Thfire.com – iNews

Abby Sunderland may have just set the country on fire by being lost at sea. We all know how important it is for an AMERICAN like her to go missing. The 16-yr old is trying to become the youngest to ever sail around the world:

TV satellite trucks were beginning to gather outside the modest Thousand Oaks home…… where teen sailor Abby Sunderland lives with her parents. Occasionally, reporters would knock on the front door of the home covered with ivy and geranium. But no one answered.

Students from nearby Thousand Oaks high school walked down the street wondering why news trucks were here. Gage Guzman, 17, said he hoped that Abby would be found safe. “She’s younger than me and she’s sailing around the world, and by herself, that’s even crazier,” he said. “She’s brave, I don’t even go into the ocean by myself.”

Guzman’s younger brother, Shawn, 15, said he didn’t think her attempt to sail around the world was reckless. “If it’s her dream to sail, and she wants to follow her dream, that’s courageous. “

Sunderland, out of necessity, abandoned her quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, nonstop and unassisted. However, the 16-year-old was continuing her mission to become the youngest person to sail around the world.

Sailing experts said the Southern Indian Ocean where Sunderland was sailing when she apparently signaled emergency beacon locating devices on Thursday is known to be a difficult challenge. Charlie Nobles, executive director of the American Sailing Assn., said that winter storms in the Southern Hemisphere are fast approaching, creating rough waves that can reach dozens of feet high. He also said that there are fewer hours of light during the day, which can make navigating the waters difficult.

“There’s just not a lot of land in that part of the world,” Nobles said. “You have to follow certain patterns because you need the trade winds. Where she is right now is in between Australia and South Africa.”

Sailors had criticized Sunderland for leaving so late in the year for her journey. She departed from Marina del Rey on Jan. 23, later than she had wanted to because of equipment issues. She also had to make a stop in Mexico to make repairs, which wasted precious time before the approaching winter southern storms.

Nobles said that sailing around Cape Horn between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula was speculated to be Sunderland’s greatest challenge. But she rounded the cape in April without many issues, he said.

“A lot of people talk about the Horn because that’s what you hear about in National Geographic specials,” Nobles said. “But it wasn’t that big of a deal, fortunately, for her.”

Shortly after setting sail, Sunderland abandoned her quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, without any stops or assistance.

“I don’t know enough facts to know whether this is something she necessarily could have avoided or if it was a bad decision,” Nobles said. “My hope was that if she was at a certain point in her journey, she would say, ‘I’m less concerned about a record than to try to make it through safely.’ “

Abby Sunderland’s brother, Zac, last year completed his solo sail around the world at age 17.

Sunderland’s latest entry on her blog Wednesday described hitting rough weather and winds at 45 knots. “Wild Eyes was great through everything, but after a day with over 50 knots at times, I had quite a bit of work to do,” she wrote about her vessel.

Her parents have said in news reports that they had persuaded Abby to get to the nearest port in the event that dangerous conditions arose.

Someone better get Obama on the phone…

Source

Reports are now suggesting that the swine flu which has already infected people in 30 countries can be as severe as the 1957 “Asian flu” pandemic that was responsible for the death of 2 Million people.

About 4 of 1000 people infected with the new H1N1 virus in Mexico by late April died. Now scientists are trying to determine if the swine flu will mutate and become more deadly as it spreads to the southern hemisphere and back. The virus is more contentious than the seasonal flu. A “Moderate” pandemic like the 1957 Asian flu could kill 14.2 million people and shave 2% from the global economic the first year itself. The swine flu being categorised as “Severe” can do much more.

“While substantial uncertainty remains, clinical severity appears less than that seen in 1918 but comparable with that seen in 1957,” the Science study authors wrote.

So how did the global pandemic flu actually form in the first place? Well, flu pandemics occur when is a strain of the disease to which few people have immunity evolves and began spreading. Pandemics usually after 2 to 3 times a century, scientists have said. A worldwide outbreak as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu might cause 180 million to 360 million deaths, according to a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The last pandemic that hit this century was in 1968 and the health officials have been anticipating another since the H5N1 virus began spreading widely in birds in 2003.

As of now swine flu has been confirmed 4694 people, according to World Health Organization and the health agency of the United Nations. And 61 people how been killed, the majority being from Mexico where 56 people have been killed and three in the US. The rest are, one from Canada and one from Costa Rica. US tops the list in the most confirmed cases of swine flu which is 2618 cases in 44 states according to the centres for disease control and prevention.

Thailand and Cuba today have reported their country’s first confirmed case of swine flu. Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the former Cuban President Fedel Castro confirmed it today. These figures are not included in the world health organization’s latest tally.

A new study has said that each person infected with swine flu in Mexico in April gave at least 1.4 more people on average. While these figures are in the lower range of transmission for a pandemic, it is quicker than most seasonal flus.

As swine flu continues to spread in many countries across the world in the time of global recession, the swine flu can also be a major factor that melts the economy.

Reports are also confirming that swine flu is more prone to people with asthma and diabetes.