AIR ASIA TRAGEDY
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Posted:Dec 30, 2014 8:40 pm
Last Updated:Jan 22, 2015 8:52 pm 5649 Views
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With a heavy heart, the report published in a local News Paper on the recent Air Asia Tragedy is appended for the interested readers to read. Let us pray for the departed souls and also for those who have lost their dear and near ones in this tragedy.
Air Asia plane's wreckage found
40 bodies recovered off Indonesian coast; media criticized for showing live footage
Indonesian rescuers searching for an Air Asia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo yesterday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.
Indonesia Air Asia's Flight QZ8501, an Airbus A320-200, lost contact with air traffic control early on Sunday during bad weather on a flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.
The navy said 40 bodies had been recovered. The plane has yet to be found.
"My heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved in QZ8501," airline boss Tony Fernandez tweeted. "On behalf of Air Asia, my condolences to all. Words cannot express how sorry I am."
The airline said in a statement that it was inviting family members to Surabaya, "where a dedicated team of care providers will be assigned to each family to ensure that all of their needs are met".
Pictures of floating bodies were broadcast on television and relatives of the missing already gathered at a crisis center in Surabaya wept with heads in their hands. Several people collapsed in grief and were helped away.
"You have to be strong," the mayor of Surabaya, Tri Rismaharini, said as she comforted relatives. "They are not ours, they belong to God."
A navy spokesman said a plane door, oxygen tanks and one body had been recovered and taken away by helicopter for tests, reports Reuters.
"The challenge is waves up to three meters high," Fransiskus Bambang Soelistyo, head of the Search and Rescue Agency, told reporters, adding that the search operation would go on all night. He declined to answer questions on whether any survivors had been found.
About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.
Media stations have been criticized for showing split-screen footage of distraught families as they were watched live footage of bodies from missing Air Asia flight being recovered from the water, reports Independent.
TV One, an Indonesian news channel, screened images from rescue crews as they encountered the debris and bodies found earlier yesterday in the Java Sea, off the coast on Borneo, on a split screen interposed with live reaction from the families of passengers.
In Surabaya airport where the passengers' family were gathered in a 'crisis center', six giant flat screen TVs were reported to have played the footage immediately emerging from the scene of discovery.
Similar footage was later picked up by other channels and broadcast around Indonesia and South-east Asia.
Channel Asia later tweeted an apology to its users after “inadvertently” airing similar footage showing the debris and what appeared to be bodies to its viewers.
Social media users reacted angrily to the actions of the media stations, with many scarcely able to believe what they were seeing.
The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said.
It was traveling at 32,000 feet and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet, officials said earlier.
Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.
The Indonesian pilot was experienced and the plane last underwent maintenance in mid-November, the airline said.
The aircraft had accumulated about 23,000 flight hours in some 13,600 flights, according to Airbus.
Online discussion among pilots has centered on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.
The plane, whose engines were made by CFM International, co-owned by General Electric and Safran of France, lacked real-time engine diagnostics or monitoring, a GE spokesman said.
Such systems are mainly used on long-haul flights and can provide clues to airlines and investigators when things go wrong.
Three airline disasters involving Malaysian-affiliated carriers in less than a year have dented confidence in the country's aviation industry and spooked travelers across the region.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board and has not been found. On July 17, the same airline's Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
Bizarrely, an Air Asia plane from Manila skidded off and overshot the runway on landing at Kalibo in the central Philippines yesterday. No one was hurt.
On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and Britain. The co-pilot was French.
US law enforcement and security officials said passenger and crew lists were being examined but nothing significant had turned up and the incident was regarded as an unexplained accident.
Indonesia Air Asia is 49 percent owned by Malaysia-based budget carrier Air Asia.
The Air Asia group, including affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, had not suffered a crash since its Malaysian budget operations began in 2002.
Source: Agency Report. The Daily Star
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Be You, The World Will Adjust
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Posted:Dec 29, 2014 1:32 am
Last Updated:Jan 22, 2015 8:54 pm 5646 Views
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It is amazingly a wonderful ride. Be you, the world will adjust.
