The great October fall of the US dollar is turning into an avalanche. On Tuesday, the American currency lost nine kopeks in Russia and reached a new minimum mark this year - 29.5 rubles per dollar. Within six months (April through September) the dollar lost over 10 percent at the world foreign exchange trading, which marked the sharpest decline since 1991. Some experts believe that the American currency is close to collapse, which may lead to a new financial crisis.
The tendency of the US dollar devaluation has been observed for a few years, but the current rate of decline is unprecedented. Some jokesters even rushed to re-read the letters of Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels written during the US financial panic of 1857 discussing the collapse of America. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so serious.

The chief economist of HSBC Bank Stephen King believes that if the US officials fail to stop the fall of American currency, it may provoke another financial crisis. “A dollar collapse would be a disaster all round… It would leave the international monetary system short of stability and long of fear. It would unleash economic upheavals on a similar scale to those seen in the 1970,” King wrote for The Independent.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appears in the top three of world’s most influential men according for Forbes magazine. The magazine published the list of 67 most influential politicians, businessmen and other influential individuals.
The most influential person in the world is – what a shocker – US President Barack Obama. The magazine gave the second place to China’s Hu Jintao. Russia’s Vladimir Putin comes third.

The top five continues with Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve System, and Google’s founding fathers Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The top ten closes with Microsoft’s head Bill Gates, includes media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is ranked 43rd on the list, being behind practically all influential leaders of European states. Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi is ranked 12th, German Chancellor Angela Merkel – 15th, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown – 29th. The only European leader that is placed below Medvedev on the list is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who comes 56th.

On October 22, Microsoft’s newest Windows 7 hit retail shelves in Russia and the rest of the world. RBC News had a chance to try the new Windows prior to its official launch.
The demand for Vista, launched in the beginning of 2007, leaves much to be desired. Vista set a high bar for the computer performance required to run the operating system, which caused many problems from the onset. Even consumers who know little about computers developed certain apprehension towards laptops with pre-installed Vista. Only a few people cared about the fact that modern computers had enough capacity to run Vista. Therefore, the number one issue at the moment is the ability of Windows 7 to rehabilitate new Microsoft OS in the eyes of the users. Windows 7 was designed to become an advanced version of the more successful Windows XP.
Windows 7 will fire up very quickly. A laptop with a maximum version of Windows 7 is starts up within a minute.

Windows 7 desktop is very user-friendly and is not overloaded with graphics. Word and Excel open instantly, while it takes a while for the Internet Explorer or a photo album to open.

The new wallpaper collection is bright but eye-pleasing. There is a customization option that allows choosing the background, windows’ color and sound effects with a click of a mouse. The wallpaper changes throughout the day every time you turn your computer on, which is a nice surprise.

A real tragedy is happening on the shores of the Black Sea. Dolphins throw themselves out onto the shore almost every day. Local residents are convinced that a horrible ecological conditions of the sea is the reason.
However, scientists from a Crimean laboratory in Brem who have been monitoring the situation for nearly 20 years explain that the brains of suicidal dolphins are infected with morbillivirus infection. The infection causes them to lose special orientation and strength. We know very little about the animal world.

Myth 1. Mice love cheese

Rodents will not turn down a piece of cheese but if they had a choice, they would always choose food high in sugar, like chocolate. This was proven by scientists from a Massachusetts University.

The idea that global warming will produce global cooling is counterintuitive to many people, but that process of heating leading to cooling is a basic part of the 'orbital theory' of an insolation-driven (sunlight-driven) Ice Age cycle. The 'orbital theory', which is based on the fact that cyclic changes in the earth's orbit of the sun alter the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth, is the leading theory of Ice Age causation.
It is likely that the next Ice Age will be preceded and precipitated (literally) by an upward spike in global temperatures and warming of the oceans, which will increase oceanic evaporation and cause an increase in global precipitation, some of which will fall as snow that will feed the growth of glaciers at high latitudes and high elevations.

An Ice Age is characterized by the formation of vast glaciers on top of large continental land masses. Since there are much larger continental land masses located in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere, it is in the Northern Hemisphere that the Ice Age cycle is most obviously manifested. At the peak of the last Ice Age glacial maximum, about 17,000 years ago, glaciers up to two miles thick covered all of Canada, Scandinavia, and most of Britain.

The astronomical phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes causes a gradual rotation of the earth's axial tilt, which changes the season during which the Northern and Southern Hemispheres make their nearest (at perigee) and farthest (at apogee) approaches to the sun.