Surface spills near fracking sites implicated in water contamination

Chemicals used in fossil fuel extraction appear to be creeping into drinking water from above.

In private wells near hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” sites in northeastern Pennsylvania, researchers identified trace amounts of chemicals similar to those found in gasoline and diesel. Fluids pumped into the ground during fracking contain similar compounds.

The type and proportions of the chemicals in the water samples indicate that the compounds came from aboveground, rather than from underground leaks from deep shale formations, faulty equipment, nearby oil wells or waste storage ponds. Accidental spills of fracking fluids at the surface are probably the source of this contamination, the scientists report October 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

That familiar feeling comes from deep in the brain

It’s happened to all of us at one time or another: You’re walking through a crowd, and suddenly a face seems incredibly familiar — so much so that you do a double-take. Who is that? How do you know them? You have no idea, but something about their face nags at you. You know you’ve seen it before.

The reason you know that face is in part because of your perirhinal cortex. This is an area of the brain that helps us to determine familiarity, or whether we have seen an object before. A new study of brain cells in this area finds that firing these neurons at one frequency makes the brain treat novel images as old hat. But firing these same neurons at another frequency can make the old new again.

“Novelty and familiarity are both really important,” says study coauthor Rebecca Burwell, a neuroscientist at Brown University in Providence, R.I. “They are important for learning and memory and decision making.” Finding a cache of food and knowing it is new could be useful for an animal’s future. So is recognizing a familiar place where the pickings were good in the past.

But knowing that something is familiar is not quite the same thing as knowing what that thing is. “You’re in a crowd and you see a familiar face, and there’s a feeling,” Burwell explains. “You can’t identify them, you don’t know where you met them, but there’s a sense of familiarity.” It’s different from recalling where you met the person, or even who the person is. This is a sense at the base of memory. And while scientists knew the perirhinal cortex was involved in this sense of familiarity, how that feeling of new or old was coded in the brain wasn’t fully understood.

When exposed to something new, groups of brain cells in the perirhinal cortex fire quickly, at a rate of about 30 pulses per second, or hertz. As the object gets familiar, this oscillation — or pattern of firing from a group of brain cells — decreases, to around 11 Hz. To investigate just how this change affects an animal’s sense of novelty, Burwell and her colleagues infected brain cells in rats’ perirhinal cortex with a virus containing a light-activated channel. When the cells were exposed to blue light, they would fire. The frequency of the blue light stimulation determined how quickly the brain cells fired.

Then, the researchers took advantage of rats’ natural tendency to look longer at novel objects, and showed them images of, say, cloverleaves, swans or bunnies. In the presence of a familiar bunny, the rats spent less time looking at the picture. After all, they had seen that animal before.

But when the scientists stimulated the rats’ brains at 30 Hz, the rats looked longer at the bunny, as if seeing it for the first time. Conversely, when presented with a new image, such as a cloverleaf, the rats stared at it for longer than they gazed at a familiar swan shape. But when their perirhinal cortex was stimulated at 11 Hz, the rats didn’t find cloverleaves so fascinating. The new object had suddenly become familiar, Burwell and her colleagues report September 30 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The results suggest that novelty and familiarity are two sides of the same brain cells. Turn them down, and even the new is boring and old. Turn them up and the old is new again. Many other studies have associated these oscillations with specific kinds of recognition memory, says Howard Eichenbaum, a neuroscientist at Boston University. But this study goes beyond association, he notes, and actually gets at a cause, showing that specific frequencies cause rats to treat an object as new or old.

“It’s a very neat paper,” says John Aggleton, a neuroscientist at Cardiff University in Wales. “And there’s a parallel to what’s going on in humans. We know in fMRI, if you repeat [images] you get decreased activity in the perirhinal cortex, and we know in animals if you look at expression of genes you get a decrease in activity. All of these come together in a very neat way.” He says this study indicates the signals of activity are “not a by-product, but a key component” of how we process the old and the new.

So the next time you see a face in the crowd, and you know that person is familiar, thank the brain cells in your perirhinal cortex. But when you can’t remember their name or how know you them? Well, I’m afraid the rest of your brain is to blame.

