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Gangnam Style' tourist police force in South Korea

"Gangnam Style" the music video created by South Korean musician Psy took the whole world by storm.

The song was released in July 2012 and debuted at number one on South Korea's Gaon chart. As of October 15. 2013, the music video has been viewed over 1,793 billion times on YouTube.

South Korea's “tourist police” salute during their inauguration ceremony at Gwanghwamun square in Seoul on October 16, 2013’

Thanks to Psy's Gangnam Style song the prestige of South Korea as a tourist destination has experienced a whopping increase and the number of foreign travellers has steadily grown over the years and topped 10 million in 2012.

Now South Korean authorities exploiting Psy's popular song have introduced a "Gangnam Style" police force to protect the tourists.

Around 100 young policemen and women make up the first batch of the new force -- formed to protect tourists from being ripped off during their stay in the South Korean capital.

The officers were handpicked for their linguistic skills, and can speak a range of languages including English, Japanese and Mandarin.

Each officer wears a badge denoting his language expertise on a special dark-blue uniform created by one of the costume designers for the Gangnam Style star Psy.

The singer's global hit was played at the recent launch event, with a police drill unit performing his signature horse-riding dance.

Lee Charm, president of the Korea Tourism Organisation addressing the new recruits said: "The tourist police wasn't created because this country is unsafe.

You are ambassadors who promote how safe this country is and from now on, you guys will be very busy having pictures taken with tourists." Gangnam Style is a Korean neologism mainly associated with upscale fashion and lavish lifestyle associated with trendsetters in Seoul's Gangnam district (??), which is considered the most affluent part of the metropolitan area.

In colloquial usage, it is comparable to the English slang terms "swag" or "yolo".

Lake that turns animals to stone?

Do you want to turn yourself into a statue? The best thing you can do is to go and jump into Tanzania's Lake Natron! You won't feel anything or any pain as the lake transforms you into a lifeless statue.

Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, close to the Kenya border is one of the most serene lakes in Africa but also described as one of the harshest environments on Earth. Temperatures in the lake can rise to 140 °F (60 °C) and the alkalinity is between pH 9 and pH 10.5, almost as alkaline as ammonia. Animals who enter the water are almost certainly doomed, save certain kinds of fish that have evolved to survive in such a caustic environment.

The lake is fed by the Ewaso Ng'iro River but also by mineral-rich hot springs and is quite shallow, less than three metres (10 feet) deep, and varies in width depending on its water level, which changes due to high levels of evaporation, leaving high levels of salt and other minerals.

The colour of the lake is characteristic of those where very high evaporation rates occur. As water evaporates during the dry season, salinity levels increase to the point that salt-loving microorganisms begin to thrive. Salt-loving organisms include some cyanobacteria, tiny bacteria that grow in water and make their own food with photosynthesis as plants do. The red pigment in the cyanobacteria produces the deep reds of the open water of the lake, and orange colours of the shallow parts of the lake. The alkali salt crust on the surface of the lake is also often coloured red or pink by the salt-loving microorganisms that live there.

Despite some media reports, the animal didn't simply turn to stone and die after coming into contact with the lake's water. In fact, Lake Natron's alkaline waters support a thriving ecosystem of salt marshes, freshwater wetlands, flamingos and other wetland birds, tilapia and the algae on which large flocks of flamingos feed. Now, photographer Nick Brandt has captured haunting images of the lake and its dead in a book titled Across the Ravaged Land.

Thure Cerling, Professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, said by email that the animals in Brandt's photographs likely died of natural causes. Since there are few predators in the area, their bodies remain and become salt-encrusted when the lake's water level drops.

However, Brandt said that many people in the region have seen birds crash-land into the water. So he believes the birds and bats were confused by the sky's reflection in the lake and killed when they hit the water.

The animals probably aren't truly calcified, but are coated with sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate, said Cerling, who has researched the chemistry of Africa's Rift Valley lakes.

Lake Natron is one of two alkaline lakes in that area of East Africa; the other is Lake Bahi. Both are terminal lakes that do not drain out to any river or sea; they are fed by hot springs and small rivers. As shallow lakes in a hot climate, their water temperatures can reach as high as 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius).