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V2 : Beautifull text and HD pic! ?

If you’re expecting the Victoria and Albert Museum’s latest headline exhibition, Cars: Accelerating the Modern World, to take an affectionate stroll through the 150-year history and progress of a much-loved four-wheeled transport device, you’d be dead wrong. It’s far better than that. It’s much closer to the truth that this superb display – detailed enough to provide two to four hours’ absorption for car lovers and neutrals alike – should be viewed as ‘The car and its influence, without prejudice’. Which, when you think about it, places it in a space nobody in recent memory has attempted to fill. We live nowadays either with stentorian condemnations of cars that ignore their role in enabling progress on many other fronts (and probably helped their critics get to work that morning) or uncritical descriptions of enticing products, designed mostly to keep the wheels of commerce turning. Balance, away from Autocar, at least, is distinctly lacking. Co-curators Brendan Cormier and Lizzie Bisley define their exhibition’s core purpose perfectly in the second sentence of an accompanying 220-page book you’d be crazy not to buy for £30 once you’ve seen the exhibition. The car, they say, has “stood for the possibility of a new way of living, while also being an active agent in shaping the systems, structures and images that have defined the modern world”. And the exhibition goes on to prove it. At Autocar, we already knew this was going to be an important V&A event, having previously attended a preview by Cormier, appropriately staged in the car-conscious Michelin Building just a few hundred yards from the great museum, in London’s South Kensington. Then, a day or two before the exhibition proper was to be declared open, we met Cormier again for an exclusive tour, during which he expanded on its thought-provoking aims and fascinating contents. “We have only 15 cars on display,” he explained, managing my expectations as we descended the imposing staircase into V&A’s basement gallery, “but we think they’re the right ones…” The exhibition is arranged into three sections – Going Fast, Making More and Shaping Space – each of which encompasses appropriate smaller subjects that you encounter as you walk. The first object you see is one of General Motors’ enormously influential 1950s Firebird concept cars – a kind of jet fighter on wheels – that brought the dreams of science fiction to the simple optimistic post-WW2 era, especially in the US. Cormier calls this a kind of palate cleanser for people arriving at the exhibition, as well as a graphic illustration of how society began using cars to think about a post-war world. Very soon after the car was invented, the exhibition suggests, it began to affect many other modes of modern life. Bertha Benz, driving her husband’s first production car (an 1894 Benz is displayed), showed that cars could take journeys. That required roads and refuelling facilities. And maps and fuel supplies and suitable clothing. Soon, authors, dreamers and city planners began to see how cars could change city design. John Douglas-Scott-Montagu, the current Lord Montagu’s grandfather, was a great car proponent who championed the idea of car-only motorways 40 years before the first one opened. Illustrations of his ideas are shown Racing propelled car development at places like Brooklands (opened 1907), which became both a society spot for modern-minded people and a place where women raced men – “a break with societal norms”, as Cormier puts it. Such things influenced wider society. The pursuit of speed also brought the rapid rise of streamlining: the V&A shows illustrations of Belgian Camille Jenatzy in his pioneering bullet-shaped La Jamais Contente (‘The never satisfied’) that did 60mph in 1899, plus among other vehicles a full-sized super-streamlined Czech-designed Tatra of the late 1930s. Streamlined shapes pervaded many other design forms: Cormier points to an especially fine-looking 1944 meat slicer whose shape clearly embodies the design values of racing cars and high-performance aircraft. At first, it was inadequately recognised that speed brought danger. From detailing the world’s first road fatality, the exhibition takes you through the era of post-war excess and into the ebullient American muscle car era (typified by a full-sized Mustang on display). From there, we pitch headlong into the huge influence of young safety campaigner Ralph Nader, whose work to highlight accident-prone designs led to the demise of what he cogently argued were unbalanced, inadequately suspended rear-engined cars like the Volkswagen Beetle and Chevrolet Corvair. “For over half a century the automobile has brought death, injury and the most inestimable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people,” he wrote in his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed. That initiated an urgent, accelerating era of safety in design that continues to this day and has brought huge benefits. In 1967, UK road casualties amounted to 7985. By 2016, that had fallen to a (still unacceptable) 1792 and most of today’s car makers talk of a zero-accidents ambition. The exhibition’s Making More section covers not just the exponential early-1900s build-up in car production but also oil production and mining for materials. It begins, perhaps inevitably, with a real, live Ford Model T in black. But this one has a side of pork suspended over it in recognition of the fact that Ford’s principle of the moving production line was borrowed from an abattoir. The 1909 Model T was Ford’s third or fourth attempt to make a profitable car, but its success was extraordinary. At times during its 18-year life, more than two million cars were manufactured in a single year, a figure that outshines most modern operations. At one stage, the car held 45.6% of the US market and the story was similar in the UK, where production began at Trafford Park, Manchester, in 1911. The rise of car production and how the same principles came to be applied to other industrial processes – furniture and clothing manufacture and even the advent of prefabricated buildings – are lovingly discussed in the exhibition, as are the ways mass manufacture led to labour organisation and some celebrated union disputes. We also learn how fashion informed car design with new techniques, colours and textures, and how model variety (distinctly lacking with the Model T) widened and deepened the worldwide demand for cars. In the third, Shaping Space section, one of the biggest fascinations is an emphasis placed on the rise of oil production: there’s even a running display showing, in real time, how many barrels of crude oil remain to be exploited. It’s a big number, but falling. Another extraordinary exhibit – perhaps the most remarked upon of all – is an Esso-backed poster from 1962 cheerfully boasting that the company’s refining arm, Humble Oil, “supplies enough energy to melt seven million tons of glacier” every day. It may be the museum’s most graphic indicator that times have changed… The exhibition flows on, revealing how cars inspired wonders of art like the Diego Rivera murals in central Detroit and wonders of architecture like Fiat’s Lingotto factory, the one seen in The Italian Job with a banked test track on its roof for cars built down below. It is a fascinating and challenging display whose sheer depth of information will surprise everyone, whether they think they know about cars or not.Most gratifying of all is the fact that there is nothing for the car lover to disagree with. Both the automobile’s achievements and the unintended consequences that surround its creation and proliferation are treated with deep knowledge and sensitivity. I find it remarkable that Cormier “knew nothing about cars two years ago”. Even the fact that the exhibition’s ‘supporting partner’ is Bosch – a high-achieving company that greatly benefited from explosive car production but whose pioneering roles in creating ABS and ESP have saved many lives – seems entirely appropriate. Don’t miss it.