Long before going to Europe, humans ventured east to Asia

Modern humans reached southern China at least 35,000 years before setting foot in Europe, new fossil finds suggest.

These discoveries provide the best evidence to date that Homo sapiens took its first major strides out of Africa deep in the Stone Age and headed east, staying within relatively warm regions similar to those of its East African homeland.

Excavations in southern China’s Fuyan Cave produced 47 human teeth dating to between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago, paleoanthropologists report October 14 in Nature. The presence of Neandertals in Europe may have helped deter humans’ migration to that continent until around 45,000 years ago, when Neandertal populations started to shrink, says a team led by Wu Liu and Xiu-jie Wu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and María Martinón-Torres of University College London.

Chemical tags on DNA appear to differ between gay and straight men

BALTIMORE — Molecular tests may be able to distinguish homosexual from heterosexual men, a small study of twins suggests.

Chemical modifications to DNA that change the activity of genes without changing the genes’ information differ between homosexual and heterosexual men, researchers from UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine have discovered. Results of the unpublished study on the link between these modifications, called epigenetic tags, and sexual orientation were presented October 8 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics. Comparing one type of epigenetic tag known as DNA methylation in pairs of twins in which one brother is gay and the other straight revealed patterns that distinguish one group from the other about 67 percent of the time, computational geneticist Tuck Ngun and colleagues say.

The work already has provoked controversy, with some scientists questioning its methodology and others worried about how the research could be used. Some are concerned that the research could be misinterpreted as one step in an effort to “cure” homosexuality. Nothing could be further from the researchers’ intentions, say Ngun and Eric Vilain, the geneticist who heads the research group. “None of us see homosexuality as a disorder or something to be fixed,” Ngun said. “We’re just interested in what makes us tick.”

Very little is known about how human sexual preferences of any type arise, Vilain adds. That’s especially true on a biological level. “Our research is not about homosexuality,” he says. “It’s about understanding sexual attraction, the biology of desire.”

Previous studies have found tentative genetic links to male sexual orientation, but no one has identified a “gay gene” or genes. Still, the development of sexuality seems to have origins early in life, maybe even stemming from cues in the womb. For instance, for each biological older brother a man has, his likelihood of being homosexual rises by 33 percent. That finding has been replicated in several studies and could indicate that some condition in the womb sets epigenetic marks, which later influence preference of sexual partners.

Epigenetic marks have been shown to influence behaviors in rodents such as maternal care and drug addiction (SN: 5/24/08, p. 14). Whether and how these marks are involved in human behavior is still a matter of intense debate, says Peng Jin, a human geneticist at Emory University in Atlanta. Exploring whether they are associated with sexual preference isn’t unreasonable, Jin says, he’s just not sure the researchers have gone about it correctly. He also doubts that a study of less than 100 men has the statistical power to predict sexual orientation.

Ngun and colleagues measured DNA methylation levels in the saliva of 37 pairs of identical twins in which one twin self-identified as homosexual and the other as heterosexual. Another 10 pairs of twins in which both were gay also participated in the study. A computer program dubbed the FuzzyForest algorithm examined data from half of the gay and straight twins to learn how their DNA methylation patterns differed from each other. The initial round of training found 6,134 spots in the genome where the twins differed, but together those sites could correctly identify gay twins in the remaining pairs only 44 percent of the time. Narrowing down the number of sites to nine improved accuracy to 64 percent.

Further analysis involved the set of 10 pairs of gay twins. The researchers asked the computer program to pick out the spots that were different in the mixed orientation twins, but the same in the gay twins. That left five sites that could correctly identify 67 percent of gay twins in the test group.

Some of the regions may be involved in controlling activity of two genes: CIITA, which regulates activity of some immune system genes, and KIF1A, a gene involved in the transport of communication molecules in the brain.

The study raises many issues. Scientists question whether the finding will hold up in larger groups of unrelated people. Also, the computer algorithm hasn’t been tested on other datasets, raising concerns about whether the method is valid.  