Did you ever try to be you---- you only and none else? Oh, you did not. Why you did not? Were you fearful of even trying it out for once? Were you scared of that the world would reject you as being an extraordinary person--- a different one than so many out there!
Do you know that the journey of discovering who you are began from the moment you were born? It began at the exact moment when you shouted out loudly to the world at large declaring that you have since arrived! May be, it was either the exact second when the doctor welcomed you here amongst so many of us or the right moment when the doctor made you cry to attract your mother’s attention or for something else, that was required of him! The journey took you to many dangerous path----paths to make mistakes and then grow, to get lost on way, to love, to hurt and above all, to feel every moment along the way.
True, it will be difficult to be just you because you may find the society as an obstacle to achieve it. They may not like your ideas at all. The society may label your ideas as too ambitious, not workable and not smart enough! Never mind. You must walk down the road alone to reach your goal to be you--- you only.
Discover yourself. Be you. The world will surely adjust. The world would adjust even if you are a self styled expert distributing uncalled for advices to people about the right way to grow melons and treat its seeds properly to known or unknowns or a blogger like me. It does not matter.
Therefore, be you, the world will adjust
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Wishing a happy and joyous New Year to all the readers who would stop by this blog.
Happy Reading:
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The Winter Scenes.
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Posted:Dec 27, 2014 1:53 am
Last Updated:Jan 22, 2015 8:59 pm 5843 Views
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We are passing through winter now. A winter morning in Bangladesh is usually misty and cold too. In most winter mornings, the sun remains invisible. We cannot see sun because of dense fog. Everything appears hazy. Nothing is visible clearly even from very near. A winter night is bright and beautiful and enjoyable too as village people makes fire by gathering straw to warm them. The nights are longer in Bangladesh. It is the most sharply felt six seasons of Bangladesh. It starts in the middle of November and continues until the middle of February. Winter is followed by spring—the season we like most.
Picture Details:
1. A misty winter morning. Kirtankhola River, Barisal. Photo by Prodip Saha.
2.In a cold fogy night waiting for the train in a railway station. Photo by Wahidul Islam Khan.
3.A misty morning Photo by Mohammad Mashudur Rahman Shawon.
4. National Parliament at a winter night. Photo by.Ridwan Abid Rupon
5. Photo by Ashfaq
6 A boat ride in the cold. Photo by Soumoy Kabir
7 Through the mist. Photo by. Ridwan Abid Rupon.
8. Walking through a foggy morning. Photo by Joy Chowdhury
9. Trees covered in fog. Photo by .Rabiul Islam.
10. Flaying back home. Photo by.Rashed Kabir Shoumik.
Wish you all Happy Viewing:
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Woman went to jail for not mowing lawn
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Posted:Dec 13, 2014 3:46 am
Last Updated:Jan 9, 2015 12:47 am 5543 Views
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The other day in October of the current year, I read a news story published in one of our newspaper, about a woman sent to jail for not mowing her lawn. The news item also reminded the residents of the Lenoir city, Tennessee in USA, not to forget mowing lawn to avoid spending the night in Jail!
The name of the woman, who spent six hours in jail, is Karen Holloway. She had to spend the time in a jail cell for failing to maintain her yard in accordance with the standards set by the city.
The bushes and the trees were overgrown.
However, according to Karen, that was certainly not a criminal offense!
However, she got five-day jail sentence for refusing to comply with the city ordinances regarding yard maintenance, specifically the lack thereof.
Karen did not feel it right and wondered why she be kept with the real criminals such as molesters and others in jail? She also felt bullied during the process because she was never read her rights or told that she could have a lawyer present.
In the past too, Karen was cited for similar reason by the city.
Her sentence was reduced to six hours subsequently and the judge admitted that Karen was not a criminal and the case was not a criminal case! She did turn herself in and served her six hours.
Karen Holloway was supposed to be back in court for a follow-up hearing in November to check on the progress. The judge reportedly made it clear that he could add more jail time if the city isn't satisfied with her cleanup.
