Thursday, October 15, 2009

nutrition in plants

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Deepawali Greetings

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Diwali Wishes

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Photosynthesis and Respiration

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

SWINE FLU:

2009 flu pandemic in India is the outbreak of swine flu in various parts of India. Soon after the outbreak of H1N1 virus in the United States and Mexico in March, the Government of India started screening people coming from the affected countries at airports for swine flu symptoms.[1] The first case of the flu in India was found on the Hyderabad airport on 13 May, when a man traveling from US to India was found H1N1 positive.[2] Subsequently, more confirmed cases were reported and as the rate of transmission of the flu increased in the beginning of August, with the first death due to swine flu in India in Pune,[3] panic began to spread. As of 14 August 2009, 1193 cases of swine flu has been confirmed and 719 people have been discharged with 20 deaths.[4]
Backround:
Confirmed casesThe only known drug to work against H1N1(Tamiflu) was not sold in general medical stores, to prevent the virus from developing antibiotic resistance due to excessive use. The government feared that people would pop in pills for no reason, thereby making the virus resistant to its only known cure. The problem facing the state machinery was the fact that flu infected cases were coming from across the country.

Background
: 2009 flu pandemic
A new strain of influenza virus, officially named the "new H1N1", first identified in April 2009, and commonly called "Swine flu" initially spread in Mexico and then globally by transmission. It is thought to be a mutation of four known strains of the influenza A virus, subtype H1N1: one endemic in (normally infecting) humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine). Experts assume the virus "most likely" emerged from pigs in Asia, and was carried to North America by infected persons.5 The virus typically spreads from coughs and sneezes or by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching the nose or mouth. Symptoms, which can last up to a week, are similar to those of seasonal flu, and may include fever, sneezes, sore throat, coughs, headache, and muscle or joint pains.
Swine Flu Treatment by city
Pune
The Union Government has identified the Dr. Naidu Infectious Disease Hospital for testing, isolation, and critical care of suspected/ confirmed swine flu patients in Pune. The Pune Airport(Lohegaon) Authorities have set up a screening facility at the Pune Airport(Lohegaon) for all the inbound passengers flying to Pune.67
The following centers have been identified as pre-screening centres in Pune:
1. Erandwane Hospital, Karve Road
2. Jayabhai Nanasaheb Sutar Maternity Home, Kothrud
3. Anandibai Narhar Gadgil Hospital, Mhatre Pool
4. Balaji Rakhmaji Gaikwad Hospital, Ganj Peth
5. Kalavatibai Mavale Hospital, Narayan Peth
6. Mamasaheb Badade Hospital, Lakshmi Road
7. Hutatma Babu Genu Hospital, Raviwar Peth
8. Siddharth Hospital, Alandi Road
9. Shivshankar Pote Hospital, Sahakarnagar
10. Junglerao Kondiba Amrale Hospital, Shivajinagar
11. Baburao Genba Shewale Hospital, Aundh Road
12. Damodar Raoji Galande Patil Hospital, Yerwada
13. Dr.Kotnis Arogya Kendra, Shukrawar Peth
14. Bapusaheb Genuji Kapdepatil Hospital, Koregaon Park
15. Rohidas Kirad Hospital, Ganesh Peth
Note that these centers do not take the swab tests. They just inform whether one 'might' have swine flu or not. If yes, then one has to report to either the Naidu hospital, Raja Bahadur Mills Road, near Hotel Le Meridian or the Aundh hospital in Aundh8. The positive cases are treated at the same hospitals. The critical patients are sent to any one of the following hospitals:
1. Sassoon General Hospital, Sassoon road, Pune
2. Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital, Pimpri
3. Sahyadri-Munot Hospital, Pune
4. KEM Hospital, Pune
5. Bharti Hospital, Pune
Bengaluru