Vilain agrees that the study has limitations. “We’re looking at the wrong tissue at the wrong time,” he laments. The right tissue would be the brain, and ideally, researchers would be able to track DNA methylation changes over time from fetal stages on. Such research is not ethical in humans, so the team measured DNA methylation patterns in saliva taken from adult men, long after their sexual orientation had been determined. “There were no other choices,” he says.

DNA methylation patterns in saliva may not accurately reflect what is going on in the brain where behavior is controlled, Jin says. Saliva is not good material for epigenetic studies, he adds. The types of cells present in saliva can change dramatically depending on when and what a person has eaten and other factors. Different mixes of cells in the saliva would probably have different DNA methylation patterns that could further confuse the results. Blood would have been a more stable material to examine, although it also doesn’t always match what happens in the brain.

Vilain says his work has “zero clinical application.” This is not molecular gaydar, it’s simply a statistical measure that epigenetic marks differ between men of opposite sexual orientations, he says.

Whether the epigenetic changes are a determining factor in sexual orientation or a result of differing experiences in life, the study can’t determine, he says. But it may offer invaluable insight to the development of human sexuality, says pharmacologist Margaret McCarthy of the University of Maryland in College Park. "This study provides a major step forward in our understanding of how the brain can be affected by factors outside of the genome,” she said in a statement to the Genetic Expert News Service. “Regardless of when, or even how, these epigenetic changes occur, their findings demonstrates a biological basis to partner preference.”

Elephants’ cancer-protection secret may be in the genes

Elephants’ genetic instruction books include a hefty chapter on fighting cancer.

The massive mammals have about 20 copies of TP53, a gene that codes for a potent tumor-blocking protein, researchers analyzing elephant DNA report October 8 in JAMA. Humans have just one copy of TP53.

An extra dose (or 19) of the anticancer gene may explain why elephants have unusually low cancer rates, say Joshua Schiffman, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and colleagues.

Schiffman’s team pored over 14 years of animal autopsy data from the San Diego Zoo, and a separate database that included detailed info on 644 elephant deaths. Based on those data, the team calculated that just 4.8 percent of elephants die of cancer. For humans, that number is anywhere from 11 to 25 percent.

Elephants’ extra genes could help keep defective cells from morphing into tumors, the researchers suggest.

First known case of sexually transmitted Ebola reported

A Liberian woman contracted Ebola in March by having sex with a survivor of the viral disease, researchers report. Using studies of both people’s viral genomes and of the people’s contacts with any other possible sources of the virus, the researchers conclude that the woman’s disease represents the first known case of sexual transmission of Ebola.

People ordinarily catch the often-deadly virus through direct contact with blood or other body fluids.

In this case, the two people had unprotected sex six months after the man got Ebola, and 155 days after his second blood test showed him to be clear of the virus. The genomes of the Ebola virus from the man’s semen and woman’s blood were not only practically identical but also different from all other Western African Ebola viruses that had been sequenced, researchers report October 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Also appearing in the journal is a preliminary report that genetic material from Ebola viruses can persist in semen nine months after infection.

Both findings suggest that Ebola remains in certain parts of the body long after the blood is clear of the virus. However, in an opinion piece that accompanies the two research reports, Armand Sprecher of Doctors Without Borders in Brussels notes that more than 17,000 people survived the West African Ebola outbreak. “If sexual transmission from survivors were an important means of disease propagation, we would have seen a number of cases by now,” he writes.

Microbes may reveal colon cancer mutations

BALTIMORE — Microbes can reveal which mutations drive colon cancer, a new study suggests.
By examining bacteria growing alongside 44 colon cancer tumors and 44 healthy tissue samples, researchers have determined that particular mixes of microbes are associated with both the number and types of DNA mutations the cancer carries.
Colon tumors with more mutations had a more diverse mix of bacteria, or microbiome, than did tumors with few mutations, Ran Blekhman of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, reported October 9 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics. And certain bacteria were more likely to be found growing next to cancer cells carrying specific mutations. For instance, the presence of Fusobacterium was associated with tumors harboring mutations in the APC gene, Blekhman and colleagues found. Microbe analysis predicted with 70 to 80 accuracy when researchers would find mutations in five of 11 genes examined.
Mutations may create different environments, or niches, for bacteria to grow in, Blekhman said. Tumors with mutations that cause their cells to take in more of the sugar glucose (most cells’ favorite energy source) were associated with bacteria that turned on genes that could help the microbes get energy from other sources. The researchers don’t yet know whether the bacteria change in response to the cancer, or if the microbe alterations somehow promote growth of cells carrying certain mutations.
Right now, researchers only have data to show that bacteria growing close to the tumor are associated with particular mutation patterns. But if tumor mutations affect the makeup of the microbiome throughout the intestines, stool samples could one day be used as a screening test for colon cancer. 