As I do not know what has transpired in November after she came back to the court for the follow up hearing, I could only hope that all is well for her as well as the city too.
Does the picture number 9 look like a jail room?
However, I shall feel obliged if my readers could make their views on the whole affair known to me if they like, especially why Karen had to serve time when she was neither a criminal nor the case was a criminal one!!
Thanks in anticipation.
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Honey Harvesting
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Posted:Dec 12, 2014 3:47 am
Last Updated:Jan 6, 2023 12:42 am 5322 Views
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We are aware of that most lucrative of all the forest’s products is the honey and most dangerous to gather. Especially from Sundarbons, the largest mangrove forest in the world!
The easiest steps to collect honey from a beehive are summarized below:-
You must wear completely clean clothes after taking a shower before you go to hunt honey. Bees will sting you if they feel you dirty and if you smell of perspiration!
Wasps and yellow jackets make nests but you would not find any honey there. Find out a real honey beehive.
After you find a beehive, you must burn some plants or wood to make smoke. You should then put the smoking material into a container and carry it for wafting into the hive. Smoke makes the bees expect a fire, which makes them concerned about their honey. They gorge themselves over the uncapped honey, which makes them less likely to fly around and sting you.
Next, cut a piece of the honeycomb with a sharp knife. Try to avoid getting comb that contains larvae. Do not try to take the whole hive. Just take one piece.
Try to spot the queen bee. She is slightly bigger and may have a greenish-blue spot on her back. Do not meddle with it. Leave the queen in the hive and the bees alone.
Now you know how to collect honey from a beehive. However, never try to do it alone and from beehives hanging on trees in a dense forest, Especially in Sundarbons in Bangladesh.
Sundarbans lives on mud and water, on silt and salt. Roughly, 3.5 million people live within twenty-five kilometers of the Bangladeshi Sundarbans, the vast majority of them depending on the forest for their livelihoods, either directly or indirectly. April and May, the period of the honey harvest, are hot months virtually everywhere on the subcontinent, but here in the Sundarbans the heat is excruciating. Temperatures climb over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the brutal pre-monsoon spring.
We know that few agricultural practices have a longer history than honey hunting. An 8000-year-old cave painting discovered in the Cuevas de la Araña in eastern Spain also depicts so. The painting depicted a man holding onto lianas to gather honey from a beehive! The readers may please view the picture of this cave painting titled as “”Man of Bicorp” here under, somewhere.
As mentioned above, during these short months in the spring, some of the people who live in this forest area from ages, form 350-odd groups that will plunge into the forest to harvest hundreds of thousands of kilograms of wild honey, the most lucrative of all the forest’s products, and the most dangerous to gather.
All the 350 groups of honey collectors still believe (albeit quietly) in Bonbibi’s ( Forest Goddess) power to protect them from the forest. The Muslim honey collectors won’t enter the forest on Friday afternoons because they believe Bonbibi will be too busy with her own Friday prayers to protect them. Oddly enough, even Hindus consider the forest goddess a Muslim. The rituals practiced by some Sundarbans Hindus—as described by the naturalist Sy Montgomery in her book Spell of the Tiger—may well predate the rise of orthodox Vedic Hinduism 3,000 years ago
“The honey collection season begins annually on the first of April, when the Forest Department issues permits for roughly 2,500 men (never women) to row into the forest, usually in groups of seven to ten. For two months—or longer in particularly good seasons, which come rarely now—Mouals ( local name of honey harvesters) will walk for as many as ten hours each day searching among the high branches for hidden hives, the largest of which can grow to a square meter in size and yield twenty kilos of honey. These immense hives are built by Apis dorsata, the same giant honeybees that nest on Himalayan cliffs, concrete overhangs in Delhi and Mumbai, and throughout the forests of SoutheastAsia"
“Over the course of a good two-month honey season (the best of the honey will be gone by the end of May), a group of seven or eight experienced Mouals ( Honey Hunters) can gather as many as 1,200 kilograms of raw honey and generate earnings of at least 30,000 to 50,000 taka per head. Since most groups of honey hunters earn too little throughout the rest of the year to fund their own licenses, they work through intermediaries who arrange the necessary permits and buy their entire harvest when the season ends at about 300 to 350 taka per kilogram. In Dhaka, the intermediaries sell the honey for 450 taka per kilogram to larger retailers who, in turn, repackage the product and sell it for 600 taka per kilogram or more”
Dangers lurk in Sundarbans for the honey collectors in many forms and sizes.