A sleep disorder that can leave people gasping for breath at night could be linked to the amount of fat on their tongues, a study suggests. When sleep apnoea patients lost weight, it was the reduction in tongue fat that lay behind the resulting improvements, researchers said. Larger and fattier tongues are more common among obese patients. But the Pennsylvania team said other people with fatty tongues may also be at risk of the sleep disorder. The researchers now plan to work out which low-fat diets are particularly good at slimming down the tongue. Tongue tied "You talk, eat and breathe with your tongue - so why is fat deposited there?" said study author Dr Richard Schwab, of Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia. "It's not clear why - it could be genetic or environmental - but the less fat there is, the less likely the tongue is to collapse during sleep." Sleep apnoea is a common disorder that can cause loud snoring, noisy breathing and jerky movements when asleep. It can also cause sleepiness during the day, which can affect quality of life. The most common type is obstructive sleep apnoea, in which the upper airway gets partly or completely blocked during sleep. Those who are overweight or who have a large neck or tonsils are more likely to have the condition. How to help sleep apnoea Try to lose weight if you are overweight Sleep on your side - try a special pillow to help Give up smoking Do not drink too much alcohol, especially before bed Don't take sleeping pills unless recommended More serious sleep apnoea may need treatment from a sleep clinic. This can include using a CPAP machine, which gently pumps air into a mask over the mouth and nose during sleep, holding the airways open. Source: NHS UK Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, scanned 67 people with obstructive sleep apnoea who were obese and had lost 10% of their body weight, improving their symptoms by 30%. By looking at the size of patients' upper airway structures, the research team was able to find out what changes had driven the improvements. The patients' weight loss also led to a reduction in the size of a jaw muscle that controls chewing and muscles on either side of the airway, which also helped. "Now that we know tongue fat is a risk factor and that sleep apnoea improves when tongue fat is reduced, we have established a unique therapeutic target that we've never had before," said Dr Schwab. The study is published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "We know that weight loss is important as it can help to reduce upper airway narrowing," says Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at the British Lung Foundation. "This research adds some information about the exact mechanisms involved, but there aren't any ways to reduce tongue fat specifically so it doesn't seem to have any immediate practical implications for people with the condition."

A volcano in the Philippines has emitted a giant plume of ash, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of some 8,000 people living nearby. The plume coming from the Taal volcano, south of the capital Manila, stretched about 1km (0.6 miles) into the sky. Rumbling sounds and tremors were also reported around Taal - the Philippines' second-most active volcano - on Sunday. Authorities raised the alert level, warning that a "hazardous eruption" was possible within weeks. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology also warned residents living nearby of a possible "volcanic tsunami", while flights were suspended at Manila's international airport because of the volcanic ash. The po[CENSORED]rity of volcano tourism The privately owned volcano that is always active Tsunami hazards from volcanoes 'underestimated' Ash began falling in nearby areas on Sunday, with residents advised to wear masks. A man in the po[CENSORED]r holiday resort of Tagaytay told Reuters news agency he was having lunch when he heard a rumbling sound. "We saw the volcano erupting. It rained and some small pebbles fell to the ground," Jon Patrick Yen said. "I did not expect to see such spectacle." Lucy McFadden, a Filipina based in the UK, plans tours for the company Philippine Trails. She said eight tourists and two guides, including her brother, were on a boat returning from the volcano when it erupted. "About 30 minutes into their journey, the volcano erupted without warning. My brother was so scared because he knew he had a narrow escape," she told the BBC. The Philippine institute has urged people living around the volcano, located on an island in the middle of Taal lake, and two nearby "high-risk" municipalities to evacuate. Taal is one of the world's smallest volcanoes. It has recorded at least 34 eruptions in the past 450 years.

