Latest news with #Alps
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Patagonia Launches ‘Parenting: Disaster Style' Short Film Series: Watch the First Episode
Zoe Hart and her husband, Maxime Turgeon, have endured a lot since they met. The two alpinists have summited extremely tall and technical peaks, spent long, cold nights on the sides of mountain cliffs, and traveled the world in search of alpine adventure. For a long time, they've practiced what they jokingly call 'disaster style alpinism.' Now, they're learning disaster-style parenting. And Patagonia is making a short film series about it. The first episode of Patagonia's Parenting: Disaster Style dropped on YouTube on June 18. It follows the Hart–Turgeons as they show their kids, Mathias and Mika, the ropes of adventure. And their lessons go beyond the crag — they're hoping to raise their children with the same love for the mountain adventure that brought them together in the first place. Check out Patagonia's YouTube channel for subsequent episodes of Parenting: Disaster Style in the coming weeks. Runtime: 8:26 minutes Meet the Family Caring for the Oldest Alpine Hut in the French Alps
CNA
2 days ago
- Sport
- CNA
Alpine skiing-Brignone still aiming for Olympics, wants to leave on her terms
MILAN :Italy's Alpine ski champion Federica Brignone said she was doing all she could to be fit for her home Milan-Cortina Olympics next year and wanted to retire smiling on the slopes rather than forced out by injury. The 34-year-old told reporters on Wednesday, however, that it was still too early to say whether she would win the battle. "I got injured at the best moment of my career, of my life," Brignone said at an event in Milan for her sponsor Banca Generali. "And this is bothering me. I do not want to retire from ski now, like that. I loved this sport so much that I want to retire when I am happy, feeling good on the slopes." Overall World Cup champion Brignone, who was a leading medal hope at the Games, fractured her left leg and tore knee ligaments when she crashed during a race in the Italian championships in April. The giant slalom world champion said she remained positive but also realistic and had to respect her body and do what was best for herself. "My first goal is my health and that will continue to be and it won't change because of external pressures, in the sense that if my body won't make it, it won't make it. I think it will make it and I am very positive, it is responding," she said. "Some things are going really beyond expectations. Some other things are giving me a hard time, but it's normal, actually after suffering that kind of injury. "I think I'll be back for the winter. But that's not something I can predict." Brignone said she would not know until the crutches came off for good how much load she could put on the leg. "Obviously it was destroyed, so that has to be respected," she added.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Michael Lachmann obituary
The television producer and director Michael Lachmann, who has died aged 54 in a mountaineering accident in the French Alps, helped to turn the former pop musician and particle physics professor Brian Cox into a TV presenter known for bringing science documentaries into a new age. Lachmann also took the pig farmer Jimmy Doherty around the world to explore the pros and cons of GM foods, and made thought-provoking programmes on great scientists and the space race. His skill in popularising science without dumbing down included placing Cox inside a derelict Rio de Janeiro jail for a sequence in the 2011 BBC Two series Wonders of the Universe. Cox sprayed chemical element symbols on the walls, and Lachmann had the building dramatically blown up. The four-part series attempted to answer the question: 'What are we and where do we come from?' In Stardust, the episode directed by Lachmann, he and Cox travelled not only to Brazil, but also to Kathmandu and Chile, to reveal the origins of humans in distant stars. Both had previously worked together on Wonders of the Solar System (2010), with Lachmann, as lead director, making two of the five episodes filmed in extreme locations on Earth to explain how the laws of physics carved natural wonders. This breakthrough series for Cox attracted more than 6 million viewers on BBC Two, and Lachmann used CGI techniques to tell the story. It also won two Royal Television Society awards, in the best presenter and science and natural history programme categories. Cox regarded Lachmann as fun to work with and said his 'visual imagination and ability to tell a story without intellectual compromise were second to none', adding: 'I never quite knew what he would dream up to illustrate an idea: an exploding prison in Rio, a race around Rome in a vintage Fiat 500, a journey of a thousand metres below the waves in a 1960s submersible.' The pair's collaborations continued through episodes of Wonders of Life, Science Britannica and In Search of Science (all 2013) before they made the single, feature-length documentary Brian Cox: Seven Days on Mars (2022), with Lachmann negotiating access to Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mission control for Mars 2020. They spent a week filming the surface of the red planet through the eyes and instruments of the Perseverance rover as it searched for evidence of long-extinct life. Lachmann was born in Cambridge, to Sylvia (nee Stephenson), a doctor, and Peter Lachmann, an immunologist who at the time was assistant director of research at the Cambridge University department of pathology. On leaving the Perse school, Cambridge, he gained a degree in natural sciences and zoology from Peterhouse, Cambridge, and a master's in science communication from Imperial College London. He entered television with an independent production company, McDougall Craig, as the researcher on a 1996 programme for Channel 4's science series Equinox, about