Sinking to new lows

So what's the lowest point on earth?

If your answer is that one time when you forgot your mother's birthday, you may be right (and shame on you!), but if we're talking geography, sorry, the earth has a lower point. Sinking in at 1,371 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea, in the Middle East takes the prize.

It's also, as you probably know, pretty darn salty. So salty, the time I tried to go swimming in it, I couldn't because the water, once it gets in your eyes, stings like mad. But it is fun to float in... that is, if you can still find it.

According to an article over at The Sunday Times, so much of the salt and minerals have been mined out of the sea for bath products, and the like, that it "has shrunk by a third over the past 50 years and [now] faces total evaporation."

But there is hope! The British architect, Lord Foster, has a plan to carve canals through the desert and bring water from the Red Sea to rescue the dying (already) Dead Sea. Check out the whole article here.

And by the way, did you know that the Red Sea, the one Moses is said to have parted, is actually called the Reed Sea (or Sea of Reeds) in the Old Testament? Many folk actually consider this is one of the first bad typos, or mistranslations, ever recorded in history.