10 Interesting Facts About Yahoo!

1. Stanford Student’s Jerry Yang and David Filo first started Yahoo! in February of 1994 to keep track of their own interests online. They named their project “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web. The site was a directory of other websites, organized in a hierarchy, as opposed to a searchable index of pages.

 

2. In March 1994, "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" was renamed Yahoo. Which is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The "yahoo.com" domain was created on January 18, 1995. The term "hierarchical" described how the Yahoo database was arranged in layers of subcategories. The term "oracle" was intended to mean "source of truth and wisdom", and the term "officious", rather than being related to the word's normal meaning, described the many office workers who would use the Yahoo database while surfing from work.

3. Yang and Filo added the exclamation point to the end of Yahoo! because “Yahoo” was already owned by a company that produced BBQ sauce.

4. The owners of Yahoo considered buying Google before went public. Yahoo Chief Terry Semel had dinner with Larry Page and Sergey Brin and he asked to buy Google. Then Larry and Sergey replied that they wanted $1 billion and didn't want to sell. Another dinner and Semel agreed to the $1 billion. Larry and Sergey replied that they wanted $3 billion and didn't want to sell. However, at the time Yahoo decided that a few billion dollars was too much to pay to buy out their competitor.

5. Yahoo’s email service, which they purchased from Four11 in 1997. Yahoo! acquired Four11 for $96 million. Yahoo Mail was the third-largest web-based email service with 281 million users as of December 2011 and still considered to be the most popular email program in America.

6. In 2006 Yahoo’s image search gained criticism for displaying sexually explicit images in their results, even when the SafeSearch was on. Less than a year later the image search feature was shut down and replaced with Yahoo’s recently acquired Flickr photo sharing community. Yahoo buy flickr for  $22 to $25 million.

7. Yahoo currently owns and operates over fifty different web properties, most of which are sites that gained popularity before being acquired by Yahoo. Some examples include Geocities, Yahoo! Games, Del.icio.us, Flickr, and Upcoming.org. 

8. One of Yahoo’s highest priced acquisitions was Broadcast.com, which they paid a reported $5.7 billion for. On the other hand, their cheapest acquisition was their purchase of Net Controls for slightly over $1 million in 1997.

9. 9. In March of 2005 Yahoo celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary by giving away free Baskin Robins ice cream coupons to all of their users.

 

10. Yahoo began as a project created by two individuals and has grown to employ estimated 13,000 full time individuals. 

Top 10 Most Poweful Earthquake In The History

10. 1762 Arakan earthquake

1762 Arakan earthquake

The 1762 Arakan earthquake occurred at about 17:00 local time on 2 April, with an epicentre somewhere on the coast from Chittagong (modern Bangladesh) t Arakan in modern Burma. It had an estimated magnitude of as high as 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale. It triggered a local tsunami in the Bay of Bengal and caused at least 200 deaths. The eastern part of Bangladesh and the southwestern part of Burma lie along the highly oblique convergent boundary between the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The earthquake lasted for about four minutes at Chittagong. A tsunami was reported along the northeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal and at Dhaka and Kolkata. This is regarded as a local tsunami, as no effects were recorded on the western side of the bay. 

Short Overview

Date: 2 April 1762

Magnitude: 8.8 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Chittagong, Bangladesh

Areas affected: Bangladesh

Casualties: 200 Deaths

9. 1611 Sanriku Earthquake

1611 Sanriku Earthquake

The 1611 Sanriku earthquake occurred on December 2, 1611 with an epicenter off the Sanriku coast in Iwate Prefectur. The magnitude of the earthquake was 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale. It triggered a devastating tsunami. A description of this event in an official diary from 1612 is probably the first recorded use of the term 'tsunami. The tsunami reached its maximum estimated height of about 20 meters. According to old documents, 1,783 people were killed in the Sendai Domain, and over 3000 horses and men in the Nanbu and Tsugaru domains.

