Treasure hunters eye huge silver haul from WWII ship

Source from AFP News :

When the SS Gairsoppa was torpedoed by a German U-boat 70 years ago, it took its huge silver cargo to a watery grave. US divers are working to recover what may be the biggest shipwreck haul ever, valued at some $210 million.

Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration on Monday confirmed the identity and location of the Gairsoppa, and cited official documents indicating the British ship was carrying some 219 tons of silver when it sank in 1941 in the North Atlantic some 300 miles (490 kilometers) off the Irish coast.

Valued then at 600,000 pounds, the silver today is worth about $210 million, which would make it history's largest recovery of precious metals lost at sea, Odyssey said.

"We've accomplished the first phase of this project -- the location and identification of the target shipwreck -- and now we're hard at work planning for the recovery phase," Odyssey senior project manager Andrew Craig said in a statement.

"Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be well suited for the recovery of this silver cargo."

Recovery is expected to begin next spring.

After a competitive tender process the British government awarded Odyssey an exclusive salvage contract for the cargo, and under the agreement Odyssey will retain 80 percent of the silver bullion salvaged from the wreck.

The 412-foot (125-meter) Gairsoppa had been sailing from India back to Britain in February 1941 bearing a cargo of silver, pig iron and tea, and was in a convoy of ships when a storm hit. Running low on fuel, the Gairsoppa broke off from the convoy and set a course for Galway, Ireland.

It never made it, succumbing to a German torpedo in the contested waters of the North Atlantic. Of the 85 people on board, only one survived.

The Gairsoppa came to rest nearly 15,400 feet (4,700 meters) below the surface, where for decades it was lost to the world. A previous effort to locate the shipwreck failed.

Odyssey found it relatively quickly, and insists the depth of the site won't prevent a full cargo recovery.

"We were fortunate to find the shipwreck sitting upright, with the holds open and easily accessible," Odyssey chief executive Greg Stemm said.

"This should enable us to unload cargo through the hatches as would happen with a floating ship alongside a cargo terminal."

Odyssey is a world leader in deep-ocean exploration and has numerous shipwreck hunting projects in process around the globe.

In May 2007, it announced it had found half a million silver coins and hundreds of gold objects from a ship they code-named the "Black Swan," which went down in 1804 in the Atlantic off the Strait of Gibraltar. The find is being contested by Spain, which claims the trove.

In the latest operation, the firm recently conducted remotely operated vehicles from its main ship, the Odyssey Explorer, to inspect the Gairsoppa wreck. It acquired still and video imagery from the site which were used to confirm the identify and evaluate the condition of the ship.


~ Handout image courtesy of the Odyssey Marine Exploration shows a stern compass of the SS Gairsoppa on the top of the poop deck


Photographs released by the company show clear details of the Gairsoppa, including a ladder leading to the forecastle deck, a waist-high compass used by the helmsman, even the hole in the steel hull blown open by the torpedo.


~ Graphic on the last voyage of the SS Gairsoppa, torpedoed by a German U-boat in World War II, carrying 219 tons of silver. Florida-based company Odyssey Marine Exploration is working to recover the treasures.



The find highlights the influential role that modern technology has come to play in the business of finding shipwrecks, with vastly improved sonar equipment, global positioning systems and advanced deepwater robots that scour the world's oceans for booty.

UNESCO estimates there are some three million shipwrecks worldwide, with billions of dollars in sunken treasures and priceless knowledge that can be recovered from the depths of the ocean, including vast amounts of naturally occurring copper, silver, gold and zinc deposits waiting to be discovered

"The majority of the world's ocean floor has not yet been explored," said Odyssey president Mark Gordon, who told AFP that the discovery at some 4,700 meters (15,400 feet) beneath below the ocean's surface is a treasure trove for companies like his.

"We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the deepest parts of the oceans. It's exciting to be working at depths like these and to be among the pioneers of deep ocean exploration in this unexplored frontier."

Japan noodle museum opens doors

Japan's Nissin Foods opened a cup noodle museum on Saturday charting the history of the speedy snack where visitors even get the chance to create their own tasty version.

About 500 adults and children queued up before the museum opened in the port city of Yokohama near Tokyo with celebrity guests ranging from a former prime minister to a retail business tycoon.

"We opened this place... as a factory that gives children experience and a museum for corporate activities," Nissin Foods Holdings president Koki Ando said.

Ando, whose late father Momofuku Ando invented instant noodles more than half a century ago, said visitors could knead flour, roll out noodles, steam and fry them to make chicken ramen which is then put into bags.

Children in aprons set to work making noodles under the watchful gaze of guests including former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japanese premier from 2001-2006.

In another area of the museum called "My Cup Noodle Factory", visitors can design cups, put dried noodles in them and pick toppings and broth for their own versions of cupped meals -- with the potential to create more than 5,000 different versions.

The museum exhibits packages of Nissin instant noodles from around the world over the decades and houses restaurants that serve food such as Vietnamese pho noodles and pasta from Italy.

There are giant cup noodle containers in the museum for children to play in.

Momofuku Ando, the man credited with inventing instant noodles, took a lower-profile role in the business at the ripe old age of 95 in 2005, the year Nissin supplied vacuum packed instant noodles or "Space Ram" to a Japanese astronaut aboard a US space shuttle.

Ando died of acute heart failure in 2007.

The businessman, born in 1910 in Taiwan under Japanese occupation, entered the food business when Japan was hungry after World War II and invented the world's first instant noodles, chicken ramen noodles sold in bags, in 1958.

He launched the cupped version in 1971 with a pre-cooked slab of noodles in a waterproof styrofoam container.

Ando saw his invention stocked on the shelves of convenience stores around the world.

As the products were widely replicated, more than 95 billion servings were consumed around the globe in 2010, according to the Japanese instant noodles manufacturers' association.

Ando said he was inspired to develop the product when he saw a long line of people waiting to buy soup noodles at a black market stall in post-war Japan.

"Peace prevails when food suffices," he was quoted as saying.

The museum is Nissin's second devoted to instant noodles after one opened in the western Japan province of Osaka in 1999.

The multi-storey Yokohama museum has a total floor space of 10,000 square metres (107,600 square feet) -- three times bigger than the Osaka museum.

By Yoshikazu Tsuno | AFP News – Sat, Sep 17, 2011

Hiroshima bomb impact

Amazing Timelapse of Earth

Science educator James Drake built this amazing timelapse video from the perspective of the International Space Station as it flew over North and South America.

He created this video by downloading a series of 600 photographs that were available online at the Gateway to Astronomy Photograph of Earth, and then stitching them together into a complete video.

Amazing volcanic activity seen from space

This May 23, 2006, photo released by NASA shows the eruption of Cleveland Volcano, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, as photographed by an Expedition 13 crew member on the International Space Station. The image captures the ash plume of the very short-lived eruption.

Photo Courtesy of Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center

Japanese girl delighted by bottle found in Hawaii

By MARI YAMAGUCHI , Sep 18, 2011

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese teenager expressed her gratitude Sunday after a U.S. sailor in Hawaii found a bottle she had tossed into the sea off Japan's southern coast as a child, and said she was delighted to be reconnected with her old classmates as a result.

Saki Arikawa, 17, said she had almost forgotten about the bottle and initially couldn't believe it was found after five years.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press from her hometown in Kagoshima, she said "it's a miracle" the bottle was found. "It's incredible," she said.

The clear glass bottle was found Thursday by Navy Petty Officer Jon Moore during a beach cleanup at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai island.


~ U.S. Navy electrician's Mate 2nd Class Jon Moore removes a message from a bottle sent from Kagoshima, Japan more than five years ago


The bottle contained four origami cranes — symbols of peace in Japan — as well as a photo of Arikawa's elementary school class and a note dated March 25, 2006, and signed by Arikawa saying she wanted it to be "a graduation memory."


~ A photo of 6th grade students from Kagoshima, Japan found in a bottle by Petty Officer Jon Moore during a cleanup on a beach at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai Island


News of the bottle's recovery reconnected more than a dozen of her old classmates, now studying at different high schools, and their elementary school homeroom teacher for a reunion Saturday. Arikawa says she now wants to further expand the circle of friendship.

"Thanks to the bottle, some of us could get together and had a great time," she said. "Now I'd like to meet the person who kindly saved my bottle."

The bottle was one of five she tossed into the ocean in 2006 as her sixth-grade class graduated from Kokubu Elementary School in Kagoshima. She and her 31 classmates dropped five bottles each, including the one that turned up last week.

Three other bottles had previously been recovered, including two in Alaska and a third at another location in Hawaii.

