Approximately 2,500 sheep took to the streets of Marseille, in southern France, on Nov. 9 as part of a demonstration of breeders and shepherds who are protesting the crisis in the ovine sector and demanding more government assistance.

The banner reads:"Barnier, go to the end …; Sarko, think about us!!" (Michel Barnier is France's agricultural minister, and Sarko, of course, refers to President Nicolas Sarkozy.)

In celebration of its 10th birthday, Google is making the Web, circa 2001, available this month. (For technical reasons, 2001 was the earliest version of its index that it could make available.)

Here are some fun findings I came across while playing with the site, which proudly announces "Search 1,326,920,000 web pages":

ForeignPolicy.com. At the time I searched, there was an AIG advertisement at the top of the screen that declared, "The greatest risk is not taking one." (I guess bailed-out AIG took that statement to its extreme.)

Barack Obama. The name gets 672 results, the first to his page at the Illinois Senate.

John McCain. The first link takes you to the "Straight Talk America" site left over from his 2000 presidential campaign.

Iraq war. It gets 17,600 results, with nine of the first 10 referring to the Iran-Iraq War. (No. 10 is to the "Iraq War Drinking Game.")

Facebook. The second link that pops up takes you to a page that says, "The facebook is only accessible to people on the Harvard network."

What kind of antique jewels have you come across while playing with the 2001 Google? Feel free to comment below.

Unsworn Industries

If you've ever had a burning desire to have your voice projected through a megaphone in Norway, today is your last chance.

This summer, a group of artists erected a 23-foot-tall, wind-powered "telemegaphone" on top of a mountain in western Norway that overlooks the village of Dale and a scenic fjord. Dial 47 90 369389, and your voice will be projected through the telemegaphone and across the scenic Nordic landscape. Sing, yell, yodel, pontificate. Better yet, play a concerto.

Today's the last day, however. Tomorrow, Sept. 6, the telemegaphone is being turned off -- deer season is commencing.

A new BBC series called Britain From Above looks absolutely stunning. Using satellite technology, the producers have created interactive, dynamic maps of the country's modern migrations -- everything from watching a sped-up version of the hundreds of ships that pass through the English Channel each day to tracking the routes of London taxis through GPS signals. The resulting dance -- around one another, off crowded thoroughfares -- is fascinating to watch. Check out the teaser below.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

This cork-filled life preserver from the Titanic, which sunk in 1912, will be sold at auction house Christie's annual ocean liner sale in New York next Wednesday. The life preserver, one of only six known to exist, had been kept by a family in Nova Scotia since it was found -- allegedly by a farmer at the Halifax shoreline soon after the tragedy. Christie's expects it to go for 30,000 to 40,000 pounds ($59,000 to $79,000); the auction house sold another one last year in London for 61,000 pounds ($120,000).

Via Kottke, the latest in Japanese innovation: machine-readable tombstones:

Behind doors on the tombstone that can be locked is a QR code -- a square code read by mobile phones that can link to Web addresses. Grave visitors can use the code to access images and photographs of the person while they were alive. [...] In addition to images of the deceased, people can view a greeting from the chief mourner at the funeral and browse through the guest book. They can also make entries using their cell phones.

Here are a couple photos:

The world's 16th richest man -- already the proud owner of the world's longest yacht -- may soon also be the owner of the world's largest drill bit (think he’s compensating?).

Roman Abramovich, the Russian dropout turned oil tycoon, recently invested $160 million in the 19-meter-wide drill, outdoing the previous recordholder by a good four meters.

Not only has Abramovich set the record, but his colossal purchase just happens to coincide with rumors that President Vladimir Putin will propose the construction of a physical link between Russia and the United States: a 64-mile, $66 billion tunnel beneath the Bering Strait.

Abramovich has denied that his purchase has any connection to Putin's plans. But seriously, but what else is he going to do with a drill that can bore a hole wide enough for a four-lane highway?

Rumors of the tunnel come at a precarious time in U.S.-Russian relations, currently strained by the Kosovo decision, the proposed U.S. missile shield, and George W. Bush's renewed NATO membership push for former Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine.

Hopefully, all this Cold War nostalgia won't stand in the way of a great bicontinental highway. Just imagine the road trip possiblities -- you could park your RV in Red Square.

Via Lee Sigelman, a brilliant collection of maps used to display quantitative information:

United States

Burkina Faso

European Union

The artist is Icaro Doriaa, a talented young Brazilian with the magazine Grande Reportagem in Portugal.

UPDATE: Tim Ogden of Beyond Philanthropy writes in with some questions about the data behind these flags:

I thought the flags were really cool too -- then I started thinking about the numbers behind them. While I have not doubt that some are accurate several flags caught my attention as being dubious:

1) Brazil: the flag indicates that a huge percentage of the population is living below $10/month, which would be well below the $1/day threshold. According to Globalis sourcing the "UN Common Database (WB)" the population of Brazil living at that level in 2001 was 8.17%. Since Brazil has experienced quite rapid growth since then, one can only presume that this figure has fallen since then. The flag would indicate that the figure would be above 30%.

2) Burkina Faso: According to the WHO, the under-5 mortality per 1000 live births is 192. A tragically high number to be sure, but nowhere close to the figures that one would guess at from the flags. [...]

