Hello and welcome to todays Levy Letter for Thursday. Its been another busy week on Look North, as usual, and I hope youll be able to join me tonight at half past six on BBC One for the programme. And if youve got anything to say on our stories, or maybe a story of your own you think we should know about, get in touch with us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and tell us about it. And keep the interesting pictures coming in as well so we can show them before the weather. You can email them to us, or send a hard copy to me in the post. I look forward to seeing them.
Terminal 5 Its the time of year when people are heading out of the country on their summer holidays of course. Theyll be in search of sun, sea, and sand, with a few sangrias on the way no doubt. But it might put a dampener on things if instead of your carefully selected holiday outfits, youre relaxing by the bar or pool in a hastily purchased t-shirt and shorts combination, or ill fitting swimsuit. Well thats the prospect faced by hundreds of unfortunate travellers flying out from Heathrows troubled terminal 5. Its been an incredible story since the airport opened, and I dont think its ever been out of the news. The latest reports claim that over 900 bags are being lost in the terminal every day! The building cost £4.3 billion, but its been plagued by baggage handling problems since day one, and incredibly, passengers going through the terminal have a one in twelve chance of having their bags go missing. Theyre blaming the state-of-the-art automated baggage handling system there for the problems, although apparently things are actually much better than when the terminal opened. It does make you wonder where the bags all go, doesnt it? You imagine there must be a huge mountain of bags just piling up in a corner of the building, although it must be more complicated than that. So if youre travelling through terminal 5 on your way to a holiday, keep a tight grip on your bags, although I hear the building is quite spectacular to see. Biological Clock According to new research, its not just women who have a ticking biological clock when it comes to having children. In some rather surprising results, scientists have discovered that from the age of 35 upwards, men have a higher chance of their partner failing to get pregnant, or miscarrying, regardless of her age. By the time a man hits 45, the risk of miscarriage has doubled. The typical age of married fathers has gone from 29.1 in 1971 to 34.1 in 2003, which means men are settling down at a later age I suppose. Its going to come as a blow to some men who have traditionally assumed they can wait until later to have children, while women have always known that the clock is ticking. I dont know if you have any thoughts on that, perhaps it puts men and women on more of an equal footing when it comes to settling down, although men are still more capable of having children later. The problem is thought to be due to DNA damage in the sperm, which were assessed in their quantity, ability to swim, and their size and shape. Some fascinating research there about something that a lot of people might have been taking for granted, and if youve been putting off having children with your partner, they might have a compelling argument now! Panda You sometimes hear touching stories about animals of one species making strong relationships with other species, and heres a very sweet one in the news this week. A cat has adopted an abandoned red panda cub at a zoo in the Netherlands. The unfortunate cubs mother rejected two of her babies after they were born, forcing animal carers to nurture the cubs in an incubator. Sadly, one of the scorned cubs died last week, but the other has been adopted by the zookeepers cat, who had just given birth to four kittens. Ive never heard of red pandas, but theyre an endangered species only distantly related to giant pandas. When fully grown, red pandas are only about the size of an adult cat, so perhaps this is a perfect match. The panda cub is sucking from its surrogate mother, and its going to be a tense period as the zookeepers wait to see if it will survive. Its always amazing when animals adopt other species, and lets hope the rare red panda flourishes with its unconventional upbringing. Well thats it from me for today. Have a very good afternoon, dont forget to get in touch if theres anything you want to say or anything you think we should know about. You can email us directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED], and as always, we read every one. Take care, and join me tonight at half past six on BBC One for Thursdays Look North. Bye for now Peter And for the latest news and more where you live, go to: http://bbc.co.uk/humber and http://bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the BBC Look North newsletter, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthhull/newsletter/newsletter_index.shtml, enter your email address in the unsubscribe box. 1.94.4