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has said the state will not accept new refugees under the US government's resettlement programme. The decision means Texas will become the first state known to do so. Last year US President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing states to opt out of the programme. On Friday, Mr Abbott said Texas had done "more than its share in assisting the refugee resettlement process". Refugee agencies have criticised the move, with one calling it "deeply disappointing". Texas has large refugee po[CENSORED]tions in several of its major cities. In the 2018 fiscal year, Texas took in 1,697 refugees - more than any other state, but a large drop from 4,768 in the previous fiscal year. Justifying his decision in a letter to the US State Department, Mr Abbott argued that the state should be focused on "those who are already here, including refugees, migrants, and the homeless - indeed, all Texans". On that basis, Mr Abbott said he "cannot consent to initial refugee resettlement" in 2020, but added that the decision "does not deny any refugee access" to the US. Refugees who are already settled in other states, Mr Abbott said, will be allowed to move to Texas if they choose. However, resettlement agencies say they would not have access to federal resettlement benefits, such as housing. In September last year, President Trump announced that states must actively consent to any resettlement of refugees after June 2020. So far, the governors of more than 40 other states have said they will opt in to the government programme. Why are more people fleeing home than ever before? The Africans risking death to reach the US Families caught in Trump's refugee clampdown Mr Trump has made reducing immigration a key aim of his administration. The president has slashed the number of refugees allowed into the country for the 2020 fiscal year to 18,000 - a record low. About 30,000 refugees were resettled in the US during the previous fiscal year. The previous lowest admissions figure was in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, when about 27,000 refugees were allowed into the US. What about Trump's travel ban? Since taking office in 2017, Mr Trump has sought to reduce the number of immigrants and refugees coming to the country. A controversial travel ban on mostly Muslim countries is one policy he has pursued to do so. The travel ban affects nationals from seven countries, five of which are majority Muslim: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. The other two are North Korea and Venezuela. Trump's executive order: Who does travel ban affect? The Associated Press reports that the Trump administration will seek to expand the travel ban to additional countries, despite being repeatedly thwarted by legal challenges.

We say goodbye to the more potent version of BMW's electric hatchback. Was it any fun to drive outside commuter hours? Life with a BMW i3S: Month 6 Time to say goodbye to BMW’s nippy hatchback. Was a decent spell of EV ownership an electrifying experience? - 24th December 2019 Long before it was time to hand the keys back to BMW, the i3s had sparked more interest from Autocar readers than anything else I’ve had the opportunity to report on. I’m grateful for all the messages, tips and positive words from owners, who clearly all love theirs and are fully converted to the EV way of life – but as much as a stretch behind the wheel opened my eyes, I’d still hesitate before making the switch. Little of that can be blamed on the car, which proved capable and entertaining. I’d argue the i3s is the first electric hot hatch, with rapid off-the-line pace and instant response that made it feel surprisingly at home on twisty B-roads. It has the rear-driven character you’d expect of a BMW but not quite the ability to fully exploit it, on account of the restrictive traction control system and tall bodystyle. A lower, more focused car with the same underpinnings would be a very fun thing indeed. Is there room in the Toyota-BMW partnership plan for a reborn MR2? It’s a practical car, too. Tall yet small, with a good view of the road ahead and the turning circle to fit into just about any parking space. The boot isn’t the biggest but more than sufficient for a weekly supermarket shop or a pair of weekend bags, and the folding rear bench meant I even managed to fit a small dining table (plus chairs) inside although the person I collected them from said it was much easier fitting them in the back of a three-door Mini. Blame a floor full of batteries. As for the i3’s backwards-opening rear doors, they give great access should you need to fit a child seat, but I imagine they’d have quickly become frustrating if I’d used them more. You can’t let rear passengers out without jumping out yourself, and getting in did prove a struggle with other cars parked either side of you. My biggest issue with the i3s was its ride, which could be comically harsh at times. A back-to-back drive in a regular i3 on smaller wheels proved to me that 20in alloys and run-flat tyres don’t make much sense on a car that’s likely to spend most of its time in town, however good they look, filling those widened wheel arches. Still, I was happy to put up with it in return for grin-inducing performance. That alone wouldn’t be enough to make me pause before making the i3 my only means of transport, but I feel it could have done a better job at helping me overcome my range anxiety. ‘How many miles you have left’ didn’t ever seem to be how many miles I had left, with the car reporting wildly varied amounts after completing a charge, even if my driving style had barely changed between top-ups. I’m also aware that my time with the car was spent in part over the summer. My next longterm test car will also be an EV, but this time I’ll be running it through the depths of