The Navy said Moore was among 40 base personnel and 16 students and faculty from a Kauai school who picked up beach trash in observance of International Coastal Cleanup Day.

200-year-old letter by Raffles on Singpore

By Philip Lim @ 19/9/2011

A nearly illegible letter from almost two centuries ago is kept in a dim, cold room in downtown Singapore accessible only to a privileged few via an electronic swipe card.

In flowing script dated June 9, 1819, Singapore's colonial founder Stamford Raffles described the island's formative days as a regional trading port in the Malay archipelago, and it turned out to be prophetic.

"The Settlement I had the satisfaction to form in this very centrical and commanding station has had every success ... our Port is already crowded with shipping from all the native Ports in the Archipelago," he wrote.


~ letters from centuries ago displayed in a room that is home to the Rare Materials Collection (RMC) of Singapore's National Library.


The letter, as well as some 7,000 other items in the room, form the Rare Materials Collection (RMC) of Singapore's National Library, offering a more intimate look into the past of what is now one of the world's busiest ports.

"The history textbook doesn't cover everything," senior librarian Ong Eng Chuan told an AFP reporter who was allowed briefly into the chamber.

"The RMC gives you an interesting perspective of Singapore, from a small fishing village to an international trading port," Ong told AFP.

"It offers an interesting window for the generation now to look into Singapore, and how it has developed into the current place that it is now."

Stepping into the RMC may seem rather underwhelming at first as nondescript boxes containing books and documents sit neatly on shelves with no indication of their historical importance.

The boxes -- made from acid-free paper -- as well as the 18-20 degree celsius (64-68 degree Fahrenheit) temperature, 50-55 percent humidity and dim lighting are necessary to prevent the collection from degrading, Ong said.

People allowed to handle the documents have to wear gloves.

"Some of our hands might have sweat, and the moisture is not good for the paper," he said.


~Senior librarian Ong Eng Chuan flipping through the pages of old newspaper Syonan Sinbun, on display in the Rare Materials Collection (RMC) of Singapore's National Library


Physical access to the RMC is strictly limited on a "case-by-case basis," with librarians routinely referring people asking to view the collection to digital versions posted on the library's website.

Anyone asking to see the real collection needs a pretty good reason.

"Seeing the actual item has an X factor that can make it more interesting for the people, but we have to balance the need to preserve the item and the need to provide access to the content," Ong said.

Publications kept by the RMC include European travelogues from as early as 1577, biographical accounts of daily life in Malaya and even love poems and cookbooks from a hundred years ago.

"The Mem's Own Cookery Book" -- meant for the wives of British administrators who established colonies around Asia at the time -- features recipes to suit the tastebuds of homesick Englishmen.

Recipes for spinach soup, roast hare and pigeon mingle with tips for more adventurous fare like jungle deer curry and sheep head broth.

In contrast, the "Hikayat Abdullah," an 1849 biography of the father of modern Malay literature Munshi Abdullah, offered a unique perspective often missing from records largely penned by Western authors, librarian Ong said.

"It offers an Asian perspective in contrast to the accounts you see from the East India company's records and the memoirs written by those officials," he stated.

In the biography, Abdullah praises Raffles -- who had employed him as a translator -- but offered a less than complimentary description of British sailors who docked in his hometown Malacca, now part of Malaysia.

"To see an Englishman was like seeing a tiger, because they were so mischievous and violent... At that time I never met an Englishman who had a white face, for all of them had 'mounted the green horse', that is to say, were drunk," he wrote.

"So much so that when children cried their mothers would say, 'Be quiet, the drunken Englishman is coming,' and the children would be scared, and keep quiet."

John Solomon, a postgraduate student from Australia's University of New South Wales, accessed the RMC twice for his research on 19th-century transmarine convicts sent to Singapore.

"As a historian, I enjoy being able to physically handle material from the period. It gives the past this powerful sense of immediacy and presence," he said.

"Being in contact with the physical material also makes me realise that Singapore's story is not merely an account of economic and social policies but is also enmeshed in the everyday struggles and triumphs of individuals from vastly different circumstances."

Japanese Tsunami Viewed From A Car

Yu Muroga is a Japanese driver. It was his tour took place when the earthquake March 11, 2011. Like most people of his area, he did not feel threatened by the tsumani, as it was far enough from the coast. So he continued to drive and do its job. The HD camera mounted on the dashboard has not only captured the shock but also the moments that followed, where many drivers were stranded by the waters of the tsunami.