Short Overview

Date: December 2, 1611

Magnitude: 8.9 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Pacific Ocean, Hokkaido, Japan

Areas affected: Japan

Casualties: 5000 Deaths

8. 869 Sanriku Earthquake

869 Sanriku Earthquake

The 869 Sanriku earthquake and associated tsunami struck the area around Sendai in the northern part of Honshu on 9 July 869. The earthquake had an estimated magnitude of at least 8.4 on the moment magnitude scale, but may have been as high as 9.0, similar to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In Japan this earthquake is commonly called "Jogan Jishin. In the area which the earthquake struck, the Imperial Court of Japan battled with an indigenous people of the Tōhoku region, Emishi, at that time. According to Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku, around 1000 people were killed by the tsunami.

Short Overview

Date: 9 July 869

Magnitude: 8.4-9.0 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Pacific Ocean, Tōhoku region, Japan

Areas affected: Japan 

Casualties: 1000 Deaths

7. 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

1700 Cascadia Earthquake

The 1700 Cascadia earthquake occurred along the Cascadia subduction zone on January 26 with an estimated moment magnitude of 8.7–9.2. The megathrust earthquake involved the Juan de Fuca Plate that underlies the Pacific Ocean, from mid-Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, south along the Pacific Northwest coast as far as northern California. The length of the fault rupture was about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) with an average slip of 20 meters. The earthquake caused a tsunami that struck the coast of Japan. Evidence supporting the occurrence of the 1700 earthquake has been gathered into the 2005 book The Orphan Tsunami of 1700, by Brian Atwater, Kenji Satake, David Yamaguchi, and others.

 Short Overview

Date: 26 January 1700

Magnitude: 8.7-9.2 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Cascadia subduction zone, Japan

Areas affected: Japan 

6. 1868 Arica Earthquake

1700-Cascadia-earthquake

The 1868 Arica earthquake occurred on 13 August 1868, near Arica, then part of Peru, now part of Chile, at 21:30 UTC. It had an estimated magnitude between 8.5 and 9.0. A tsunami (or multiple tsunamis) in the Pacific Ocean was produced by the earthquake, which was recorded in Hawaii, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The earthquake caused almost complete destruction in the southern part of Peru, including Arica, Tacna, Moquegua, Mollendo, Ilo, Iquique, Torata and Arequipa, resulting in an estimated 25,000 casualties. The tsunami caused considerable damage in Hawaii, washing out a bridge along the Waiohi river. About 400 aftershocks were recorded by 25 August of that year.Contemporary accounts say that the earthquake shaking lasted somewhere between five to ten minutes.

Short Overview

Date: 13 August 1868

Magnitude: 8.5-9.0 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Arica, Chile (then Peru)

Areas affected: Peru and parts of what is now northern Chile

Casualties: 25,000+ Deaths

5. Kamchatka earthquakes

Kamchatka earthquakes

Three earthquakes, which occurred off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia and the Soviet Union in 1737, 1923 and 1952, were megathrust earthquakes and caused tsunamis. There are many more earthquakes and tsunamis originating from Kamchatka, of which the most recent was the 1997 Kamchatka earthquake and tsunami originating near the Kronotsky Peninsula. The main earthquake struck at 16:58 GMT (04:58 local time) on November 4, 1952.  Initially assigned a magnitude of 8.2, the quake was revised to 9.0 magnitude  moment scale in later years. A large tsunami resulted, causing destruction and loss of life around the Kamchatka peninsula and the Kuril Islands. Hawaii was also struck, with estimated damages of up to US$1 million and livestock losses, but no human casualties were recorded.