Union Government has identified the SDS Hospital & Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases as the facility in Bangalore for testing isolation, and critical care of confirmed swine flu patients. The BIAL has set up a screening facility at the Bangalore International Airport for all the inbound passengers flying into the country to prevent the spread of H1N1. Doctors from the Hospital are round the clock screening the passengers at the Airport.9 500 American H1N1 testing kits are imported and arrived on Thursday, 13 August.10
Chennai
The Union Government has identified the Communicable Disease Hospital, 87, T.H. Road, Tondiarpet, as the isolation facility, for testing and isolation of suspected swine flu patients in Chennai. The government has set up a screening facility at the Chennai International Airport for all the inbound passengers to prevent the spread of H1N1. Doctors from the Hospital are round the clock screening the passengers at the Airport.11
Hyderabad
The Union Government has identified the Govt. General and Chest Diseases Hospital, Erragadda as the facility in Hyderabad for testing, isolation and critical care of suspected/confirmed swine flu patients. The Hyderabad Airport Limited has set up a screening facility at the Hyderabad International Airport for all the inbound passengers flying into the country to prevent the spread of H1N1.12
Kolkata
The Union Government has identified the SDS Beliaghata Infectious Diseases Hospital,as the facility at Kolkata, for testing and isolation of suspected swine flu patients. The government has set up a screening facility at the Kolkata International Airport for all the inbound passengers to prevent the spread of H1N1.13
Mumbai
The Union Government has identified the Kasturba Hospital,as the facility at Mumbai, for testing and isolation of suspected swine flu patients. The government has set up a screening facility at the Chatrapati Shivaji International airport for all the inbound passengers to prevent the spread of H1N1.14
Screening has also been set up at several other centers all over Mumbai, including the state-government run Grant Medical College and Sir Jamshedjee Jeejebhoy Group of Hospitals and the Haffkine Institute.
The others include:
1. Cooper hospital in Vile Parle
2. V N Desai in Santacruz
3. S K Patil in Malad
4. Bhabha hospital in Kurla
5. Kannamwar Nagar in Vikhroli
6. Saptapadi in Govandi
7. Bhabha Hospital in Bandra
8. Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar
9. Bhagwati Hospital in Borivli
10. M T Agarwal Hospital in Mulund
11. Siddharth Hospital in Goregaon
Delhi
The Union Government has identified the Yellow Fever Quarantine Centre and Influenza Ward, Ward no 5, Ram Manohar Lohiya Hospital as the facilities at New Delhi, for testing, isolating and critical care of confirmed swine flu patients. The government has set up a screening facility at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi for all the inbound passengers to prevent the spread of H1N1. 15
In East Delhi Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital has the facilities for H1N1 Test. This hospital is not so crowded than other hospitals(for H1N1 Test).
Deaths
The first death was a 14-year-old girl. On 8th and 9th of August a 43-year-old man in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a 42-year-old teacher in Pune and a 53-year-old woman in Mumbai died. On August 10 a 53-year-old doctor in Pune and a 4-year-old in Chennai died.16 On august 11th a 7-year-old girl in vadodara,gujarat. On August 13, a 26-year-old woman became Bangalore's first victim of swine flu. An eleven-month-old boy, a 75-year-old woman and a 37 year old women died taking the toll in Pune, severely hit by the virus, to 15 and across the country to 24.A lady having a young daughter of 5 yrs died near Mumbai in Khopoli on August 14. On August 16, Shilpa Hegde(26), Samshad Begam(26), Sagaya(43), all three died at different hospitals in Bangalore, according to the reports.
Deaths by city
• Pune - 1317
• Bangalore - 518
• Mumbai - 319
• Vadodara - 2 20
• Ahmedabad, Chennai,Thiruvananthapuram,Nashik, Bilaspur,Raipur- 1 each.21
Deaths by date
• August 3, 2009 - 122
• August 8, 2009 - 123
• August 9, 2009 - 22425
• August 10, 2009 - 3262728
• August 11, 2009 - 529
• August 12, 2009 - 530
• August 13, 2009 - 431
• August 14, 2009 - 432
• August 15, 2009 - 333
• August 16, 2009 - 334
• August 17, 2009 - 135
Total Deaths till Date
• August 17, 2009 - 2917