Note : The "Dancing" man at the road junction is due to EARTHQUAKE (ground shaking)

Visible Only From Above, Mystifying 'Nazca Lines' Discovered in Mideast

By Owen Jarus | LiveScience.com – Thu, Sep 15, 2011

The giant stone structures form wheel shapes with spokes often radiating inside. Here a cluster of wheels in the Azraq Oasis. CREDIT: David D. Boyer


They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public.

They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines — ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru — and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands.

Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside. Researchers believe that they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years ago. They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) across. [See gallery of wheel structures]

"In Jordan alone we've got stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," said David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia.

Kennedy's new research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveals that these wheels form part of a variety of stone landscapes. These include kites (stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals); pendants (lines of stone cairns that run from burials); and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use.

His team's studies are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeological sites across Jordan. As of now, Kennedy and his colleagues are puzzled as to what the structures may have been used for or what meaning they held. [History's Most Overlooked Mysteries]


Fascinating structures

Kennedy's main area of expertise is in Roman archaeology, but he became fascinated by these structures when, as a student, he read accounts of Royal Air Force pilots flying over them in the 1920s on airmail routes across Jordan. "You can't not be fascinated by these things," Kennedy said.

Indeed, in 1927 RAF Flight Lt. Percy Maitland published an account of the ruins in the journal Antiquity. He reported encountering them over "lava country" and said that they, along with the other stone structures, are known to the Bedouin as the "works of the old men."

Kennedy and his team have been studying the structures using aerial photography and Google Earth, as the wheels are hard to pick up from the ground, Kennedy said.

"Sometimes when you're actually there on the site you can make out something of a pattern but not very easily," he said. "Whereas if you go up just a hundred feet or so it, for me, comes sharply into focus what the shape is."

The designs must have been clearer when they were originally built. "People have probably walked over them, walked past them, for centuries, millennia, without having any clear idea what the shape was."

(The team has created an archive of images of the wheels from various sites in the Middle East.)


What were they used for ?

So far, none of the wheels appears to have been excavated, something that makes dating them, and finding out their purpose, more difficult. Archaeologists studying them in the pre-Google Earth era speculated that they could be the remains of houses or cemeteries. Kennedy said that neither of these explanations seems to work out well.

"There seems to be some overarching cultural continuum in this area in which people felt there was a need to build structures that were circular."

Some of the wheels are found in isolation while others are clustered together. At one location, near the Azraq Oasis, hundreds of them can be found clustered into a dozen groups. "Some of these collections around Azraq are really quite remarkable," Kennedy said.

In Saudi Arabia, Kennedy's team has found wheel styles that are quite different: Some are rectangular and are not wheels at all; others are circular but contain two spokes forming a bar often aligned in the same direction that the sun rises and sets in the Middle East.

The ones in Jordan and Syria, on the other hand, have numerous spokes and do not seem to be aligned with any astronomical phenomena. "On looking at large numbers of these, over a number of years, I wasn't struck by any pattern in the way in which the spokes were laid out," Kennedy said.

Cairns are often found associated with the wheels. Sometimes they circle the perimeter of the wheel, other times they are in among the spokes. In Saudi Arabia some of the cairns look, from the air, like they are associated with ancient burials.

Dating the wheels is difficult, since they appear to be prehistoric, but could date to as recently as 2,000 years ago. The researchers have noted that the wheels are often found on top of kites, which date as far back as 9,000 years, but never vice versa. "That suggests that wheels are more recent than the kites," Kennedy said.

Amelia Sparavigna, a physics professor at Politecnico di Torino in Italy, told Live Science in an email that she agrees these structures can be referred to as geoglyphs in the same way as the Nazca Lines are. "If we define a 'geoglyph' as a wide sign on the ground of artificial origin, the stone circles are geoglyphs," Sparavignawrote in her email.

The function of the wheels may also have been similar to the enigmatic drawings in the Nazca desert. [Science as Art: A Gallery]

"If we consider, more generally, the stone circles as worship places of ancestors, or places for rituals connected with astronomical events or with seasons, they could have the same function of [the] geoglyphs of South America, the Nazca Lines for instance. The design is different, but the function could be the same," she wrote in her email.

Kennedy said that for now the meaning of the wheels remains a mystery. "The question is what was the purpose?"

Awesome Paris Lighting

A chance photo taken from the window of an apartment captures an amazing moment.