winter, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on temperatures and how they affect battery drain. I didn’t feel I was missing out by not having a charging point at home, as I had one at the other end of my commute, but the need to rely on the UK’s still-maturing charging network meant this wasn’t a car I’d ever have taken on a long drive just for the sake of it. My experience with public charging points was more negative than not, with charging bays sometimes taken by internal combustion engined cars, broken fast chargers and a confusing number of accounts to register for all conspiring to spoil my transition from fossil fuel. The speed at which regular motorway driving could sap the battery didn’t inspire confidence, either. I would tackle 100-mile trips in Eco mode, even though the car is more than capable of doing that kind of distance without needing to recharge, because the thought of running out of power and being stranded was worse than engaging cruise control and slipstreaming an HGV at 56mph. I think undertaking some true long-distance drives would have helped get me over this apprehension and I was in the planning stages of one towards the end of my i3 tenure, but poor timing meant it didn’t pan out unfortunately. EV ownership was a journey I was taking alongside more people than ever, with hybrid and pure-electric car sales accounting for one in 10 registrations in October. Whether the i3 will account for many of those in the future is tough to predict. It’s currently one of the quickest compact EVs on sale, but if size isn’t everything, the £43,000 asking price of our test car, including options, puts it more than £5000 more expensive than a base Tesla Model 3 – which also promises more range and access to Tesla’s Supercharger network. It’s more fun to drive than any of its direct rivals today, but as the number of affordable electric hatchbacks increases, I’m not sure the BMW’s quirky doors and expensive carbonfibre construction will tempt customers away from more conventional alternatives. I really like the i3s, but not quite all of it. I love the looks, proportions, performance and interior choices. Its compactness is great and the agility is close to full-on hot hatch. I also admire BMW’s ambition in committing itself so early and wholeheartedly to a new-era design. Sadly, however, other cars have caught up in five years. They’re now more practical, more ordinary and go a lot further. They ride better, too. So although my heart says our household needs one of these, my head tells me to shop elsewhere. Range worrier to range warrior? On this evidence, that might be the case following an invitation from Tom Morgan to borrow ‘his’ BMW i3s. Life with an all-electric car wasn’t something I’d considered much – not through blind loyalty to the good old internal combustion engine; rather because I had doubts my nerves would survive the anxiety of keeping the thing charged. Turns out, for my specific needs, range worry was a waste of time. It also turns out that by avoiding such cars, I’ve been missing out. A week spent in the company of the i3s was something of a revelation. But wait, don’t yawn. This is not a standard tale of Road to Damascus EV conversion. Instead, without range worries, I’ve been able to focus on the merits of the car, as a car. Never mind the power source, could it survive and even thrive as a member of my family? The Saturday proved a useful gauge. The morning was taken up by a 70-mile return journey to Crowborough, East Sussex, to visit the south-east’s finest purveyor of saxophones, in company with my budding John Coltrane of a teenage son. Upon our return, the little ones and Mrs Smith piled in for a 40-mile family outing to visit friends within the M25 ring. So 110 miles in a car with a 42kWh battery and a range comfortably accurate to the official WLTP figure of 177 miles? There you have it: charge anxiety dismissed.

Easy overnight oats are perfect as a healthy post-exercise breakfast. It's quick to prepare and ready-to-go when you are! Each serving provides 534 kcal, 26g protein, 66g carbohydrate, 17g fat, 8g fibre.

Dextera, This year goes well for u ? Congrats mashino!

The final 2019 registration figure for new cars in the UK is expected to be close to 2.3 million, which would represent a 2.8% drop on 2018 and a fall of 14.6% from the 2016 peak of just under 2.7m. Another decline is expected in 2020, to 2.2m if the Brexit process goes relatively smoothly. If the chaos and indecision of 2019 gets worse in 2020, then a fall to 2.0m or below is entirely possible. For now, here's the good and bad news of 2019.

A cancer patient had to have a five inch (14cm) horn-shaped growth removed from his back. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) said the 50-year-old man was operated on at the Countess of Chester Hospital, with a skin graft taken from his thigh. The journal's authors said the man had been a low-risk patient with no "significant" exposure to the sun. The patient, who worked as a labourer, and his family had no history of skin cancer, the BMJ said. The growth had expanded over three years, but doctors were surprised that there was no abnormal growth in his lymph nodes.The report's authors, Agata Marta Plonczak, Ramy Aly, Hrsikesa Sharma and Anca Breahna, said they were raising awareness about skin cancer. They noted: "We report a rare case of an extremely large well-differentiated SCC [Squamous Cell Carcinoma] that was neglected by a patient living in a developed country with access to free healthcare. "This highlights that despite current public skin cancer awareness and rigorous healthcare measures, cases like this can still arise and slip through the net." They said the kind of cancer the patient experienced was the second most common non-melanoma skin cancer, although most cases were diagnosed and treated early before becoming '"dragon horns".