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Stem cell

Stem cells are cells found in most, if not all, multi-cellular organisms. They are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Research in the stem cell field grew out of findings by Canadian scientists Ernest A. McCulloch and James E. Till in the 1960s. The two broad types of mammalian stem cells are: embryonic stem cells that are isolated from the inner cell mass of blastocysts, and adult stem cells that are found in adult tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all of the specialized embryonic tissues. In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing specialized cells, but also maintain the normal turnover of regenerative organs, such as blood, skin or intestinal tissues.

Stem cells can now be grown and transformed into specialized cells with characteristics consistent with cells of various tissues such as muscles or nerves through cell culture. Highly plastic adult stem cells from a variety of sources, including umbilical cord blood and bone marrow, are routinely used in medical therapies. Embryonic cell lines and autologous embryonic stem cells generated through therapeutic cloning have also been proposed as promising candidates for future therapies.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Bermudas Triangle

The Triangle area

The area of the Triangle varies by authorThe boundaries of the triangle cover the Straits of Florida, the Bahamas and the entire Caribbean island area and the Atlantic east to the Azores; others[who?] add to it the Gulf of Mexico. The more familiar triangular boundary in most written works has as its points somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Miami, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with most of the accidents concentrated along the southern boundary around the Bahamas and the Florida Straits.

The area is one of the most heavily-sailed shipping lanes in the world, with ships crossing through it daily for ports in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. Cruise ships are also plentiful, and pleasure craft regularly go back and forth between Florida and the islands. It is also a heavily flown route for commercial and private aircraft heading towards Florida, the Caribbean, and South America from points north.


History of the Triangle story

Origins
The first article of any kind in which the legend of the Triangle began appeared in newspapers by E.V.W. Jones on September 16, 1950, through the Associated Press.[5] Two years later, Fate magazine published "Sea Mystery At Our Back Door",[6] a short article by George X. Sand covering the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger bombers on a training mission. Sand's article was the first to lay out the now-familiar triangular area where the losses took place. Flight 19 alone would be covered in the April 1962 issue of American Legion Magazine.[7] It was claimed that the flight leader had been heard saying "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white." It was also claimed that officials at the Navy board of inquiry stated that the planes "flew off to Mars." This was the first article to connect the supernatural to Flight 19, but it would take another author, Vincent Gaddis, writing in the February 1964 Argosy magazine to take Flight 19 together with other mysterious disappearances and place it under the umbrella of a new catchy name: "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" though the first name was The Waters of Despair.[8] He would build on that article with a more detailed book, Invisible Horizons, the next year.[9] Others would follow with their own works: John Wallace Spencer (Limbo of the Lost, 1969, repr. 1973);[10] Charles Berlitz (The Bermuda Triangle, 1974);[11] Richard Winer (The Devil's Triangle, 1974),[12] and many others, all keeping to some of the same supernatural elements outlined by Eckert.[13]




Larry Kusche
Lawrence David Kusche, a research librarian from Arizona State University and author of The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved (1975)[14] has challenged this trend. Kusche's research revealed a number of inaccuracies and inconsistencies between Berlitz's accounts and statements from eyewitnesses, participants, and others involved in the initial incidents. He noted cases where pertinent information went unreported, such as the disappearance of round-the-world yachtsman Donald Crowhurst, which Berlitz had presented as a mystery, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Another example was the ore-carrier recounted by Berlitz as lost without trace three days out of an Atlantic port when it had been lost three days out of a port with the same name in the Pacific Ocean. Kusche also argued that a large percentage of the incidents which have sparked the Triangle's mysterious influence actually occurred well outside it. Often his research was simple: he would go over period newspapers of the dates of reported incidents and find reports on possibly relevant events like unusual weather, that were never mentioned in the disappearance stories.