“Hundreds upon hundreds of stalagmitic respiratory roots push up through the mud on the forest floor, a Gaudian dreamscape in miniature. Instead of bugs, the ground crawls with crabs; instead of acorns, it’s studded with seashells. The ghostly backs of pale gray river dolphins occasionally break the deceptively still, mud-brown surface of the water, which conceals far less benign populations of crocodiles, river sharks, and venomous sea snakes. Hidden among the greenery there are cobras and kraits and pit vipers. The Sundarbans also shelters the largest population of Royal Bengal tigers left on the planet—roughly 350 of them—and the only ones that habitually consume human meat. Venturing deep into the forest without the aid of guideposts or markers, Mouals are more vulnerable to the dangers of the forest than anyone else is.”
Happy Reading:
Source: Lucky Peach, BBC Online.
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They Were All Alive !!
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Posted:Dec 9, 2014 1:23 am
Last Updated:May 21, 2019 9:04 am 6314 Views
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We might have either witnessed or heard about something amazing that made us shocked and speechless at least for a few minutes during the lifetime each of us has spent so far! However, nothing could have made me completely flabbergasted than the news I read about the blunder that was committed by a modern hospital located in a first world country! The hospital is located in Melbourne, the second most populous city in Australia. However, the hospital has apologized on Thursday after mistakenly sending out death notices for 200 of its - very much alive - patients. It killed off the patients erroneously when it faxed death notices to their family doctors. The notices were the result of an inadvertent change to the templates the hospital sends to doctors once a patient has been discharged, the hospital said in a statement.
"We apologized unreservedly to affected clinics who, for the most part, were very understanding about the error," it said.
Patient care had not been affected, the company stressed.
The Australian Medical Association said the error was unacceptable and potentially distressing to family doctors, while an opposition lawmaker said it was symptomatic of an overworked health system.
Whatever it may be, I feel very happy that these 200 patients are still alive and kicking!!
Any comment, dear readers?
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11
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Interbreeding with Neanderthals!!
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Posted:Dec 6, 2014 3:25 am
Last Updated:May 24, 2015 6:19 am 6541 Views
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When did the Homo sapiens first interbreed with Neanderthals?
Was it 45000 years ago or before that?
An ancient human genome sequence has finally thrown light on such interbreeding with Neanderthals.
A new study published in the journal Nature has revealed the DNA results from a 45,000-year-old leg bone from Siberia, producing the oldest genome sequence ever carried out for Homo sapiens – nearly twice the age of the next-oldest known complete modern human genome. The results have helped pinpoint when Homo sapiens first interbred with Neanderthals, and adds more pieces to the puzzle of ancient human migration across the world.
The 45000 year-old leg bone (femur) was found by a Russian mammoth Ivory collector named Nikolai Paeritov, on the bank of the river Irtys , near the settlement of Ust’-Ishim in Western Siberia. The bone finally found its way to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Germany. The femur (bone) was tested there. The testing revealed that the bone dated back 45,000 years and, incredibly, still contained well-preserved DNA, enabling them to sequence the genome to the same degree of accuracy as that achieved for modern-day samples.
The results of the sequencing revealed that the DNA of the “Ust’-Ishim Man” contained 2% DNA from Neanderthals, roughly the same proportion that can be found in modern Europeans today. This reveals that interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans must have occurred prior to the age of the Ust’-Ishim Man. While previous estimates suggested the interbreeding might have occurred as early as 36,000 years ago, scientists have now revised their estimates to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.
The research team expressed the hope of finding and sequencing much older human DNA, which may help piece together the very complex human family tree.
