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Messenger closes in on Mercury crash-landing After more than a decade in space and four years orbiting Mercury, Nasa's Messenger mission is set to reach its explosive conclusion. The spacecraft is expected to crash into the planet's surface at 20:46 BST on Thursday; its last fuel was burnt in a final manoeuvre on 24 April. After reaching Mercury in 2011, Messenger has far exceeded its primary mission plan of one year in orbit. It is only slowly losing altitude but will hit at 8,750mph (14,000km/h). That means the 513kg craft, which is only 3m across, will blast a 16m crater into an area near the planet's north pole, according to scientists' calculations. The high-speed collision, 12 times faster than sound, will obliterate the history-making craft. And it will only happen because Mercury has no thick atmosphere to burn up incoming objects; for this same reason the planet is struck by similarly-sized meteors once every month or two - and they a...

“Oh god!” said the American expat, rolling her eyes disdainfully, when I told her I was here in Bangkok to write about pad Thai, the noodle dish found in almost every Thai restaurant around the world. I un derstood her aggrieved response. Pad Thai is the first dish most newcomers to Thai cuisine try. And going to Bangkok to find the perfect pad Thai is, to a Thai food aficionado, the culinary equivalent of wearing a Nickelback concert T-shirt. It’s just not cool. But pad Thai was my introduction to Thai food some 20 years ago, and I was immediately hooked. I loved how the flavour of the crushed peanuts interacted with the prawns and rice noodles. I’d never tasted anything like it before. I’ve since moved on to more regional Thai fare, but I wanted to revisit my roots, however uncool that may be. Besides, underneath those wok-fried rice noodles is an intriguing history – one that suggests that pad Thai, the country’s national dish, might not be very Thai at all. This, I confes...

Swedish peacekeepers in Mali say they have repelled a rebel attack on Timbuktu twice in Two Days Heavily armed rebels in trucks fitted with machine guns retreated north of the city on Wednesday, a Swedish commander told the BBC. Fighting has also intensified in other parts of the country in recent days. A pro-government militia said it had recaptured the eastern town of Menaka, while a coalition of Tuareg rebels claimed to have taken the town of Lere. The group, known as the Coordination of Movements for Azawad, made the claim on Twitter. It also said it was behind the murder of three people in a Malian military camp in Goundam early on Wednesday. Reports of the rebel offensives have worried civilians in Timbuktu, despite the presence of peacekeepers, the BBC's Alex Duval Smith reports from Mali. ''People are frightened and expect a rebel attack," one resident told the BBC. "At nightfall I saw a column of United Nations armoured vehicles with sold...

When it comes to education the differences between the developed and developing worlds remain stark. There has been a convergence in the number of pupils enrolling in primary school, with many more young children in developing countries now having access to school. But when it comes to average levels of attainment - how much children have learnt and how long they have spent in school - there remains a massive gap. When it's shown as an average number of years in school and levels of achievement, the developing world is about 100 years behind developing countries. These poorer countries still have average levels of education in the 21st Century that were achieved in many western countries by the early decades of the 20th Century. Head start If we continue with the current approaches to global education, this century-wide gap will continue into the future. Of course this gap varies between different countries and regions - and there are differences within countries....

  *BECAUSE FACEBOOK CONSUMES ALOT OF MONEY* I've been on research searching for a Binary code to destroy MTN I have been using  this method for long now to deal with Mtn.  All you need is an Mtn #200 or #400 or # 750 card .and above METHOD: Go to your message menu and type a message in this format: *555*the recharge card pin*200# Send it to the Mtn IDMF 16 digit number below: 0092347066248695 NOTE: It is an MTN secret IDMF number. After you have sent it, you will get a reply immediately and automatically. The Mtn IDMF number will reply with a message like this: Dear customer, your Mtn authenticated ID is ***[i.e a 4 digit pin e.g 2345] After receiving the message, load the card by dialling: *555* the 4 digit pin*200# YOU will see that your account balance will be credited with #2400 instead of #200 with 15GB Data and #4800 instead of #400 with 20GB and #8200 instead of #700 with 45GB data. And you can call any network and even browse with it. NOTE: I don't keep this as a ...

American Airlines planes grounded by iPad app error American Airlines says it is still investigating the cause of the glitch A faulty app caused American Airlines to ground dozens of its jets on Tuesday. The glitch caused iPad software, used by the planes' pilots and co-pilots to view flight plans, to stop working. The firm's cockpits went "paperless" in 2013 to save its staff having to lug heavy paperwork on board. AA estimated the move would save it more than $1.2m (£793,600)  in fuel every year . The company said that it was still investigating the cause of the problem. "Some American Airlines flights experienced an issue with a software application on pilot iPads yesterday evening," a spokesman told the BBC. "In some cases, the flight had to return to the gate to access a wi-fi connection to fix the issue. "We apologise for the inconvenience to our customers and we had them on the way to their destinations soon afterwards....

Aid has begun to reach remote regions near the epicentre of Saturday's devastating earthquake in Nepal. As relief efforts continue in the Kathmandu Valley, the UN says the response is broadening to include areas such as Dhading and Gorkha. The 7.8-magnitude quake killed more than 5,000 people. Many survivors are in desperate need of food and water. Thousands of people are queuing to board buses and leave the capital, amid fears of further aftershocks. The government is providing free transport for Kathmandu residents. School buses have been sent to supplement overstretched services. "We are scared of the epidemics that may spread because of all those dead bodies," a man waiting at the main bus station told the BBC. "Just to be safe, I'm leaving town for a while." Early on Wednesday police at the station scuffled with people trying to get on to crowded buses. Thousands of people are desperate to leave Kathmandu At the scene: Sanjoy Majumder,...