Kusche concluded that:

The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the area was not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean.
In an area frequented by tropical storms, the number of disappearances that did occur were, for the most part, neither disproportionate, unlikely, nor mysterious; furthermore, Berlitz and other writers would often fail to mention such storms.
The numbers themselves had been exaggerated by sloppy research. A boat listed as missing would be reported, but its eventual (if belated) return to port may not have been reported.
Some disappearances had in fact, never happened. One plane crash was said to have taken place in 1937 off Daytona Beach, Florida, in front of hundreds of witnesses; a check of the local papers revealed nothing.
The Legend of the Bermuda Triangle is a manufactured mystery... perpetuated by writers who either purposely or unknowingly made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning, and sensationalism.[14]

Further responses
When the UK Channel 4 television program "The Bermuda Triangle" (c. 1992) was being produced by John Simmons of Geofilms for the Equinox Programme, the marine insurer Lloyd's of London was asked if an unusually large number of ships had sunk in the Bermuda Triangle area. Lloyd's of London determined that large numbers of ships had not sunk there.[15]

United States Coast Guard records confirm their conclusion. In fact, the number of supposed disappearances is relatively insignificant considering the number of ships and aircraft which pass through on a regular basis.[citation needed]

The Coast Guard is also officially skeptical of the Triangle, noting that they collect and publish, through their inquiries, much documentation contradicting many of the incidents written about by the Triangle authors. In one such incident involving the 1972 explosion and sinking of the tanker V.A. Fogg in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard photographed the wreck and recovered several bodies,[16] in contrast with one Triangle author's claim that all the bodies had vanished, with the exception of the captain, who was found sitting in his cabin at his desk, clutching a coffee cup.[10]

The NOVA / Horizon episode The Case of the Bermuda Triangle (1976-06-27) was highly critical, stating that "When we've gone back to the original sources or the people involved, the mystery evaporates. Science does not have to answer questions about the Triangle because those questions are not valid in the first place. ... Ships and planes behave in the Triangle the same way they behave everywhere else in the world."[17]

Skeptical researchers, such as Ernest Taves[18] and Barry Singer,[19] have noted how mysteries and the paranormal are very popular and profitable. This has led to the production of vast amounts of material on topics such as the Bermuda Triangle. They were able to show that some of the pro-paranormal material is often misleading or inaccurate, but its producers continue to market it. Accordingly, they have claimed that the market is biased in favour of books, TV specials, etc. which support the Triangle mystery, and against well-researched material if it espouses a skeptical viewpoint.

Finally, if the Triangle is assumed to cross land, such as parts of Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, or Bermuda itself, there is no evidence for the disappearance of any land-based vehicles or persons.[citation needed] The city of Freeport, located inside the Triangle, operates a major shipyard and an airport which annually handles 50,000 flights, and is visited by over a million tourists a year.


Supernatural explanations
Triangle writers have used a number of supernatural concepts to explain the events. One explanation pins the blame on leftover technology from the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. Sometimes connected to the Atlantis story is the submerged rock formation known as the Bimini Road off the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, which is in the Triangle by some definitions. Followers of the purported psychic Edgar Cayce take his prediction that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968 as referring to the discovery of the Bimini Road. Believers describe the formation as a road, wall, or other structure, though geologists consider it to be of natural origin.[20]

Other writers attribute the events to UFOs.[21] This idea was used by Steven Spielberg for his science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which features the lost Flight 19 as alien abductees.

