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Regular tornados are terrifying enough, but have you ever heard of one made of fire!? Fire whirls, as they are known, are one of nature's rarest sights but luckily, a filmmaker was on hand to tape one in Australia this week.

Chris Tangey was out in Alice Springs looking for locations for his latest movie when he was met by a 30-metre high tower of swirling flames. Fortunately, he was at a safe enough distance to stay out of harm's way and be able to capture the stunning spectacle on camera. He described the experience:

"I was about 300-metres away and there was no wind but the tornado sounded like a fighter jet. My jaw just dropped. I've been shooting in the outback for 23 years and I have never seen anything like it. We've heard about them but they're never seen. It's a once in ten lifetimes experience."

These rare events occur when a column of warm, rising air either causes or comes in to contact with a fire on the ground. The rising, swirling air then sucks up the fire, with spectacular and sometimes devastating results. Unsurprisingly they can be very dangerous if they come into contact with people or buildings, and one name for them is simply ‘fire devils'. Although they usually only last for a couple of minutes, amazingly this one went on for more than 40 minutes.

The latest in a series of protests against the decision to revoke London Met's licence to teach international students took place at the university today.

Dozens of students and NUS members gathered at the Holloway Road campus to show their anger at the decision which leaves more than 3000 international students with no university to return to at the end of the month.

ForeignStudents.com's Afshin was on the scene taking photos, interviewing the students and updating us on any action. The video gives an idea of the anger at the protest:

The latest world university rankings have been released by higher education organisation QS. The annual table is one of the most respected global rankings, and this year places an unexpected university at the coveted number one spot.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT- above) has taken top place from the University of Cambridge, rising up from fifth spot just two years ago. The US university specialises in science and technology and was placed first in 11 out of 28 subject tables published in June. Cambridge drops down to second, and is joined by UCL (4th), Oxford (5th) and Imperial (6th) for British universities in the top ten.

The rankings are based on a number of different factors, including research quality, graduate employability, teaching and how international the staff and students of the institution are. It is on this last point that MIT has improved greatly on in the last couple of years, with a newly international staff helping it reach top spot.

A spectacular closing ceremony marked the end of the Paralympics last night and officially ended the glorious Olympic summer of London 2012. The athletes were joined by Coldplay, Rihanna and Jay-Z in a packed Olympic Stadium as they all came together to celebrate the most successful Paralympics ever.

Team GB ended up with a staggering 120 medals, narrowly missing out on second spot in the overall table, behind Russia by just two gold medals. However, it was not just Britain's success that has made this the greatest Games ever, but the overwhelming support for every event in the last two weeks. Almost every session was sold out, and over 2.7 million Paralympic tickets were sold - beating targets by 200,000 and predicted sales by £10m.

Closing Ceremony

After such a stunning summer, the final closing ceremony had a lot to live up to, and it didn't disappoint (so long as you don't mind Coldplay). It was presented as a ‘festival of flame' and fire played a major part in it. Coldplay, Rihanna and Jay-Z all played sets, with1,200 disabled and able bodied performers creating stunning visuals around them.

The latest protest against the decision to revoke London Metropolitan University's license to teach international students took place yesterday outside the Home Office and Downing Street. Around 200 student and staff from the university joined together, with the foreign students who must now transfer universities or face deportation leading the demonstration.

This is only a latest in a number of protests and outspoken statements from various well-known figures against the UK Border Agency's decision to remove London Met's status as a ‘highly trusted sponsor' for non-EU students. The decision made less than a month before the start of the new academic year left thousands of students stranded.

In an attempt to minimise the damage, a number of the largest higher education organisations in the UK met yesterday to try and work out the best way forwards for the students left stranded by the decision. They hope to be able to offer every one of the international students who have been left without a place at London Met, place at a different university instead. A clearing system is expected to be announced shortly.