Protesters angered by recent US air strikes targeting an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia have attacked the American embassy compound in Baghdad. US troops fired tear gas to disperse a crowd that got into a reception area in the compound, which is in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone. A guard post on the street nearby was also set alight. US President Donald Trump accused Iran of "orchestrating" the attack and said it would be "held fully responsible". Iran denied this, and condemned the "audacity" of the US in blaming Tehran. At least 25 fighters died when the US bombed bases associated with the Kataib Hezbollah militia in western Iraq and eastern Syria on Sunday. The US said it was retaliating for a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk on Friday that killed an American civilian contractor. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said the strikes had violated his country's sovereignty, while Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, warned that its response "would be very tough on the American forces in Iraq". US attacks Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria Iran's network of influence in Mid-East 'growing' What happened in Baghdad? Tuesday's protest took place after funerals were held in Baghdad for the militia fighters who were killed in the US strikes. Thousands of mourners - including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and several other senior militia and paramilitary leaders - marched towards the Green Zone, where many Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies are located. They were allowed by Iraqi security forces to enter the zone and gather on a street outside the US embassy compound. "This embassy has been proved to be an embassy of plotting against Iraq," said Qais al-Khazali, head of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia. Waving Kataib Hezbollah and other militia flags, and chanting anti-American slogans, the protesters threw stones at the compound's main gate, pulled down security cameras, attacked empty guard posts, and started fires. The situation later escalated when the compound's wall was breached. According to the Associated Press news agency, a gate was smashed open and dozens of people pushed about 5m (16ft) into a corridor leading to the main embassy building, before being forced to retreat by tear gas fired by US troops. A US official told CBS News that the compound had not been breached but that protesters had scaled a wall with a ladder and get into a reception area outside it. Iraqi soldiers and riot police were reportedly later deployed in the area and the protest died down as night fell. Fifty people were treated for tear-gas inhalation at hospitals in Baghdad, a health ministry source told the BBC. None of the embassy staff were evacuated, but they are now on lockdown, CBS reported. Ambassador Matthew Tueller was outside Iraq for a previously scheduled holiday and was reportedly returning to the embassy. What was the reaction? Hours after the protest began, Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi called on people to leave the area around the US embassy. "Any attack on or harassment of embassies and foreign delegations are acts that will be firmly prevented by security forces and severely punished by the law," he said. President Trump tweeted: "Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy." There was no immediate response from the Iranian government. Defence Secretary Mark Esper later said the US had used "appropriate force" to protect the embassy, adding: "We are sending additional forces to support our personnel." He gave no details. Kataib Hezbollah meanwhile called for protest outside the embassy until it was closed and the ambassador was expelled from Iraq, news website Al-Sumaria said. Why did the US target Kataib Hezbollah? The US said the militia had carried out repeated attacks on Iraqi bases that host US-led coalition forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) group. In response, it added, US forces conducted "precision defensive strikes" on Sunday against five facilities, including weapon stores and command and control locations, that would degrade its ability to conduct future attacks. Since 2009, the US has designated Kataib Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation and listed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as a "global terrorist". The defence department said the militia had a "strong linkage" with Iran's Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), and had "repeatedly received lethal aid and other support from Iran".

Some have been replaced but many have gone forever… Such is the pace of change that it seems no sooner are some cars introduced than they're consigned to the annals of history. Most cars are replaced on a five- or six-year model cycle, but some of the models canned in 2019 have been around a lot longer than that – one was introduced a massive 20 years ago, albeit with a facelift here and there along the way. That one we're not too upset about losing but of the 55 axed cars here, some corkers have gone to the great showroom in the sky.

The amount of food needed to feed the world's po[CENSORED]tion by the end of the century could increase by almost 80%, a study has suggested. Researchers from Germany said a trend of increasing Body Mass Index (BMI) is resulting in individuals requiring more calories. The authors warn that failure to meet the need for more calories could lead to greater global inequality. The findings have been published in the journal Plos One. The study, carried out by a team from the University of Gottingen, calculated that 60% of the calorie increase would be a result of the growing number of people in the world. According to the UN World Po[CENSORED]tion Prospects, the global po[CENSORED]tion was estimated to increase from almost seven billion in 2010 to almost 11 billion in 2100. Yet, more that 18% of the increase in the calories from 2010 levels would come from a projected increase in height and weight figures in the global po[CENSORED]tion. Have a banana - or two "The increase in the average daily required energy rises by 253 kcal per person between 2010 and 2100 in our estimations, assuming a rising BMI and height," explained co-author Lutz Depenbusch from the World Vegetable Center. He told BBC News: "On a global scale, we calculate that the effect of the BMI and height increases in our model would lead to additional calorie requirements that match the 2010 requirements of India and Nigeria combined." In terms of what food would equate to an increase of 253 calories in someone's daily diet, Dr Depenbusch said an extra two large bananas or a portion of French fries would be on the menu. Dr Depenbusch and his colleague, Prof Stephan Klasen from the University of Gottingen, Germany, said their modelling suggested that sub-Saharan nations would be most affected by such an increase in future global calorie requirements. They explained that the region was already witnessing a sharp increase in the need for calories as it was undergoing a rate of rapid po[CENSORED]tion growth. The researchers warned that a failure of the global food policy to accommodate this increase in the demand for more energy could exacerbate food and economic inequality. They warned that a growing demand for food would lead to an increase in food prices. While rich nations would be able to absorb the increases, poorer nations would struggle, leading to more malnutrition.

A British man and his two children who drowned in a resort swimming pool on the Costa del Sol on Christmas Eve have been named by Spanish police. Gabriel Diya, 52, his daughter Comfort Diya, 9, and his son Praise-Emmanuel Diya, 16, died in the pool at Club La Costa World, near Fuengirola. Police say they are checking claims the young girl got into difficulties and the other two died trying to save her. The church where Mr Diya was a pastor has paid tribute to him on Facebook. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) said in a post: "With heavy hearts, we extend our condolences to the family, parish, friends and associates of Area Pastor Gabriel Diya who sadly passed away, along with two of his children... in a tragic incident while on a family holiday in Spain." "At this very difficult time, our prayers are for Pastor Gabriel Diya's family, the parishes that were under his supervision, friends, associates, members of RCCG and the general public," the post added. The church said Mr Diya was also the parish pastor at Open Heavens, a Christian religious group with origins in Nigeria, based in Charlton, south east London, and he was survived by his wife, assistant pastor Olubunmi Diya, and another daughter. Police said divers retrieved Comfort's swimming hat from the pool pump. But they said that investigators had found nothing wrong with the pool, which has since reopened. Because the pool is a very small one, lifeguards were "not necessary" so there were none present, a spokesman for the Spanish Civil Guard told the BBC. The hotel owners described the incident as a "tragic accident". The UK Foreign Office said it was supporting a British woman in Spain, thought to be the children's mother. Man and children drowned 'in tragic accident' Three members of same family 'drown' at resort The father and daughter were both British passport holders while the brother had an American passport. In a statement released on Christmas Day the owners of Club La Costa World said: "The Guardia Civil have carried out a full investigation which found no concerns relating to the pool in question or procedures in place, which leaves us to believe this was a tragic accident which has left everyone surrounding the incident in shock. "Naturally, our primary concern remains the care and support of the remaining family members." Locally-based freelance journalist Gerard Couzens said that the hotel had confirmed it had reopened the pool after it was given permission to do so by police. "The message from the hotel is very clear. They were given permission to reopen the pool by the police yesterday," he told BBC Breakfast. "That pool where this terrible tragedy occurred on Christmas Eve is open for use again. And the management are saying the police have given the pool a clean bill of health." Local journalist Fernando Torres told the BBC it was a shocking scene. "The resort workers heard the screaming and they tried to do CPR [resuscitation] as well, but they couldn't help them," he said. "Then the emergency doctors came and they tried for 30-35 minutes, but they couldn't revive them."

Six months ago, this tractor did not exist. JCB had just set a new land speed record in a Fastrac tractor, an impressive 103mph. But, as you may have seen on Channel 4 recently, the JCB team and their nominated driver, Guy Martin, didn’t think that was fast enough. So JCB went away and didn’t just set about upgrading the tractor that has set the July record but built an entirely one, from the ground up. So now there are two very quick JCBs.In late October, this, the Fastrac Two, set a new world record for a modified tractor, at 135.191mph over a two-way average, with a peak speed at the end of Elvington’s runway of 153.771mph. Directly from there, it was taken to London and put on static display, and from there, it was trailered to Autocar’s preferred test base for this kind of thing, in Rutland. There, we became the only other people to date to drive the JCB Fastrac Two World’s Fastest Tractor. This year’s Christmas road test is the world’s fastest tractor. Tractors, by definition, are not designed to travel at fast speeds. ‘Traction’ units are designed to haul – using lots of torque – large, heavy objects. So making a tractor go fast is anathema to the agriculture/ construction business. The regular Fastrac has an innate advantage over most tractors in that it has a separate chassis, whereas most agricultural examples do not. They often don’t have rear suspension but instead suspend the cab on the drivetrain at the rear, with front suspension only. The Fastrac, meanwhile, has full suspension front and rear, which gives it better road manners than most tractors. And although the Fastrac has a slightly lower top speed than a Mercedes Unimog four-wheel-drive truck, it has a high top speed for a tractor. So as farms grow in size and fields may be miles apart, this means farmers can use a tractor rather than a truck. You’ll note that its top speed of 43mph, though, is still some way short of 155mph. So to make the WFT that fast while trying to keep it true to its tractorish roots required some extraordinary measures and it’s only when you see the two machines side by side that you really see the lengths JCB’s team has gone to. The Fastrac looks fairly dynamic for a normal tractor, but with a cab high above your head and tyres that come up to your eyeballs, it’s still a tractor. Next to it, the record-breaking Fastrac Two looks like a computer rendering of a concept. For one, it’s lower. The Fastrac has two deep chassis rails running from front to rear and the weight of those has been halved. It’s in kind of three sections: there’s a rear section around the suspension, a front section around the engine and a centre section near the cabin. The whole thing has been dropped, with the engine significantly lower and the front drivetrain, which makes the usual Fastrac four-wheel drive, removed. The conventional Fastrac uses a two-ratio CVT transmission, but the WFT doesn’t. Instead, JCB has brought in an old-school ZF six-speed H-pattern manual truck gearbox. Behind the ’box runs a beefier propshaft (albeit one from a tractor), running through to a rear axle that features a tractor crown wheel and pinion, with a spool differential that locks the rear wheel rotation together. In some ways, if you want to go fast in a straight line, you couldn’t ask for a more perfect set-up: a front-mounted, longitudinally positioned, perfectly smooth six-cylinder engine driving through a manual gearbox to a locked rear diff, with four big wheels aligned to point in the same direction. Those wheels, incidentally, which come up to your shoulders rather than your head, are standard tractor affairs and built by GKN, the