The Seven Springs Resort in Pennsylvania is building a Superpipe, rails and other extreme sport-type features in a new terrain park near its Alpine Meadows slope.

This will be developed as a perfect venue for Skiers and Snowboarders.The Superpipe, shaped like the letter U, will be 450 feet long and 56 feet wide. Its walls will be 18 feet high.It will definitely become a bigger attraction for extreme sports junkies.

X sports mass adrenalin appeal is sure to get the masses hooked onto definite environmental concerns with the efforts of Frank Scura. Extreme sports have become a reaaal hit with 140,000 people having seen X sports on Espn this August.

So there is a lot that x sports heroes can do for environmental causes. Frank Scura has been abel to mobalise the entire lot through his bay area based Action Sports Environmental Coalition.

He seems to have given a completely new direction to the sports by encouraging the members to use equipments made by environmentally savy companies . He also urges his mates to take on green Sponsers for their own sports even though they may loose out on big sums.

Cara-Beth Burnside(gold winner X games) , says

“We can be involved with conscious sponsors, but stay fully in the mainstream.”

His big plans include solar-power and recycling programsand organic clothing lines. Frank says;

“By next year, we will have saved millions of pounds of greenhouse gases, pesticide runoff, water pollution from dyes, and air pollution.”

He seems to have hit the nail on the head by trying to stop the degradation with every dollar that is spent.

Are you planning to roll on the Lower Kern this summer? If you are, then it’s time for you to act quickly, the rafting trips are expected to end by Aug 20. Usually the rafting season runs till the end of September but this year the amount of water is little below the normal so the rafting trips will not run till September.

Whitewater rafting is a popular pastime throughout the Kern River. There are many companies that offer rafting trips. The majority of trips along the river range between Class III and Class V rapids. Also, there are some Class II rapids that provide exciting adventures for younger and inexperienced rafters. Choose the class level you are comfortable with.

Lickety Split is the easiest of the trips. This takes rafters through Class II-III rapids just upriver from Kernville and offers beautiful views of the river banks and surrounding forests. The Pictor is another Class II-III trip which runs south of Lake Isabella Dam and offers stunning views of Kern River Canyon in all of its glory. The Sampler is a Class III-IV run on the Upper Kern, a half-day trip that offers an idea of what rafting the river is like.

Keep in mind your level of experience and how much time you have for rafting. There are a number of companies that provide equipment and guides for trips along the rapids. It’s best to take a guide with you when rafting the river, especially if it’s your first time whitewater rafting. Be safe and enjoy your Lower Kern rafting trip!

NASA’s Swift satellite and Japan’s Suzaku X-ray observatory claimed to have discovered a new class of active galactic nuclei (AGN).

AGN is distinguished from common galaxies as class, most luminous in the universe, such as quasars, blazars, and Seyfert galaxies, mostly powered by supermassive black holes, often emitting energy that equals energy of billion of stars from a region no larger than our solar system.

Evidence with respect to the new type of AGN began over the past two years and with the help of Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) Jack Tueller, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, found nearby AGNs that were previously missed because their visible and ultraviolet light was smothered by gas and dust.

These two newly discovered AGNs, targeted by Japan’s Suzaku, were found to be residing in the galaxies ESO 005-g004 and ESO297-G018, which are about 80 million and 350 million light years from Earth, respectively.

This discovery will help scientists to explain why the previous X-ray AGN surveys missed these two AGNs as Suzaku was expected to cover broader range of X-ray energies than BAT, however, in spite of this advantage, it detected very low or medium range energies.

As believed previously, AGNs are surrounded by donut-shaped ring of materials, which partially obscures our view of the black hole. Team member Richard Mushotzky thinks that a shell of obscuring material, which made it difficult for us to locate, surrounds these AGNs.

We can see visible light from other types of AGN because there is scattered light. But in these two galaxies, all the light coming from the nucleus is totally blocked, says Mushotzky.

The astronomers are of the opinion that 20 percent of X-ray radiations constitute these objects based on the previous observations. However, these observations, based upon Chandra observatory, were unable to identify the nature of all these sources.

Discovery of these new AGNs is an important step towards understanding the evolution of universe as black holes are thought to play important role in this process.

    Padraig Harrington, the 2007 Open champion, was still celebrating his win in the small hours of yesterday morning. He and his wife, Caroline, finally went to sleep at four but, only two hours later, the player was wide awake again.

	Local hero: Open winner Padraig Harrington back on Irish soil

Six o'clock or not, he wanted to issue his wife with a reminder. "I'm the Open champion," he whispered. Caroline confirmed that he was not dreaming and suggested that they both go back to sleep.

"We're both thinking 'Wow', we can't believe this has happened," said Harrington, 35. "It's so hard to take it in."

Now, he would like nothing more than to see the television footage of the championship, the reason being that he did not have much idea of what was going on at the time.

For instance, it was not until 11 o'clock on Sunday night that he learned Andres Romero had held the lead after his run of four successive birdies from the 11th.

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"I looked at the final leaderboard and thought to myself that Andres had done well to get to six under, but I had no idea how he had got there," Harrington said. "It just goes to show the extent to which I was in the zone."

Harrington's septuagenarian coach, Bob Torrance, thought his player had thrown the championship away when he paid his two visits to the Barry Burn at the 72nd. Harrington, at that point, was struggling to keep thoughts of Jean van de Velde at bay.

"One big part of me making six was that it was not the same seven that Jean took. I was counting as I went. I was sliding down this slippery slope and, in the end, the fact that I got down in a chip and putt gave me a bit of comfort."

In the play-off, Harrington picked up two shots on Sergio Garcia at the first and still had a two-shot lead on his return to the 18th. This time, he took aim on the bogey, which would mean that Garcia would need a birdie to draw level.

Now, he missed the water off the tee and he missed it with his second. On in three, he pinned down the five he needed for Europe's first Open win since 1999. There were a few lost seconds as he savoured the victory and then he saw the downcast Garcia. At that point, he was hit by the thought, 'Somebody has lost.' How he felt for him. "Sergio," he said, "is probably the best ball striker in the game. I know this sounds cliched but, at 27 he's still young and he will win majors. It will happen."

He added that there were only a few players who have the ability to run away with a championship and that Garcia, unlike himself, was one of them. He is, incidentally, a great admirer of the young Spaniard and had not begun to read anything into "the meeting on the bridge".

To recap, Garcia had been walking over the bridge on his way to the 17th green and the two crossed as Harrington was heading towards where his drive had finished in the water at the 18th.

Garcia smiled and said "Hello!", while Harrington, by way of a response, gave a nod. "No," he said, "I didn't read anything into Sergio's smile. The only reason I didn't do more than nod was because I couldn't get any words out." Harrington led people to believe that he would probably have thought it a bit odd if Garcia had not smiled. "It's what you do when you meet someone, isn't it?" he said.

Harrington does not know how it will be when he next meets Garcia. "He will have seen me with the Claret Jug and been disappointed, and when he sees me again I will serve as a reminder," he suggested.

It