Short Overview

Date: 4 November 1952

Magnitude: 9.0 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Kamchatka, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

Areas affected: Russia, Japan, New-Zealand, Alaska, Chile

Casualties: US$1 million, No Deaths

4. 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake

 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake

The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku was a magnitude 9.0  undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on Friday 11 March 2011. The earthquake is also often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan earthquake and also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and the 3.11 earthquake. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have hit Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. On 10 March 2015, a Japanese National Police Agency report confirmed 15,891 deaths, 6,152 injured, and 2,584 people missing across twenty prefectures, as well as 228,863 people living away from their home in either temporary housing or due to permanent relocation. 

Short Overview

Date: 11 March 2011

Magnitude: 9.0 Moment Magnitude Scale

Aftershocks: 11450

Location: Pacific Ocean, Tōhoku region, Japan

Areas affected: Japan, Pacific Rim 

Casualties: 15891 deaths, 6152 injured, 2584 people missing.

3. 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on 26 December with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The event is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. The resulting tsunami was given various names, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, South Asian tsunami, Indonesian tsunami, the Christmas tsunami and the Boxing Day tsunami. The undersea megathrust earthquake was caused when the Indian Plate was subducted by the Burma Plate and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people in 14 countries. With a magnitude of Mw 9.1–9.3, it is the third-largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. The earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 centimetre (0.4 inches) and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.

Short Overview

Date: 26 December 2004

Magnitude: 9.1 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Indian Ocean, Sumatra, Indonesia

Areas affected: Sri Lanka, India (mostly in Tamil Nadu), Thailand, Maldives, Somalia

Casualties: At least 228,000 to 230,000 dead.

  

2. 1964 Alaska earthquake

1964 Alaska earthquake

The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan earthquake and Good Friday earthquake, occurred at 5:36 P.M. AST on Good Friday, March 27. Lasting four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, it was the most powerful recorded megathrust earthquake in U.S. and North American history. Two hundred miles southwest, some areas near Kodiak were permanently raised by 30 feet (9.1 m). Southeast of Anchorage, areas around the head of Turnagain Arm near Girdwood and Portage dropped as much as 8 feet (2.4 m), requiring reconstruction and fill to raise the Seward Highway above the new high tide mark. Post-quake tsunamis severely affected Whittier, Seward, Kodiak, and other Alaskan communities, as well as people and property in British Columbia, Oregon, and California. Tsunamis also caused damage in Hawaii and Japan. Evidence of motion directly related to the earthquake was reported from all over the earth. 

 

Short Overview

Date: 27 March 1964

Magnitude: 9.3 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA

Areas affected: United States

Casualties: 139 killed

1. 1960 Valdivia earthquake

1960 Valdivia earthquake

The 1960 Valdivia earthquake  or Great Chilean earthquake of Sunday, 22 May 1960 was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, rating 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale. It occurred in the afternoon (19:11 GMT, 15:11 local time), and lasted approximately 10 minutes. The resulting tsunami affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia, and the Aleutian Islands. The main tsunami raced across the Pacific Ocean and devastated Hilo, Hawaii. Waves as high as 10.7 metres (35 ft) were recorded 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) from the epicenter, and as far away as Japan and the Philippines. the United States Geological Survey citing studies with figures of 2,231, 3,000, or 5,700 killed and another source using an estimate of 6,000 dead. Different sources have estimated the monetary cost ranged from US$400 million to 800 million (or $3.19 billion to $6.38 billion today, adjusted for inflation).

Short Overview

Date: 22 May 1960

Magnitude: 9.5 Moment Magnitude Scale

Location: Valdivia, Chile

Areas affected: Chile, Argentina, United States, Japan, Philippines

Casualties: 2,230 – 6,000 killed

Top 10 Largest Ships in the World

10. Q-Max

Q-Max is a type of ship, specifically a membrane type liquefied natural gas carrier . In the name Q-Max, "Q" stands for Qatar and "Max" for the maximum size of ship able to dock at the LNG terminals in Qatar. Ships of this type are the largest LNG carriers in the world.A ship of Q-Max size is 345 metres (1,132 ft) long and measures 53.8 metres (177 ft) wide and 34.7 metres (114 ft) high, with a draft of approximately 12 metres (39 ft). It has an LNG capacity of 266,000 cubic metres (9,400,000 cu ft), equal to 161,994,000 cubic metres (5.7208×10⁹ cu ft) of natural gas. Q-Max LNG carriers were ordered in 2005. They are to be built by Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. The first Q-Max LNG carrier was floated out of dry-dock in November 2007. The first trip by a Q-Max tanker was completed by  Mozah itself on 11 January 2009, when the tanker delivered 266,000 cubic metres of LNG to the Port of Bilbao BBG Terminal.