Just looked up the numbers for Angola to determine that there really is a problem:

According to WHO, malaria infections is 2002: 1.5 million
According to UNAIDS, HIV infections in 2005: 240,000

According to flags, 1.5 million = 240,000

It's still a cool idea, though.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has just officially unveiled its plans to build the world's first carbon-neutral city. Situated on Abu Dhabi's desert outskirts, "Masdar City" is designed from the ground up to be the first completely environmentally sustainable city and a hub for renewable energy research. The UAE's rulers hope Masdar will eventually house at least 1,500 businesses and 50,000 people, powered by solar and other renewable energy sources.

KARIM SAHIB/AFP/Getty Images

Residents will be able to get by on foot, despite the region's blistering climate, thanks to architectural techniques that promote shading and help generate cooling breezes. Stops for the city's solar-powered "personalized rapid transport pods" will be no further than 200 meters apart. Lord Norman Foster, the founder and head of the architectural firm in charge of the Masdar development, said the project "promises to set new benchmarks for the sustainable city of the future." Is he right? Is the project even viable?

Ann Rappaport, an urban and environmental policy specialist at Tufts University, spoke with FP about the project a while back. She seems to share Foster's optimism:

[F]or almost everything, it's easier to do it right the first time. That's true of a new building versus renovating an old building, [so] why shouldn't it be true of [building] a new city, [rather] than transforming an old one? ...

[Y]ou can think about spatial patterns, you can think about their notion of creating walkable spaces... shading—all these things that we now understand to be very important to our carbon budget. We just weren't thinking about that hundreds of years ago when our major world capitals were developed. So that's exciting.... [Your first reaction may be that this is] a city in the middle of a place that others might define as a desert. On the other hand, I think that climate change is challenging us all to think about where the good locations are for human development.... When many of the world's foremost cities were developed, we were looking at transportation access by boat, and now that means that these cities are really vulnerable to sea level rise... [T]he prospect looks attractive, and perhaps the devil's in the details, but it’s not a ludicrous concept.

No country needs this type of innovative thinking about the environment more than the UAE, designated by the World Wildlife Fund as the country with the world's worst per capita ecological footprint. Obviously, one project is not enough to exonerate the country's wasteful and unsustainable practices. But at least it's a start.

Check out this very cool map, which was on a promotional e-card for a new book being published by Penguin called Transit Maps of the World:

(Click for a larger version)

Based on the famous London Underground map, this map contains the major cities of the world that have underground transportation. It also has the same fun distortions that the Tube map has to make everything fit. For example, to get from Tehran to Dubai, one must go through Haifa. And Pyongyang appears to be south of Tokyo, when in fact the opposite is true. The map also cleverly reflects what's actually going on in certain parts of the world. Most of Africa is "Under Construction" and Siberia is a giant wasteland for public transportation.

Too bad this map isn't available for purchase. I'd rather have this for Christmas than the actual book it's promoting, although that looks pretty cool too.

(Hat tip: BKNY 2.0)

Just in time for Guinness World Records Day Thursday, a church steeple in Suurhusen, Germany, has been declared the most tilted tower in the world, toppling the record of the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Guinness World Records found that the 13th-century church's 15th-century steeple tilts an astonishing 5.07 degrees, while Italy's circa-1372 defending champ in Pisa only tilts 3.97 degrees. Nevertheless, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is still taller. At 185 feet (56 meters) tall, it towers over the 84-foot (26-meter) German steeple, which rests on a wooden foundation and sodden soil. And with its ornate columns, arches, and cornices, Pisa's leaning tower is nicer to look at.

Check out the video here:

NASA is seeking astronaut candidates to staff up the International Space Station and to carry out future missions to the moon (and beyond). Here are some highlights from the want ad posted on USAJobs.com:

• The salary range is $59,493.00 to $130,257.00 per year
• "The open positions require extensive travel on Earth and in space. Possible destinations may include, but are not limited to, Texas, Florida, California, Russia, Kazakhstan, the International Space Station and the moon."
• All positions require mandatory drug tests
• Women, minorities, and teachers are specifically encouraged to apply
• The positions are only open to U.S. citizens
• Applicants must be between 62 and 75 inches tall to fit in Soyuz space capsules
• Minimum requirements are a bachelor's degree in specific math and science fields, as well as 3 years of experience in the workplace
• New NASA employees receive 13 days of paid vacation per year, plus 10 federal holidays
• Most NASA facilities have free parking

Janus, the Geneva Museum of Natural History's two-headed Greek tortoise, eats salad as it is presented to the press and the public during the official celebration of its 10th birthday, September 5, 2007, at the Natural History Museum in Geneva. Janus, named after the two-headed Roman god, was born September 3, 1997. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

MIKE CLARKE/AFP/Getty Images

The city of Suzhou has long been known as the Venice of China because of its many canals, but its title is now being taken away by a "real" Venice of China—that is, the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel. The 10.5 million square foot complex, the largest building in China (and the second largest in the world, behind the Boeing plant outside Seattle), cost $2.4 billion to build. The casino-resort is the epitome of Macao's efforts to rebrand itself as a prime destination for millions of Asian tourists who want to spend a weekend gambling or catching a show in the southern Chinese city. Last year, Macao surpassed Las Vegas in gambling revenues, aided by casinos such as the Wynn and the Sands.

Now, with the opening of the Venetian Macao, American billionaire Sheldon Adelson is aiming to boost the cachet of the Cotai Strip to make it something akin to the Las Vegas strip. "Today is the beginning of what has been a dream of mine for some time to reproduce the capital of entertainment in Asia for Asians," he said at today's opening, which was packed with thousands of eager would-be gamblers.

To learn more about the madness in Macao and how gambling has gone global, read Raising the Stakes, a fascinating article by Joshua Kurlantzick that ran in the May/June issue of FP.