QUIET CHERNOBYL: THE ARAL SEA As efforts were made to irrigate the cotton crops across the central Asian region of the then Soviet Union, incredible stress was put on the rivers that feed the Aral Sea. The result: it began to go dry. The world's 4th largest sea has nearly disappeared in less than 4 decades. An estimated 900 cubic kilometers of water has been lost in what may be the worst environmental catastrophe to date. As the water receded, towns and cities along its shoreline lost their entire economic way of life, and now have either disappeared, or wait like ghost-towns for the return of the waters. Experts predict it may be completely dry by 2020 if no major effort is undertaken to save it. RELATED VIDEO Aral Sea: returning? Tiben glaciers melt Patagonia dams FOLLOW UP AT SENTIDO'S ENVIRONMENT SECTION :: forest habitats, biodiversity threatened by unsustainable building... :: coming global water resource crisis... Embedded video content courtesy of YouTube

Sentido anticipates increasing convergence between moving and broadcast media and the static, readable internet. It is with this in mind that we have begun planning the launch of a "Sentido TV" digital platform for online posting and reader download of moving news footage and reporting.

Sentido's aim to extend its service into broadcast format multimedia stems from the belief that information is valuable in itself and that providing information over multiple channels liberates the audience that consumes such information. Sentido will not reduce its textual offerings, but will provide enhanced complementary audio-visual coverage of key stories.