Prince Charles’ car runs on wine

LONDON, England (CNN) — Britain’s Prince Charles has converted his 38-year-old Aston Martin to run on biofuel made from surplus wine, his office revealed Tuesday.

The car was a 21st birthday present from Queen Elizabeth — and the prince has converted it to run on 100 percent bioethanol as a way to reduce his carbon emissions, his office, Clarence House, said.

The prince has also converted his other cars — several Jaguars, an Audi and a Range Rover — to run on 100 percent biodiesel fuel made from used cooking oil, his office added.

Details of the prince’s biofuel use were made public Monday in his household’s 2008 Annual Review, which details the prince’s income and activities over the past year.

The report says Charles and his household reduced their carbon footprint by 18 percent last year after switching to green electricity supplies and reducing their travel-related emissions.

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Britian’s Missing Top Model

Blond hair, blue eyes. 5 foot 11, 130 pounds.

One arm.

They’re not the typical stats of a would-be model. But “Britian’s Missing Top Model” hopes to change all that. The reality competition, premiering tonight in Great Britain on BBC Three follows eight hopefuls vying to prove they have what it takes to make it in the mainstream fashion world. The deal: Contestants pack into a Chelsea penthouse and, over the course of three weeks, get whittled down through a series of challenges. The prize: a high-fashion photo spread in the British edition of Marie Claire magazine.

The difference between this show and “America’s Next Top Model”: All the women have a disability.

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● ● ● â–¬ â–¬ â–¬ ● ● ● – Turns 100

“Send SOS,” one of the Titanic’s radio operators supposedly said to another after the famous ship struck that infamous iceberg. “It’s the new call and besides this may be your last chance to send it.”

That “new call” is 100 years old today, and people around the world who owe their lives to that piece of Morse code may reflect this morning on its importance.

In the past century, “SOS” has become a firm part of popular culture used in everything from DIY programme titles to Abba hits. But it began life in a far more serious setting after being adopted by the international community on July 1, 1908, as the globally recognised distress signal for ships at sea.

At that time voices could not yet be carried across the airwaves and sailors needed a standard means of saying, in Morse code, that they were in trouble.

Until then, the most commonly used distress call was the “CQD” signal, which was open to misinterpretation. After much deliberation, SOS was chosen to replace it because the signal – three dots, three dashes and three more dots – is such a clear message to send in Morse code.

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