London, Oct.1 : A BBC producer has expressed his determination to prove that George Mallory, and not New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was the first to reach the summit of the over 29,000 feet high Mt. Everest.

Graham Hoyland will tell the Royal Geographical Society this week how George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were the first men on Everest in 1924.

Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit in 1953.

Mallory's frozen body was recovered in 1999, 75 years after he started out on his expedition.

London, Sept 30 : They were born just minutes apart to the same mother, but five-month old baby girls Ame and Lia Herrity are not twins.

In fact, thought they share the same birthday, the little girls were conceived an entire three weeks apart thanks to a million-to-one medical rarity called superfetation, where the body carries on releasing more eggs for fertilisation after a pregnancy has already occurred.

London, Sept.29 : Over 100,000 old books previously unavailable to the public will go online thanks to a mass digitisation programme at the British Library.

According to the BBC, the programme will focus on 19th Century books, many of which are unknown as few were reprinted after first editions. The library believes online access to the titles will help teachers.

London, Sept.29 (ANI): A Cambridge University astronomer has been successful in reworking the distances to over 100,000 stars.

Dr Floor van Leeuwen, who has spent the past 10 years checking and
recalculating data gathered by the Hipparcos satellite,has now
corrected the star distances.

The reworked catalogue (Hipparcos - The New Reduction of the Raw
Data), according to the BBC, will allow astronomers to probe more
deeply into the properties of stars and galaxies.

London, Sept.29 : A much decorated officer of the British Army has accused former Prime Minister Tony Blair of letting troops deployed in Iraq down through the implementation of half-baked plans.

London, Sept.29 : A 157-year-old bottle of Single Malt whisky has been bought for a record price of 29, 400 pounds by an anonymous telephone bidder.

According to The Telegraph, the Bowmore Single Malt was sold by auctioneers McTears in Glasgow.

Bottled in 1850, the price for the item is said to be a record for a Scotch whisky at auction. What was offered, was almost double pre-sale estimates.