Charles Berlitz, grandson of a distinguished linguist and author of various additional books on anomalous phenomena, has kept in line with this extraordinary explanation, and attributed the losses in the Triangle to anomalous or unexplained forces.[11]


Natural explanations
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)


Compass variations
Compass problems are one of the cited phrases in many Triangle incidents. While some have theorized that unusual local magnetic anomalies may exist in the area,[22] such anomalies have not been shown to exist. Compasses have natural magnetic variations in relation to the Magnetic poles. For example, in the United States the only places where magnetic (compass) north and geographic (true) north are exactly the same are on a line running from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. Navigators have known this for centuries. But the public may not be as informed, and think there is something mysterious about a compass "changing" across an area as large as the Triangle, which it naturally will.


Deliberate acts of destruction
Deliberate acts of destruction can fall into two categories: acts of war, and acts of piracy. Records in enemy files have been checked for numerous losses; while many sinkings have been attributed to surface raiders or submarines during the World Wars and documented in the various command log books, many others which have been suspected as falling in that category have not been proven. It is suspected that the loss of USS Cyclops in 1918, as well as her sister ships Proteus and Nereus in World War II, were attributed to submarines, but no such link has been found in the German records.

Piracy, as defined by the taking of a ship or small boat on the high seas, is an act which continues to this day. While piracy for cargo theft is more common in the western Pacific and Indian oceans, drug smugglers do steal pleasure boats for smuggling operations, and may have been involved in crew and yacht disappearances in the Caribbean. Piracy in the Caribbean was common from about 1560 to the 1760s, and famous pirates included Edward Teach (Blackbeard) and Jean Lafitte.[citation needed]


False-color image of the Gulf Stream flowing north through the western Atlantic Ocean. (NASA)
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream is an ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico, and then through the Straits of Florida, into the North Atlantic. In essence, it is a river within an ocean, and like a river, it can and does carry floating objects. It has a surface velocity of up to about 2.5 metres per second (5.6 mph).[23] A small plane making a water landing or a boat having engine trouble will be carried away from its reported position by the current, as happened to the cabin cruiser Witchcraft on December 22, 1967, when it reported engine trouble near the Miami buoy marker one mile (1.6 km) from shore, but was not there when a Coast Guard cutter arrived.


Human error
One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries as to the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error.[24] Whether deliberate or accidental, humans have been known to make mistakes resulting in catastrophe, and losses within the Bermuda Triangle are no exception. For example, the Coast Guard cited a lack of proper training for the cleaning of volatile benzene residue as a reason for the loss of the tanker V.A. Fogg in 1972[citation needed]. Human stubbornness may have caused businessman Harvey Conover to lose his sailing yacht, the Revonoc, as he sailed into the teeth of a storm south of Florida on January 1, 1958.[25] Many losses remain inconclusive due to the lack of wreckage which could be studied, a fact cited on many official reports.


Hurricanes
Hurricanes are powerful storms which are spawned in tropical waters, and have historically been responsible for thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars in damage. The sinking of Francisco de Bobadilla's Spanish fleet in 1502 was the first recorded instance of a destructive hurricane. These storms have in the past caused a number of incidents related to the Triangle.


Methane hydrates
Main article: Methane clathrate

Worldwide distribution of confirmed or inferred offshore gas hydrate-bearing sediments, 1996.
Source: USGSAn explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on the presence of vast fields of methane hydrates (a form of natural gas) on the continental shelves.[26] Laboratory experiments carried out in Australia have proven that bubbles can, indeed, sink a scale model ship by decreasing the density of the water;[27] any wreckage consequently rising to the surface would be rapidly dispersed by the Gulf Stream. It has been hypothesized that periodic methane eruptions (sometimes called "mud volcanoes") may produce regions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning.

Publications by the USGS describe large stores of undersea hydrates worldwide, including the Blake Ridge area, off the southeastern United States coast.[28] However, according to another of their papers, no large releases of gas hydrates are believed to have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle for the past 15,000 years.[15]

It should also be noted that other areas of undersea methane hydrates aren't reported to give rise to similar incidents as the Bermuda Triangle, also that bubbles of underwater gas wouldn't account for aircraft disappearances.


