The construction cost was £72 million (approximately £ today). It is high, which made it the tallest building in the United Kingdom until the topping out of One Canada Square at Canary Wharf in 1990. It held the status of tallest building in the City of London for 30 years, until it was surpassed by the Heron Tower in December 2009.
The building today is multi-tenanted and comprises Grade A office space and restaurant facilities, with one restaurant situated on the 24th floor, and the other, a champagne and seafood bar, on the 42nd floor. In 2011 it was bought by the South African businessman Nathan Kirsh for £282.5 million.
Asteroid impact prediction
Asteroid impact prediction warns about asteroids hitting Earth, and when and where they will hit the Earth. Most asteroids will not hit Earth. Asteroid impact prediction works by finding the ones that will hit Earth. It finds asteroids that might hit Earth in the future. This works well for big asteroids as they can be seen easily from a long distance, many years before they come close to Earth.
There aren't many big asteroids, but there are millions of smaller space rocks. They are not normally bright enough to see until they are close to Earth. We use telescopes to find the asteroids that are going to hit Earth soon. The telescopes are not good enough to see the small asteroids unless everything is perfect. Because of this we almost never see them before they hit Earth.
The IAU Minor Planet Center (MPC) looks after all the asteroid information in the world. NASA's Sentry System is always checking the MPC asteroid information. It checks if any asteroids could hit earth in the future. It has not yet found any. The asteroid which is most likely to hit Earth is called . NASA thinks it will pass Earth in September 2095. They think it has less than a 1 in 10 chance of hitting Earth.
In the early 21st century impact prediction usually doesn't work. Almost all of the asteroids that hit Earth are a surprise. NASA wants to get better at impact prediction by building more powerful telescopes. A big new telescope, made for searching, is being built in northern Chile called the LSST. It is very big and will take years to build. It should be ready by 2023. When it is ready the powerful telescope should be a lot better at seeing small asteroids.
Telescopes on the Earth can only see part of the sky. They won't be able to see any asteroids coming from near the direction of the Sun because of the blue sky during the day. A telescope in space doesn't have that problem. It can see much more of the sky around Earth. It can keep looking all through the day and night and there are no clouds or rain in space. Telescopes in space can also use infrared heat radiation to find asteroids. Looking for that kind of light is an especially good way of finding asteroids. This method doesn't work on Earth because the air is too warm. Heat radiation from warm air hides the heat radiation that comes from the asteroids. Space telescopes are better in a lot of ways, but they cost more money. Also, they don't last as long as telescopes on the ground.
In 2017 NASA had lots of ideas to help find smaller asteroids. They want to find 9 out of 10 of the asteroids that are bigger than 140 metres (as long as two jumbo jets). The ideas should help find asteroids which are smaller than 140 metres long too. Quite a lot of the ideas use a new telescope on the ground working with a new space telescope. An example telescope on the ground is LSST. An example telescope in space is NEOCAM, but nobody has started building it. These new telescopes will be expensive. But, NASA has done most of the work finding asteroids already. Out of all the asteroids ever found, NASA has found more than 9 out of 10 of them. Asteroids hit all over Earth, not just the USA where NASA is from. Because of this, NASA was asked by the United States government to find other countries to help. They need other countries to help make the telescopes and help pay for them.
Below is the list of all the times when asteroid impact prediction worked. When it worked, the space rocks which hit the Earth were not a surprise. There are lots of asteroids which will hit Earth in the future. They are not in the list because we don't know about any of them yet. If we get better at asteroid impact prediction we will find out about them. Then we will know what asteroids are going to hit us in the future.
International
International mostly means something (a company, language, or organization) involving more than a single country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries. For example, international law, which is applied by more than one country and usually everywhere on Earth, and international language which is a language spoken by residents of more than one country.
The term "international" was coined by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in his "Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation", which was printed for publication in 1780 and published in 1789. Bentham wrote: "The word "international", it must be acknowledged, is a new one; though, it is hoped, sufficiently analogous and intelligible. It is calculated to express, in a more significant way, the branch of law which goes commonly under the name of the "law of nations". The word was adopted in French in 1801. Thomas Erskine Holland noted in his article on Bentham in the 11th edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" that "Many of Bentham's phrases, such as 'international,' 'utilitarian,' 'codification,' are valuable additions to our language; but the majority of them, especially those of Greek derivation, have taken no root in it."
"International" is also sometimes used as a synonym for "global".
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich (; October 9, 1874 – December 13, 1947) – also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh () – was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist and theosophist. Some people in Russia thought of him as an enlightener, philosopher, and public figure. He was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices. His paintings are said to have hypnotic expression. He was born in Saint Petersburg to a Russian mother and a Baltic German father. Roerich was an activist for the preserving of art and architecture during war time. He earned several nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize long list. The Roerich Pact which was signed into law in 1935 by the United States and most nations of the Pan-American Union was named after him.
Plate armour
Plate armour is a type of body armour made from iron or steel plates. The iconic suit of armour that entirely covers the wearer is plate armour. The earliest example of plate armour is the Roman army's Lorica segmentata. However full plate armour was mainly made in Europe in the late middle ages. This was an improvement on the coat of plates that had been worn over chain mail in the 13th century. It reached its peak popularity in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is often associated with medieval knights, since modified plate armour was used in jousting. However after 1650 only the breastplate was generally worn. This is because the musket was created: the musket could pierce plate armour over long distances.
Harry Connick Sr.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Sr. (born March 27, 1926) is an American attorney. He is best known for being the district attorney of the Parish of Orleans from 1973 to 2003.
His son, Harry Connick Jr., is a jazz singer, pianist, actor, and humanitarian.
Philip Zimbardo
Philip George Zimbardo (; born March 23, 1933) is an American psychologist. He is a professor emeritus at Stanford University.