how social status affects human health. Moving to John Gau Productions, he was assistant producer on the three-part documentary Plane Crazy (1997), for Channel 4, and the US network PBS, about a resident of California's Silicon Valley who claimed he could build an aeroplane in his garage in 30 days. When progress was painfully slow, Lachmann and the director, Paul Sen, worried about meeting their shooting deadline – then had the idea of turning it into a story of failure. In 2000, Lachmann joined the BBC to work as assistant producer on Walking With Beasts, the sequel to Walking With Dinosaurs. Screened the following year, it traced the story of life on Earth from the death of the dinosaurs to the dawn of the age of man, using CGI animation and pioneering red-button features. The six-part series won Bafta's interactive/enhancement of linear media award. Lachmann then became a founding member of the BBCi department, the corporation's first foray into interactive and streaming TV services, working on other projects before producing and directing programmes, including episodes of the science series Horizon (from 2008 to 2018). Jimmy's GM Food Fight, in 2008, brought with it controversy. Lachmann, whose father had been an advocate of genetically modified crops, followed Doherty – an organic farmer – on a quest to Argentina, Pennsylvania and Uganda to assess whether the crops could feed the world or start an environmental disaster. When some anti-GM campaigners complained about bias, the BBC rejected the criticisms, asserting that the programme was 'carefully balanced to take in both sides of the debate' and had concluded that 'any future development of GM should be done with great care'. Later, Lachmann made the Horizon film Should I Eat Meat? How to Feed the Planet (2014), presented by Michael Mosley, who destroyed some myths in the 'meat-eater versus vegetarian' debate. His standalone documentaries included Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race (2014), contending that the Soviet Union was the real pioneer during the cold war, and The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice (2015), with Alice Roberts and Neil Oliver telling the story of Queen Boudicca's revolt against the Roman army. Lachmann was series editor for Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors (2018), which put more myths to bed, this time about these early humans often depicted as 'apemen'. An anthropologist, Ella Al-Shamahi, revealed that 2% of most people's DNA comes from Neanderthals, and motion-capture animation transformed the Lord of the Rings actor Andy Serkis into one. From 2015 to 2020, Lachmann was also series producer on The Sky at Night. To mark the first anniversary of the death of Stephen Hawking, he wrote and directed the Emmy-nominated Einstein and Hawking: Unlocking the Universe (2019), looking at how the two scientists' theories revolutionised human understanding. More recently, away from the BBC, Lachmann was the writer and director of Spacetime Capsule (2024), a series for Chinese television that explored China's latest advances in science and space technology. Lachmann's 2002 marriage to Lisa Suiter ended in divorce. He is survived by their sons, Dexter and Max, and by his mother, brother, Robin, and sister, Helen. • Michael Alan Lachmann, writer, producer and director, born 20 August 1970; died 8 June 2025
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Michael Lachmann obituary
The television producer and director Michael Lachmann, who has died aged 54 in a mountaineering accident in the French Alps, helped to turn the former pop musician and particle physics professor Brian Cox into a TV presenter known for bringing science documentaries into a new age. Lachmann also took the pig farmer Jimmy Doherty around the world to explore the pros and cons of GM foods, and made thought-provoking programmes on great scientists and the space race. His skill in popularising science without dumbing down included placing Cox inside a derelict Rio de Janeiro jail for a sequence in the 2011 BBC Two series Wonders of the Universe. Cox sprayed chemical element symbols on the walls, and Lachmann had the building dramatically blown up. The four-part series attempted to answer the question: 'What are we and where do we come from?' In Stardust, the episode directed by Lachmann, he and Cox travelled not only to Brazil, but also to Kathmandu and Chile, to reveal the origins of humans in distant stars. Both had previously worked together on Wonders of the Solar System (2010), with Lachmann, as lead director, making two of the five episodes filmed in extreme locations on Earth to explain how the laws of physics carved natural wonders. This breakthrough series for Cox attracted more than 6 million viewers on BBC Two, and Lachmann used CGI techniques to tell the story. It also won two Royal Television Society awards, in the best presenter and science and natural history programme categories. Cox regarded Lachmann as fun to work with and said his 'visual imagination and ability to tell a story without intellectual compromise were second to none', adding: 'I never quite knew what he would dream up to illustrate an idea: an exploding prison in Rio, a race around Rome in a vintage Fiat 500, a journey of a thousand metres below the waves in a 1960s submersible.' The pair's collaborations continued through episodes of Wonders of Life, Science Britannica and In Search of Science (all 2013) before they made the single, feature-length documentary Brian Cox: Seven Days on Mars (2022), with Lachmann negotiating access to Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mission control for Mars 2020. They spent a week filming the surface of the red planet through the eyes and instruments of the Perseverance rover as it searched for evidence of long-extinct life. Lachmann was born in Cambridge, to Sylvia (nee Stephenson), a doctor, and Peter