Word: giante
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...technology in the Italian Alps town of Viganella, nestled in a valley near the Swiss border. It sounds cozy, but come wintertime, nestled turns nasty, as not a ray of sun touches the town for nearly three months. So Viganella's mayor got the bright idea to install a giant, rotating mirror on a 900-m-high ridge to reflect the sun down on the shaded town's lone piazza...
...restaurants, and is encircled by abandoned 15th century stone and wood cottages that look like drooping gingerbread houses. It is the vision of a dying mountain town, except for the odd 5-m-by-8-m rectangular slab of metal perched on the rocky cliff above, like a giant shining postage stamp. By 10 a.m., with a computer adjusting the mirror's position, the sun is indeed ricocheting down to the piazza, but it's more like a light in your eye than sunshine on your face...
Ever wonder what happens to old billboards? Probably not. But French entrepreneur Jean-Marc Imberton and designer Marie-Angèle Godot did, and what they found spurred them to action. "We realized there was a huge problem," says Imberton, of the giant polyvinyl chloride (PVC) advertising posters common to most cityscapes and beltways. "Their lifespan is very short and they're practically indestructible. Some of them stay up for months, others are used only for an evening. We wanted to give them a second life...
Pity poor Xiang Xiang. Pampered from birth, his every need anticipated by a loyal band of caregivers at Sichuan's Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Center, the baffled bear received the shock of his young life soon after his fourth birthday. Without warning, he was driven into the middle of thick bamboo forest and abandoned, a first attempt by Chinese scientists to return captive-bred animals to the wild. Though he'd had some survival training, Xiang Xiang soon found he'd been dropped in a very rough neighborhood indeed. A few weeks ago, forest wardens spotted Xiang Xiang...
...porn movies to electric rectal probes and Viagra (yes, Viagra; and no, it didn't work), captive panda moms produced 34 cubs. That compares to only 9 in 2000 and zero in many years before that. No doubt the program was initially spurred by a desire to protect the giant panda from impending extinction. Following the creation by the Chinese government of a protected area for the bears, and aided by years of worldwide publicity, that threat has receded. China's population of about 1,600 wild pandas has been stable for some years say Fan Zhiyong of the World...