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Whenever a new James Bond film is released it is always causes quite a stir. The quintessential British spy always manages to capture the world's attention in a way that few others can. However, even by Bond's standards, the latest film- Skyfall, has been HUGE.

Starring Daniel Craig as the lead role for the third time, and directed by Sam Mendes (of American Beauty fame), the film has been getting high praise from critics. This praise has translated in to cold, hard cash, with Skyfall taking £20.1m in its opening weekend in the UK alone.

This it the biggest opening of any film in 2012 so far, and the second largest ever after the final Harry Potter film. It is also the biggest ever opening for a 2D film and broke the record for highest ever Saturday attendance figures. All that is pretty impressive in anyone's book.

However, there is more. By the end of the weekend, the film was at the number 1 spot in 25 countries around the world, and is easily on course to become the most successful Bond film of all time. All this, and it isn't even due to open in the US for another two weeks.

If you haven't seen Skyfall yet, watch the trailer below to whet your appetite:

Even as a student working at a part-time job, your employer is legally responsible for your safety while you are on the clock. Under the RIDDOR laws, which specify health and safety regulations in the workplace, your employer is required to provide a safe work environment and also to report any accidents if they occur.

Of course, nobody plans to have an accident. But they can happen in even the safest workplaces. Read on to learn more about the types of accidents that may occur on the job and what you can do if one happens to you.

What is RIDDOR?

Established in 1995, RIDDOR refers to a national law that clearly defines the types of accidents that need to be reported if they occur in the work place. RIDDOR stands for Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations. It specifies the types of reportable incidents and provides a system of protocol for reporting them.

Early applications to certain courses and universities in England have been higher than ever before UCAS has revealed. Despite increased tuition fees, applications to Oxford and Cambridge universities as well as dentistry, medicine and veterinary courses are up 2% on last year.

These universities and courses have an earlier deadline for students than all others, with a cut off point of 15th October for applications. That didn't stop almost 57,000 hopeful candidates from applying and UCAS chief executive Mary Curnock Cook revealed she "remains optimistic about overall demand in the 2013 cycle".

Big Foreign Student Increases

Of the extra students, it is EU and international student numbers that have increased the most. Applications from Europe rose 1.8% on last year, whilst the international student applications increased a sizable 5.1%. This increase is in spite of the stricter visa laws that have been introduced over the past few years and shows quite how desirable the UK still is as a place of study.

If you're checking the weather forecast for Britain over the next week or so you may be a little surprised by what you see. If you spot that ‘blood rain' is predicted for Halloween you'd be excused in thinking that someone was playing a prank.

However, experts are indeed forecasting that parts of the UK will experience a reddish coloured rain known as ‘blood rain'. Don't worry though, rather than it signalling the end of the world, it is simply a natural phenomena caused when rain picks up sand from deserts.

As a Met Office spokesman explains: "It is a rather grandiose term for fine desert sand particles that are whipped up by winds and mix with the moisture in clouds". Winds then carry the clouds over great distances, before the moisture is deposited from them as red or brown rain (though unfortunately not quite as bright red as the picture above).

In this case, we have the Sahara desert to thank, where storms have mixed huge amounts of sand with the clouds. Particularly strong winds are now in the process of blowing those clouds over towards the UK. However, before they reach us, these warm desert winds are expected to raise temperatures in Britain to as high as 20C (68F) over the next few days.

An amazing new sound recording has been made of a beluga whale making noises that sound eerily similar to human speech. Researches were shocked when they recorded the animal at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California and even mistook its noises for one of their colleagues.

Previously, dolphins have been taught to mimic the sounds a human voice makes, but never before has an animal done it spontaneously of its own free will. The researchers first discovered it when a diver surfaced from the whale's pool asking, "Who told me to get out?".

At first they couldn't work out where the noises were coming from, but after narrowing down the possibilities, there was only one option left: it was the nine-year-old whale named NOC. After realising this, they were able to train him to perform the noises on command and recorded the results.

Amazingly, it not only lowered its normal calls by several octaves, but it also released them in short bursts with pauses in between- just like a human conversation.

Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation, was left with little doubt: "The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale."

Have a listen for yourself to the astonishing recording below.