usual supplier, although they’re the smallest fitted to a JCB tractor and constructed to a tolerance of less than 1mm, rather than the usual 3mm. They also carry wheel weights, up to 1kg, to balance the tyres, which tractors don’t usually bother with because they don’t go fast enough. The tyres themselves still carry the ‘A8’ speed rating markings from the mould they’re made in – which is a 25mph-rated standard tractor tyre. However, they carry two internal bands to limit exterior expansion to no more than 2mm at 150mph, they have more natural rubber in the compound and they have had their tread pattern buffed down to 10mm from the standard 27mm. We suppose they could have gone further but this is, after all, still meant to be a tractor. Aerodynamic body addenda diverts air around a standard-shaped bonnet (it’s aluminium rather than steel) and around a cabin that looks standard at a glance but is anything but. It has been reduced in width by 300mm and height by a further 200mm, so in all, its roof is 400mm lower than a normal Fastrac’s. Finally, then, to the details of probably the most important bit: the engine. In July, when JCB originally set the record, it had an engine that produced approximately 500bhp. It’s a JCB 672 engine, an inline sixcylinder pushrod four-valve diesel, and its power was good enough for three figures. But to go half as fast again, they wanted twice as much power. Which meant things got very, very serious, very quickly.The new engine has the biggest turbocharger you’ll find fitted to a tractor. It produces 5.0 bar of boost and, as big turbos do, doesn’t boost big until it has a lot of air going into it. So there is an electrically powered supercharger to keep the turbo spinning at low revs, while during gearshifts on what is a leisurely H-pattern ’box, there is a scuba-dive tank at the rear, which fires air at 100 bar into the exhaust and keeps the turbo spinning while the clutch is in. So the big turbo is spinning all the time, which is ace. But a 141bhp-per-litre diesel generates lots of heat, which radiates into the intake air, which ideally you want cool. So there is a huge ice-cold water-to-air intercooler between the turbo and the intake manifold. JCB’s engineers load that with 25kg of ice prior to each run, and by the end of a runway, it’s all gone. But in the meantime, it’s taking air from the turbo at 280deg C and cooling it to 10deg C before it comes out of the intercooler. The air goes into the engine via standard inlet valves, into a cylinder whose compression ratio has been reduced from 18:1 to 11:1, via machining the tops of the standard pistons. They push on forged con-rods but do drive a standard crankshaft. The exhaust valves are the same size as usual, but because of the extreme combustion temperatures, they’re made from a different material, after which gases reach an exhaust manifold that is 3D printed from Inconel because it reaches nearly 1000deg C. It glows red not just when the engine is on a test bed, but even when it’s running at speed in cool air. So all of that combined gives this machine performance that we’ll come to in a moment but it also means it’s incredibly fragile at those power outputs. After the record runs, JCB discovered some microscopic cracks and saw torque peaks of up to 3300lb ft acting on the propshaft. So the wick was, sadly but inevitably, slightly turned down for our test, leaving us a little over 500bhp to get on with. That’s why the performance figures quoted here are from the record-setting runs, at which point in-gear the Fastrac Two will give a Ford Focus RS a run for its money at higher speeds. In the 500bhp form we ran it, and on a shortened runway, it still did 112mph and left a Ford Ranger Raptor in its wake.Interior If the outside looks like a tractor that could have rolled in from the set of a science fiction film, it is pure race car inside. There’s a single Cobra race bucket seat with head bolsters and a five-point harness and, around you in this fairly spartan cabin, there is polycarbonate instead of glass for the surfaces, with two escape hatches, a fire extinguisher and the biggest FIA-approved roll-cage we’ve seen bolted directly to the chassis. Fixed to that are a few screens: a Racelogic speedo hooked up to a GPS data logger, a tyre pressure and temperature sensor, and a big central screen, showing some temperatures and a rev counter. To your right is the six-speed ’box, with magnetic sensors at the end of each gate because different gears get a different throttle and torque map so as not to destroy the diff or spin up the wheels (a very real possibility, terrifyingly). Behind that is a flat panel with light switches, display switchgear and the most important thing of all: the start switch. Performance To start a conventional tractor, you turn a key, there’s some whirring and, after a while, away it goes, because these machines have big batteries and compressors and an alternator on board. The whole thing is self-contained. The WFT is not so simple because it has gone from being a machine you’d run all day for days on end to one you run briefly not very often. In taking it from nine tonnes to less than five tonnes, JCB opted to delete some equipment, in addition to giving it a lower and lighter chassis and making it slightly smaller. So there is no power take-off, for example, because there is no on-board compressor for hydraulics, or air. And, in fact, no alternator. So to start the WFT, you have to hook it up to a generator or battery on a truck, which then follows it around in case you stall. Not that there’s as much chance of that as is usual in valuable, rare cars, where a nervous owner will say: please, don’t slip the clutch because it costs a fortune, wears out quickly and nobody makes them any more. It’s different here. JCB designed an eight-plate clutch that runs in a huge bath of oil and is so robust that the way it is tested is to fit it to a tractor, running it at top speed while towing 20 tonnes, selecting reverse gear and slipping the clutch until the set-up is driving backwards. So it can easily handle the WFT’s five tonnes setting off from rest. JCB’s engineers suggest you select second gear, wind on 2500rpm (max revs are at a 3400rpm hard limiter and 3000rpm is a good change-up point) and slip the clutch almost all the way through second gear while keeping those revs high. This is slightly easier said than done when the clutch pedal is so light and there is no discernible feel through it but, once rolling, it’s that much easier. Even with less than maximum power, this is still a powertrain with a very narrow operating window. Guy Martin has said you could drive off into a field and plough with the WFT, which sounds great but is not even close to accurate. Running this is like an agricultural-sized F1 car. Because of the low compression ratio, combustion doesn’t come easily if temperatures are too low so there is a grid heater to pre-warm air at low speeds (yes, that’s reheating air that has just passed through a massive intercooler), but this heater switches out as speeds and revs rise because the thinking is that there’s sufficient heat to keep combustion going nicely. In between those two states, though – once the grid heaters are off but before the tractor is going flat out – it doesn’t run happily. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the sort of low, constant speed that we like to drive at for photos and video. Here, the Fastrac Two is such a smoking, banging, recalcitrant mess that at one point we thought it had exploded. If you want to run at tractory speeds, then, you can’t: it likes to be at idle, or flat out. And flat out, it’s amazing. A support car like a Ford Ranger Raptor struggles to keep pace with it, even in its 500bhp tune. The performance figures on full power show it reaches 60mph from rest in 9.86sec, but the way this huge, five-tonne machine keeps on pulling is what’s so impressive. Even on a far shorter runway and with much less power than during the record run at Elvington, we saw 112mph, which would have made us land speed record holders earlier this year and still leaves us the second-fastest tractor drivers in the world (if you don’t count JCB’s in-house testers). Which is quite pleasing. Once rolling, it’s surprisingly easy to keep the WFT going fast. After gearchanges, the clutch and engine take-up is no more difficult than in a regular car, you’ll never miss a gear on the big-gated manual gearbox and the in-gear flexibility comes without holes or torque gap. It’s a smooth and responsive if noisy engine. But then there’s the stopping. There are air brakes, massively over-served, and the standard discs are just as up to the job of stopping five tonnes from 150mph a few times on a runway as they are nine tonnes plus whatever it’s towing countless times on the road. But you’ll remember we said there is no on-board compressor: instead, two air canisters on the back must be filled before each outing, because they provide air to the system, and once they’re empty, they’re empty, and you’ll have no braking apart from an ineffectual parachute. The engineers think there are 40 stops in the tanks and they usually recharge well before 20. But still, worth remembering. Handling and stability The Fastrac Two runs nitrogen dampers on its three-link suspension, with live axles front and rear, and although the cabin is not suspended, ride comfort is pliant. Granted, we’re only running it on a runway, not in a field. The steering is hydraulic, with three turns between locks, and there is no direct mechanical link to the front wheels, so you can end up in a situation where the standard JCB steering wheel isn’t showing straight even though the wheels are pointed straight. But the only truly weird thing about the driving experience is remembering that the rear wheels are locked, so the turning circle is a runway’s width. It’ll do tighter turns but I don’t imagine the rear axle will thank you for it. But whatever crosswinds or headwinds, despite the blocky shape of the machine, this is a straight-line monster. It’s completely stable, with absolutely no drama whatsoever as you run it through the gears. Starting in second and getting through to fifth, it’s huge testament to its engineering that it doesn’t want to do anything other than track totally straight, despite all controls bar the throttle pedal being light. There’s no great brake feel and it’s a bit like a Dallara Stradale in that there’s a lot of movement in the pedal. And you don’t heel and toe: you just knock the stick into neutral and, when going slowly enough, slide it back into gear. It’s an undramatic but deeply, deeply impressive driving experience. Buying and owning JCB is disinclined to say just how much it has spent on not just one but two tractors, but it clearly thinks it’s worth it, not only as a marketing exercise but also, given it’s an engineering-led company, as a technical exercise. There has been some help from Williams (aerodynamics) and Ricardo (engine), an existing JCB partner already, but there’s no question this is an expensive machine to make and a complicated one to run. We started setting up the WFT at 8am and it wasn’t ready until midday, having been in a hangar with heaters blowing at its important bits for several hours because the gearbox oil is uninterested below 70deg C. Verdict What’s so refreshing and exciting about spending time with Fastrac Two is not just the machine itself, but also meeting the engineers who arrive with it, who designed it, who put it together and who run it. JCB has put a small, talented and young team in charge of the project in a similar fashion to the way Lamborghini put brilliant young engineers, designers and test drivers in charge of developing the Miura. And beyond the headlines and the JCBWFT hashtags and the TV programme and even the record itself, their experience matters most. Because although JCB knows that creating the world’s fastest tractor has benefit to it as a marketing tool, it also has massive merit as a technical exercise, and in the world of agricultural and construction equipment, engineering counts for more than styling, marketing or advertising. So here’s to a five-star speed record, a five-star machine and its five-star engineers. If you want to do 150mph in a tractor, there’s nobody we’d trust more. Production one also world's fastest JCB offers two base ranges of Fastrac tractor, the 4000 and 8000. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Fastrac Two record tractor is based on the higher-spec 8000 unit. The 8000 is the world’s fastest production tractor, with a top speed of 43mph. Chief among the differences is that the WFT uses JCB’s own engine, the 672 unit, which it puts in its own vehicles and sells to others (and is used in the 328mph Dieselmax land speed record car). The standard Fastrac 8000, though, uses an 8.4-litre engine from Finnish engine maker AGCO Power and it develops up to 349bhp and 1062lb ft. On a regular Fastrac, that torque goes to all four wheels via a two-range continuously variable transmission – low speed up to 25mph when pulling, the higher speed from rest to 43mph in lower-stress operation. The wheels have reduction hubs, too, so the wheels are spinning more slowly than the transmission – not something the WFT gets. The production tractor has electrohydraulic four-wheel-drive engagement and locking front and rear differentials, and vast options for electric and hydraulic power take-off front and rear.