In 1998, the tiny truck-stop village of Ilakaka in Madagascar was transformed into a bustling mining town, and one of the most dangerous places in the country. The reason for this dramatic change was the discovery of massive sapphire deposits in the valley.

Browsing the area from above you can see thousands of small mine holes randomly peppered across the landscape. With no official control on the mining the holes are often dug by just one or two people hoping to make a quick fortune from the sapphires in the sand deep below.

As word of the town’s riches spread, larger organisations moved in and you can spot the larger pits by the stepped sand walls. It is now estimated that 50% of the world’s sapphires come from this one town.

Thanks to The Big Picture which have their usual fantastic collection of photos.

Scientists working with Kew gardens have today announced their discovery of a massive “self-destructing palm tree” in Madagascar. The tree has a bizarre unusual reproductive cycle, whereby after around 50 years of growth, the process of flowering actually kills the tree!

the colourful display and the production of fruit is so taxing that the nutrient reserves of the palm run dry as soon as it fruits and the entire tree collapses and dies.

The story has been reproduced in numerous articles today, all of which mentioned this little morsel from the original press release:

The plant is so massive, it can even be seen on Google Earth.

And yet not ONE of the many, many, many, many, many reporters managed to include a link to the location of the tree, or even the co-ordinates! And the reason of course, is that none of them actually bothered to check whether you really can see this tree or not.

Fortunately the team at Google Sightseeing don’t subscribe to such lazy reporting methods, and we can EXCLUSIVELY REVEAL the location of the Mysterious Self-Destructing Palm Tree!

Um, hang on, that’s just a forest. Apparently it’s the one in the middle, let’s zoom in a bit…

Right… If only it looked a little more interesting, eh?

Thanks to Bronwyn at Kew gardens and readers Michael Chung and Marc Wintle.