Interesting Facts

If you're an armchair explorer you can now explore the waterways, trails and villages along the Rio Negro in Brazil. (The pictures were taken in 2010 using camera-mounted three wheeled bicycles and have now been woven into Google Maps.)

Brazilian scientists have discovered a new river in the Amazon basin, but it's not a place to go swimming with piranhas, it's actually underground, around 4km beneath the Amazon river. (They've called it The Rio Hamza, after the head of the team of researchers who discovered it, and it appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider. It was located using data collected inside a series of 241 abandoned deep wells that were drilled in the Amazon region by the petrochemical company Petrobras in the 1970s and 1980s. I wonder if anyone shouted, "Hey! We've hit water!")

The Amazon river, the second longest river in the world, has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years. (Following a long spell of dry weather in north-eastern Peru the river has dropped to 106m (347.8ft) above sea level, 50cm (19.7in) lower than a previous low record. At least six large boats have been left high and dry near the port city of Iquitos.) Source: BBC News

According to reports in the Independent newspaper figures show that last year the rate of forest clearance in the Amazon (the lungs of the world) was the second highest on record. An area of more than 10,000 square miles - nearly the size of Belgium - was cut down. (A booming market for soya beans for cattle feed (let them eat grass) is seemingly the main driver of rainforest destruction. The man allegedly responsible for this crime against humanity (and no I am not being melodramatic) is one Mr. Blairo Maggi, a millionaire farmer and politician - what a surprise! Remember him in your thoughts tonight.)