Rogue waves
In various oceans around the world, rogue waves have caused ships to sink[29] and oil platforms to topple.[30] These waves are considered to be a mystery and until recently were believed to be a myth.[31][32] However, rogue waves don't account for the missing aircraft.


Notable incidents
Main article: List of Bermuda Triangle incidents

Flight 19

US Navy TBF Grumman Avenger flight, similar to Flight 19. This photo had been used by various Triangle authors to illustrate Flight 19 itself. (US Navy)Flight 19 was a training flight of TBM Avenger bombers that went missing on December 5, 1945 while over the Atlantic. The squadron's flight path was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base, but they never returned. The impression is given that the flight encountered unusual phenomena and anomalous compass readings, and that the flight took place on a calm day under the supervision of an experienced pilot, Lt. Charles Carroll Taylor. Adding to the intrigue is that the Navy's report of the accident was ascribed to "causes or reasons unknown." It is believed that Taylor's mother wanted to save her son's reputation, so she made them write "reasons unknown" when actually Taylor was 50 km NW from where he thought he was.[33]

Adding to the mystery, a search and rescue Mariner aircraft with a 13-man crew was dispatched to aid the missing squadron, but the Mariner itself was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion at about the time the Mariner would have been on patrol.

While the basic facts of this version of the story are essentially accurate, some important details are missing. The weather was becoming stormy by the end of the incident, and naval reports and written recordings of the conversations between Taylor and the other pilots of Flight 19 do not indicate magnetic problems.[33]


Mary Celeste
The mysterious abandonment in 1872 of the 282-ton brigantine Mary Celeste is often but inaccurately connected to the Triangle, the ship having been abandoned off the coast of Portugal. The event is possibly confused with the loss of a ship with a similar name, the Mari Celeste, a 207-ton paddle steamer which hit a reef and quickly sank off the coast of Bermuda on September 13, 1864.[34][35] Kusche noted that many of the "facts" about this incident were actually about the Marie Celeste, the fictional ship from Arthur Conan Doyle's short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (based on the real Mary Celeste incident, but fictionalised).


Ellen Austin
The Ellen Austin supposedly came across an abandoned derelict, placed on board a prize crew, and attempted to sail with it to New York in 1881. According to the stories, the derelict disappeared; others elaborating further that the derelict reappeared minus the prize crew, then disappeared again with a second prize crew on board. A check of Lloyd's of London records proved the existence of the Meta, built in 1854; in 1880 the Meta was renamed Ellen Austin. There are no casualty listings for this vessel, or any vessel at that time, that would suggest a large number of missing men placed on board a derelict which later disappeared.[36]


USS Cyclops
The incident resulting in the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Navy not related to combat occurred when USS Cyclops, under the command of Lt Cdr G. W. Worley, went missing without a trace with a crew of 309 sometime after March 4, 1918, after departing the island of Barbados. Although there is no strong evidence for any single theory, many independent theories exist, some blaming storms, some capsizing, and some suggesting that wartime enemy activity was to blame for the loss.[37][38]


Theodosia Burr Alston
Theodosia Burr Alston was the daughter of former United States Vice President Aaron Burr. Her disappearance has been cited at least once in relation to the Triangle.[39] She was a passenger on board the Patriot, which sailed from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City on December 30, 1812, and was never heard from again. Both piracy and the War of 1812 have been posited as explanations, as well as a theory placing her in Texas, well outside the Triangle.


Spray
S.V. Spray was a derelict fishing boat refitted as an ocean cruiser by Joshua Slocum and used by him to complete the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the world, between 1895 and 1898.

In 1909, Slocum set sail from Vineyard Haven bound for Venezuela. Neither he nor Spray were ever seen again.

There is no evidence they were in the Bermuda Triangle when they disappeared, nor is there any evidence of paranormal activity.


