remote part of the Southern Ocean.