'A' is for Apple

What is a "Hoodoo"?

Hoodoos (yes like voodoo but with a "h"), are rock spires which extend from the bottom of canyons and basins.  They generally consist of a base of soft sedimentary rock, topped by much harder rock.

Hoodoos look a little bit like naturally formed totem poles and can be found mainly within the Colorado Plateau but most famously you can find hundreds of them in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, USA.

The hoodoos in Bryce were formed by the coming together of two different weathering processes.  The primary process, frost wedging is when frost gets between the gaps in the rock formations during the winter due to melting snow and expands by up to 10% causing cracks.

Secondly the small amount of rain that falls in the area is very acidic and it's this acid-based rain that sculpts the hoodoos into their magnificent, smoothed, tall columns.

Sadly hoodoos have a limited lifespan and Bryce's are no exception with hoodoo erosion levels calculated at 2-4 feet every 100 years.

I visited Bryce in 2002 and I felt it was even more spectacular than the Grand Canyon, somewhere which many people visit without adding the relatively nearby Bryce to their itineraries.

How to survive a plane crash

How on earth could anybody survive a plane crash?  You'd think it would be impossible but a new documentary shown on BBC2 tonight (3/10/2006) suggests otherwise.

Apparently statistics show that in the US alone between 1983 and 2000, there were 568 plane crashes. With the sum total of 53,487 people onboard a staggering 51,207 survived.

How did they do it?  It's simple.  For years people have been told the same emergency procedures before take off, you know that video you never watch because you're too busy reading up on the in-flight entertainment options.  Well next time you're onboard an aircraft pay attention as everything you see in those videos is there to help you preserve your life.

According to the BBC site Professor Ed Galea has studied over 2000 survivor reports before defining some quite simple solutions as to why they survived at all.  He says "Surviving an aircraft crash is not a matter of fate. You can help yourself getting out of an aircraft quickly, and so there are things you can do to improve your chances of surviving,".

Even simple things like passengers undoing their seatbelts after the plane has crashed can be a common cause of failure, "People tend to try and press a button on the seatbelt because in this emergency situation, they revert to normal behaviour. And what's normal behaviour for most people? Well, they experience a seatbelt in their car and in their car, it's a push-button system.

"This seat belt is different to what's in your car; it's a latch that you've got to pull."

It's all fascinating stuff and just could save your life one day.

Check out the full article here. Or watch the TV show tonight.