Schooner Carroll A. Deering, as seen from the Cape Lookout lightship on January 29, 1921, two days before she was found deserted in North Carolina. (US Coast Guard)
Carroll A. Deering
A five-masted schooner built in 1919, the Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground and abandoned at Diamond Shoals, near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on January 31, 1921. Rumors and more at the time indicated the Deering was a victim of piracy, possibly connected with the illegal rum-running trade during Prohibition, and possibly involving another ship, S.S. Hewitt, which disappeared at roughly the same time. Just hours later, an unknown steamer sailed near the lightship along the track of the Deering, and ignored all signals from the lightship. It is speculated that the Hewitt may have been this mystery ship, and possibly involved in the Deering crew's disappearance.[40]


Douglas DC-3
On December 28, 1948, a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, number NC16002, disappeared while on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami. No trace of the aircraft or the 32 people onboard was ever found. From the documentation compiled by the Civil Aeronautics Board investigation, a possible key to the plane's disappearance was found, but barely touched upon by the Triangle writers: the plane's batteries were inspected and found to be low on charge, but ordered back into the plane without a recharge by the pilot while in San Juan. Whether or not this led to complete electrical failure will never be known. However, since piston-engined aircraft rely upon magnetos to provide spark to their cylinders rather than a battery powered ignition coil system, this theory is not strongly convincing.[41]


Star Tiger and Star Ariel
G-AHNP Star Tiger disappeared on January 30, 1948 on a flight from the Azores to Bermuda; G-AGRE Star Ariel disappeared on January 17, 1949, on a flight from Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Both were Avro Tudor IV passenger aircraft operated by British South American Airways.[42]


KC-135 Stratotankers
On August 28, 1963 a pair of U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft collided and crashed into the Atlantic. The Triangle version (Winer, Berlitz, Gaddis[8][11][12]) of this story specifies that they did collide and crash, but there were two distinct crash sites, separated by over 160 miles (260 km) of water. However, Kusche's research[14] showed that the unclassified version of the Air Force investigation report stated that the debris field defining the second "crash site" was examined by a search and rescue ship, and found to be a mass of seaweed and driftwood tangled in an old buoy.


SS Marine Sulphur Queen
SS Marine Sulphur Queen, a T2 tanker converted from oil to sulfur carrier, was last heard from on February 4, 1963 with a crew of 39 near the Florida Keys. Marine Sulphur Queen was the first vessel mentioned in Vincent Gaddis' 1964 Argosy Magazine article,[8] but he left it as having "sailed into the unknown", despite the Coast Guard report which not only documented the ship's badly-maintained history, but declared that it was an unseaworthy vessel that should never have gone to sea.[43][44]


Raifuku Maru
One of the more famous incidents in the Triangle took place in 1921 (some say a few years later), when the Japanese vessel Raifuku Maru (sometimes misidentified as Raikuke Maru) went down with all hands after sending a distress signal which allegedly said "Danger like dagger now. Come quick!", or "It's like a dagger, come quick!" This has led writers to speculate on what the "dagger" was, with a waterspout being the likely candidate (Winer). In reality the ship was nowhere near the Triangle, nor was the word "dagger" a part of the ship's distress call ("Now very danger. Come quick."); having left Boston for Hamburg, Germany, on April 21, 1925, she got caught in a severe storm and sank in the North Atlantic with all hands while another ship, RMS Homeric, attempted an unsuccessful rescue.[45]


Connemara IV
A pleasure yacht found adrift in the Atlantic south of Bermuda on September 26, 1955; it is usually stated in the stories (Berlitz, Winer[11][12]) that the crew vanished while the yacht survived being at sea during three hurricanes. The 1955 Atlantic hurricane season lists only one storm coming near Bermuda towards the end of August, hurricane "Edith"; of the others, "Flora" was too far to the east, and "Katie" arrived after the yacht was recovered. It was confirmed that the Connemara IV was empty and in port when "Edith" may have caused the yacht to slip her moorings and drift out to sea