Short Overview

Name: Q-Max

Type: LNG Carrier

Builders: Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering

Length: 345 m (1,132 ft)

Capacity: 266,000 m³ (9,400,000 cu ft)

Cost: $400 Million

Speed: 19.0 Knots (0.7 km/h; 0.4 mph)

9. RMS Queen Mary 2

RMS Queen Mary 2 (also referred to as the QM2) is a transatlantic ocean liner. She is the only major ocean liner built since Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969, the vessel she succeeded as flagship of the Cunard Line. The ship was designed by a team of British naval architects led by Stephen Payne, and was constructed in France by Chantiers de1'Atlantique in 2003. At the time of her construction, Queen Mary 2 was the longest passenger ship ever built. Queen Mary 2‍ '​s facilities include fifteen restaurants and bars, five swimming pools, a casino, a ballroom, a theatre, and the first planetarium at sea. There are also kennels and a nursery on board.

Short Overview

Name: Queen Mary 2

Type: Ocean Liner

Builder: STX Europe Chantiers de 1'Atlantique, Saint Nazaire, France.

Length: 1,132 ft (345 m)

Capacity: 2,620 passengers

Cost: $900 Million

Speed: 30 Knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)

8. Oasis Class

The Oasis class is a class of Royal Caribbean International Cruise Ships which are the world's largest passenger ships. The first two ships in the class, Oasis of the seas and Allure of the seas, were delivered respectively in 2009 and 2010 by STX EuropeTurku Shipyark Finland. he Oasis-class ships surpassed the earlier Freedom-class ships as the world's largest and longest passenger ships. Oasis also is 8.5 metres (28 ft) wider. Oasis-class vessels can carry over 5,400 passengers.

Short Overview

Name: Oasis Class

Type: Cruise ship

Builder: STX Finland Turku Shipyard, Finland & Chanties de 1'Atlantique, Saint-Nazaire, France.

Length: 360 m (1,181 ft)

Capacity: 6292passengers

Cost: $1.4 Billion

Speed: 22.6 knots (41.9 km/h; 26.0 mph)

7. Valemax

Valemax ships are a fleet of very large ore carriers (VLOC) owned or chartered by the Brazilian mining company Vale S.A to carry iron ore from Brazil to European and Asian ports. With a capacity ranging from 380,000 to 400,000 tons deadweight, the vessels meet the Chinamax standard of ship measurements for limits on draft and beam. Valemax ships are the largest bulk carrier ever constructed, when measuring deadweight tonnage or length overall, and are amongst the longest ships of any type currently in service. In 2008, Vale placed orders for twelve 400,000-ton Valemax ships to be constructed by Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries (RSHI) in China and ordered seven more ships from South Korean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) in 2009. In addition sixteen more ships of similar size were ordered from Chinese and South Korean shipyards for other shipping companies, and chartered to Vale under long-term contracts. The first Valemax vessel, Vale Brasil, was delivered in 2011. Initially, all 35 ships were expected to be in service by 2013, but as of June 2015 one ship is still under construction.

Short Overview

Name: Valemax
Type: Bulk Carrier
Builder: Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, South Korea, Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries, China, STX Offshore & Shipbuilding (STX Jinhae), South Korea, STX Offshore & Shipbuilding (STX Dalian), China, Bohai Shipbuilding, Heavy Industry, China.

Length: 360–362 m (1,181–1,188 ft)

Capacity: 400,000 tons
Cost: $1.6 Billion

Speed: 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)

6. Ti Class 

The TI Class of ships are currently the four largest ships in the world. The Maersk Triple E class container ships are longer and have a higher cargo volume, including above deck containers. All four oil tankers were constructed for shipping company Hellespont by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in Okpo, South Korea in 2002/3. The class was originally named Hellespont Alhambra, Hellespont Fairfax, Hellespont Metropolis and Hellespont Tara. In 2004 the class was jointly purchased. These ships are wider than the new Panama Canal locks and will be unable to pass through when the new locks open.