Lachmann, an immunologist who at the time was assistant director of research at the Cambridge University department of pathology. On leaving the Perse school, Cambridge, he gained a degree in natural sciences and zoology from Peterhouse, Cambridge, and a master's in science communication from Imperial College London. He entered television with an independent production company, McDougall Craig, as the researcher on a 1996 programme for Channel 4's science series Equinox, about how social status affects human health. Moving to John Gau Productions, he was assistant producer on the three-part documentary Plane Crazy (1997), for Channel 4, and the US network PBS, about a resident of California's Silicon Valley who claimed he could build an aeroplane in his garage in 30 days. When progress was painfully slow, Lachmann and the director, Paul Sen, worried about meeting their shooting deadline – then had the idea of turning it into a story of failure. In 2000, Lachmann joined the BBC to work as assistant producer on Walking With Beasts, the sequel to Walking With Dinosaurs. Screened the following year, it traced the story of life on Earth from the death of the dinosaurs to the dawn of the age of man, using CGI animation and pioneering red-button features. The six-part series won Bafta's interactive/enhancement of linear media award. Lachmann then became a founding member of the BBCi department, the corporation's first foray into interactive and streaming TV services, working on other projects before producing and directing programmes, including episodes of the science series Horizon (from 2008 to 2018). Jimmy's GM Food Fight, in 2008, brought with it controversy. Lachmann, whose father had been an advocate of genetically modified crops, followed Doherty – an organic farmer – on a quest to Argentina, Pennsylvania and Uganda to assess whether the crops could feed the world or start an environmental disaster. When some anti-GM campaigners complained about bias, the BBC rejected the criticisms, asserting that the programme was 'carefully balanced to take in both sides of the debate' and had concluded that 'any future development of GM should be done with great care'. Later, Lachmann made the Horizon film Should I Eat Meat? How to Feed the Planet (2014), presented by Michael Mosley, who destroyed some myths in the 'meat-eater versus vegetarian' debate. His standalone documentaries included Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race (2014), contending that the Soviet Union was the real pioneer during the cold war, and The Celts: Blood, Iron and Sacrifice (2015), with Alice Roberts and Neil Oliver telling the story of Queen Boudicca's revolt against the Roman army. Lachmann was series editor for Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors (2018), which put more myths to bed, this time about these early humans often depicted as 'apemen'. An anthropologist, Ella Al-Shamahi, revealed that 2% of most people's DNA comes from Neanderthals, and motion-capture animation transformed the Lord of the Rings actor Andy Serkis into one. From 2015 to 2020, Lachmann was also series producer on The Sky at Night. To mark the first anniversary of the death of Stephen Hawking, he wrote and directed the Emmy-nominated Einstein and Hawking: Unlocking the Universe (2019), looking at how the two scientists' theories revolutionised human understanding. More recently, away from the BBC, Lachmann was the writer and director of Spacetime Capsule (2024), a series for Chinese television that explored China's latest advances in science and space technology. Lachmann's 2002 marriage to Lisa Suiter ended in divorce. He is survived by their sons, Dexter and Max, and by his mother, brother, Robin, and sister, Helen. Michael Alan Lachmann, writer, producer and director, born 20 August 1970; died 8 June 2025
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Duo take on Top Gear-style old car Alps challenge
Two men are set for a Top Gear-style challenge when they drive an old banger across the Alps for charity. Ashley Brough was tasked with buying a car for £1,000 or less, so he could take part in the Rusty Rally organised by young people's charity The Outward Bound Trust. He and friend Wayne Murcott, from Shenstone, Staffordshire, will be one of 10 teams on the four-day tour, which will take the convoy through France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Austria. Mr Brough, from Uttoxeter, told BBC Radio Stoke he had decided to take on a 25-year-old Mercedes diesel estate car, which "smelled like someone had died in it" when he got it, "I've been using a lot of air fresheners," he said. "My wife calls it a hearse. It was pretty ropey, I'll be honest with you, but I think that's the beauty of the challenge." The adventure begins in Annecy, France on Wednesday, with Mr Brough and Mr Murcott driving under the team name "Les Knobbies". As part of preparations, the vehicle has been checked over by local dealership Angus MacKinnon and Mr Brough said that while he was a "little bit worried", he was confident he would not have a brake or tyre failure. "It's going to be bittersweet, because in one half of my mind I'm going to be worried to death that were going to be breaking down," he said. "On the other hand, it's going to be the most stunning scenery that I'll be taking in." Mr Brough, who chairs The Community Foundation for Staffordshire and Shropshire, has already raised more than £10,000 for The Outward Bound Trust so far, with the event as a whole aiming to raise £100,000. The charity runs outdoor adventures and courses for young people with the aim of encouraging them to get out of their comfort zone. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. Man completes 10 marathons in 10 days Three brothers take tiny bus on epic journey Charity ride collects 8,000 eggs for children Annual Stephen Sutton ride out for cancer charity The Outward Bound Trust
