Dede Sophie

Many years ago, when it used to be a 2 lane highway, it used to be everybody’s favorite pit stop . It didn’t matter whether you were a truck driver, a motorcyclist or a family traveling by car, you wanted to stop here, feel the breeze, hear the sound of waves thrashing next to the road and soak in the stunning views of two water bodies straddling either side of the national highway. Today, the 2 lane highway has been replaced by a 4 lane highway. And in spite of the change, this place still continues to be the highway rider’s favorite pit stop. I am talking about Maravanthe beach located by the National Highway 66 on the West coast of India. To the West of the highway lies the Arabian Sea and the sound, smell and breeze of the ocean. And to the East lies the Sowparnika river that runs parallel to the highway before it travels south and joins the Panchagangavali river and dumps into the Arabian Sea. While hues of blue greets you on the ocean side, the river side greets you with hues of

BMW is to start testing a solid-state battery this year for a prototype vehicle planned to be on the road before 2025, writes Brian Byrne. The Munich-based carmaker is developing the battery with US-based Solid Power, a company it has been working with since 2017. Solid state batteries are expected to provide longer ranges and faster charging times than the current lithium batteries in use for EVs.  Nissan and Volkswagen are also working to develop such batteries, and the date pencilled in for production vehicles by all three is around 2030. Toyota is investing heavily in the technology and has taken out a number of patents for their work. Manufacturing capacity to the level required for the global EV industry is a significant hurdle.   

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  Canna ‘Cleopatra’ is a gorgeous herbaceous plant which despite being introduced in 1895 has been seemingly missing from the plants beds of UK garden centres. Growing to approximately 1.2 metres tall, this bi-coloured ornamental specimen has the star quality to stand out amongst the regular collection of canna lilies. Its strange, haphazard chocolate/green leaf colourisation is due to it being an unstable colour hybrid. It is as though two distinctly different colour forms have been spliced together but rather than one dominating so that the hybrid reverts to just the one type, the variation is extremely stable! There is even a colour choice of red, yellow and even a mixture of the both. Remember to dead-head your spent booms to encourage more flowering. Flowering from mid-summer to the autumn, it will perform best in organically rich, well drained soils. Canna ‘Cleopatra’ will tolerate a shady position but to get the best show of blooms position in full sun. However it will require w