18 frames on how built Ostankino tower

April 30, 1967 was put into operation the Moscow Ostankino TV Tower. Now it seems that it was once the tallest building in the world, survived a fire in 2000, has always been. But once it was just starting to build! Introduce you to a very interesting, in our view, a report on the construction of a television tower - with the technical details, based on historical photographs.

Tower, weighing more than 32 tons, built on a monolithic reinforced concrete foundation ring width of 9.5 meters, 3 meters in height and diameter (the circumscribed circle) of 74 meters. In decagonal concrete foundation tape with the help of hard reinforcement ring (it consists of 104 beams, each beam 24 wire with a diameter of 5 mm each) created prestressing - each bundle is tensioned by hydraulic jacks with a force of about 60 tons.

One day in Chinese Venice

A small but very picturesque village on the water - Uzhen that is a couple of hours drive from the city of Hangzhou.

National Geographic Photo Contest - 2013

The National Geographic Photo Contest for 2013 ends tomorrow, Nov. 30, but for procrastinators there’s still time to enter.The contest officially closes at 11:59:00 p.m. US Eastern Time Saturday. This post features a sampling of the entrants work. Winners in the three categories (people, nature, places) will be published in the National Geographic magazine. The caption information is provided and written by the individual photographer.

(Nature) An over/under water split level image of beautiful crimson red waratah anemones in a rock pool at low tide. What I really love about over/under photographs is that it gives the underwater element a sense of place. For the viewer it marries the underwater environment with our own familiar world. It links the unknown with the known. (Photo and caption by Matt Smith/National Geographic Photo Contest)

The Majestic Tufa Towers of Mono Lake, California (USA)

Mono Lake is a shallow salt water lake located in the high desert on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in California in the United States. The lake has no outlet to the ocean causing high levels of salts to accumulate in the waters. As a consequence of its high salinity, no fish live in Mono Lake, but there are plenty of brine shrimp that thrive in its waters. Over two million annual migratory birds use Mono Lake as a stop over and resting place as they fly to South America or the tropical oceans. They feed on the shrimps, lay eggs and hatch their young ones here.

The most unusual feature of Mono Lake are its dramatic tufa towers emerging from the surface. These rock towers form when underwater springs rich in calcium mix with the waters of the lake, which are rich in carbonates. The resulting reaction forms limestone. Over time the buildup of limestone formed towers, and when the water level of the lake dropped the towers became exposed.

Circling Trains In Brusio - Switzerland

The Brusio spiral viaduct is a single track nine-arched stone spiral railway viaduct located in Brusio, in the Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. Like most spiral tracks, the Brusio spiral viaduct was built to allow trains to gain elevation in a relatively short distance. The spiral viaduct is 110 meters long, has a horizontal radius of curvature of 70 meters, a longitudinal slope of 7%, and is made up of nine spans, each 10 meters in length. The viaduct lifts the train by 20 meters. The Brusio spiral viaduct forms part of the Bernina Railway section between Brusio and Campascio, and is approximately 55 kilometres from St. Moritz. The stone-built viaduct was opened on 1 July 1908, upon the opening of the Tirano–Poschiavo section of the Bernina Railway. In 1943, the whole of that railway company was taken over by the Rhaetian Railway, which still owns and uses the spiral viaduct today.