A glance at the week that was
Diving for gold?
You might think that this is a life-affirming tale:
tourists Allyson Dalton and Richard Neely went scuba-diving in
Australia, only to get lost in shark-infested Barrier Reef waters
for 19 hours. Since their rescue they've been criticised for
wearing full, thick wetsuits in a tropical sea, for bringing
bottles of water with them and for allegedly flouting safety
rules.
They then sold their story for a reported €600,000 but have objected to the inference that the whole incident may have been a money-making scheme.
"It's preposterous for anybody to suggest that we planned this on purpose," said Neely.
Robot in Martian scoop
The latest robotic visitor to Mars didn't get
stranded this week. Instead, the Phoenix lander made a perfect
touchdown on the Martian pole. It will now start scooping up soil
in an attempt to see if life ever existed there - or if it could
survive. Among the images was one, taken by the Mars Orbiter, of
Phoenix dropping to the surface beneath its parachute, a photograph
described by one blogger as like "a speeding bullet taking a
picture of another speeding bullet". All in all, a good news story
in a week when the toilet broke on the International Space
Station.
We now know
An ad for Honda on Channel 4 on Thursday night was
the first commercial ever broadcast live on British television
Fifa has supended its ban on football matches taking place at more than 2,750 metres above sea level -just one year after its introduction
The leaning tower of Pisa has been stabilised and should be safe for another 300 years
The Numbers
€440m
the updated estimate of the value of the bales of
cocaine found floating off Mizen Head, four times the original
estimate
800
The number of words in the Harry Potter "prequel" written by
JK Rowling, which will be sold at a charity auction
€3.8m
The price fetched at auction by a 101.27-carat
diamond, which was the size of a ping-pong ball