Paralympic Games open

AGENCIES

The London Paralympic Games have started. The show at London stadium kicked off 11 days of competition that will feature 4,280 athletes from 166 countries. It all started with an amazing fly-past of a small plane over the stadium that saw many famous moments during the Olympic Games. Famous scientist, Stephen Hawking, then read parts of the William Shakespeare play The Tempest. The flame was brought from Stoke Mandeville Hospital (where competitions for disabled athletes inspired the first Paralympic Games).

Neil Armstrong dies aged 82

The first ever person to walk on the moon died at the age of 82 last week. In 1969, Neil Armstrong led a team of three American men on a NASA mission to the moon. Together with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, he flew the Apollo 11 rocket on an epic adventure. A worldwide television audience of more than half a billion people watched him step off the spacecraft’s ladder and on to the surface of the moon. “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong famously declared. In the hours that followed, the astronauts carried out hundreds of amazing experiments, and even picked up pieces of moon rock to bring back to Earth.

Fan builds Batpod bike

An aspiring Vietnamese mechanic has proved he is the ultimate Batman fan by designing a prototype of the Batpod. Twenty-four-year-old Vu Tung Lam designed and built, using scrap metal and an old Suzuki. The prototype runs on a 125cc engine removed from an old Suzuki motorbike, whilst the tyres are from a four-wheel drive and the frame is welded from pieces of steel pipes. The covers are made from plastic sheets. However, the aspiring mechanic cannot ride his creation on the streets because Vietnam law does not allow for structure-modified vehicles on its roads.

It took him two days to finish the design of the bike frame, and another two months until he could completely finish the vehicle. In total, the bike cost him around $450 to build. Lam has no intention to sell it, but he intends to put it on display.