Short Overview

Name: TI Class
Type: Ultra Large Crude Carrier 

Builder: Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, Okpo-Dong, South Korea
Length: 380 m (1,246 ft 9 in)

Capacity: 3,166,353 Barrels
Cost: 1.24 Billion

Speed: 16.5 Knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)

5. Pioneering Spirit

Pioneering Spirit is the world's largest platform installation/decommissioning and pipelay vessel built for All seas Company. The ship is also by far the world's largest vessel overall ever constructed in terms of its gross tonnage of 403,342 gt, as well as its breadth (123.75 m/406 ft) and displacement (900,000 metric tons). The vessel was designed by a Finnish engineering company Deltamarin. The main construction was done at Daewoo shipyard, Korea and final completion will be in the Netherlands.

Short Overview

Name: Pioneering Spirit]

Type: Crane Vessel

Builder: Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co, Geoje
Length: 382 m (1,253 ft)
Capacity: 48,000 tons
Cost: $2 Billion

Speed: 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)

4. CSCL Globe

MV CSCL Globe is a container ship owned and operated by China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL). The first of a class of five ships intended for Asia-Europe trade routes, it was the largest container ship in the world at the time of its launch in November 2014, with a maximum capacity of 19,100 twenty-foot containers. The CSCL Globe and its four sister ships were ordered by CSCL in May 2013. The ship was constructed by Hyundai Heavy Industries at their shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea, with the first steel for the hull cut in January 2014.

Short Overview

Name: CSCL Globe
Type: Container Ship
Builder: Hyundai Heavy Industries
Length: 400 m (1,312 ft)
Capacity: 19,100 TEU
Cost: $700 Million

Speed: 22.0 knots (41 km/h)

3. Esso Atlantic

Esso Atlantic built 1977. 1983 Transferred to Banamian flag owned by Esso International Shipping (Bahaman) Co Ltd, nassau.

Short Overview

Name: Esso Atlantic
Type: Oil Tanker
Builder: Hitachi Zosen, Ariake Yard, Japan

Length: 406.57 m (1,333.9 ft)
Capacity: 242 long tons
Cost: $150 Million

Speed:  16 Knots (29.6 km/h; 18.4 mph)

2.Batillus-class supertankers

 

The Batillus-class supertanker was a class of tanker ships built in France at the end of the 1970s. Four such ships were built between 1976 and 1979—serving until the final one was scrapped in 2003. They were built in the Bassin C dock of the Chantiers de1'Atlanti shipyards at Saint Nazaire, France. Measured by gross tonnage, these were the largest ships of any type ever constructed. While being the largest ships ever built by gross tonnage, the four Batillus class ships were the second largest ever constructed when measuring deadweight tonnage or length overall behind only the supertanker Seawise Giant.

Short Overview

Name: Batillus Class
Type: Oil Tanker
Length: 414.22 m (1,359.0 ft)

Capacity: 554,000 tons

Speed: 16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph)

1. Seawise Giant

Seawise Giant, later Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, Knock Nevis, Oppama, and finally Mont, was a ULCC supertanker and the longest ship ever built. She possessed the greatest deadweight tonnage ever recorded. she was incapable of navigating the English Channel, the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal . Overall, she was generally considered the largest ship ever built. Seawise Giant was ordered in 1974 and delivered in 1979 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd at their Oppama shipyard in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan as a 418,611 ton ULCC. The vessel was sold to Indian ship berakers, and renamed Mont for her final journey in December 2009. After clearing Indian customs, she was sailed to, and intentionally beached at, Alang, Gujarat, India, to be broken up for scrap. 

Short Overview

Name: Seawise Giant
Type: Oil Tanker
Builder: Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Japan

Length: 458.45 m (1,504.10 ft)

Capacity: 657,000 tons
Cost: $6 Billion
Speed: 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)

Here is a youtube video about Top 10 largest ships in the world