Photo 1 Artist's impression of a Neanderthal with feathers. Photo taken from Ancient Origins/ Mauro Cutrona
Photo 2.45,000-year-old femur bone from Ust’-Ishim. Photo taken from Ancient Origins/ Sergei Melnikov
Photo 3. A female Neanderthal.
Source:Star online. Nature, Ancient origins
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Re Posted. Ebola Virus Disease( EVD )
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Posted:Dec 4, 2014 11:25 pm
Last Updated:Dec 6, 2014 10:58 am 6312 Views
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Re- Posted. For making us more careful about this fatal disease!!
EVD is a serious and often fatal illness Case fatality rate is up to 90%. One of the world's most virulent diseases! Ebola virus was first isolated in 1976 during outbreak of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever in the then Zaire and Sudan.
This is an informative blog.
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The Injured Bird Of Prey
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Posted:Dec 2, 2014 10:50 pm
Last Updated:Nov 2, 2022 5:20 am 6594 Views
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Two men showing off the 10-foot wingspan of a Eurasian Griffon Vulture that landed in Bishnupur village of Dinajpur's Biral upazila. The rarely sighted bird of prey landed at a crop field on Monday with injuries. Belonging to an endangered species, the griffon was treated and handed over to forest department officials a day later. Photo: Kongkon Karmaker
The griffon vulture is 93–122 cm (37–48 in) long with a 2.3–2.8 m (7.5–9.2 ft) wingspan. In the nominate race the males weigh 6.2 to 10.5 kg (14 to 23 lb) and females typically weigh 6.5 to 11.3 kg (14 to 25 lb), while in the Indian subspecies (G. f. fulvescens) the vultures average 7.1 kg (16 lb). Extreme adult weights have been reported from 4.5 to 15 kg (9.9 to 33.1 lb), the latter likely a weight attained in captivity.[2][3] Hatched naked, it is a typical Old World vulture in appearance, with a very white head, very broad wings and short tail feathers. It has a white neck ruff and yellow bill. The buff body and wing coverts contrast with the dark flight feathers.(Wikipedia) .
Dinajpur is a district located in Northern Bangladesh
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Colorful Butterflies
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Posted:Nov 25, 2014 2:19 am
Last Updated:Feb 10, 2021 2:13 am 6995 Views
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Butterflies are nature's flying flowers! It may be the tiniest blues or the largest swallowtails!!
How many of us know that the wings of butterflies are transparent?
It is true that the wings are really transparent. We may hesitate to accept this as true as because the butterflies are most colorful and vibrant live flying lifeforms around us!!
We may be surprised initially if we could know how a butterfly wing is formed? It is actually formed by layers of chitin.the protein that makes up an insect's exoskeleton. We can see right through these layers as these layers are very thin
Butterflies taste with their feet! They live on an all liquid diet Butterflies
can not chew solids. They can only feed on liquids, usually nectar.. A butterfly that can not drink is doomed And as a butterfly can not also live on nectar alone, it has to occasionally supplement its diet of sugar by drinking from mud puddles rich in minerals and salts.
The butterflies are cold blooded animals.They need an ideal body temperature of about 85 degree Fahrenheit to fly. It is unable to escape from predators or feed if the air temperature falls below 55 degree Fahrenheit . They can fly with ease when the air temperature range between 82F-100F.
A butterfly can usually take its first flight after its birth only when its wings
reach full size.
How long a butterfly usually lives??
A few short weeks or more? The answer is heart breaking to people who like them to fly in their gardens. Actually,a butterfly has just a few short weeks to live. Just 2--4 weeks. During that time, a butterfly would focus all its energy on eating and mating! However Monarchs and Mourning cloaks can live up to 9 months.
Butterflies are nearsighted but can discriminate a lot of colors. They can see a range of ultra violate colors invisible to human eyes.
Butterflies know all kind of tricks to survive. Some of them would fold their wings to blend in to background to render themselves all but invisible to predators.Some pattern themselves after other species known for their toxicity to repel predators.
Do we want to learn more about these colorful insects? Then we must grab an authentic publication on butterflies and start reading!! Meantime,others may kindly view the pictures of some butterflies below:
Happy viewing.readers.
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