MV Joyita

In 1955, the merchant vessel Joyita disappeared en route from Samoa to the Tokelau Islands, about 270 miles away.

A search and rescue mission found nothing, but five weeks later she was sighted more than 600 miles from her scheduled route. The ship was partially submerged and there was no trace of her 16 crewmembers or 9 passengers, including two children.

An inquiry found that the disappearance of the passengers and crew was “inexplicable on the evidence submitted.” But the Fiji Times and Herald quoted an “impeccable source” saying that the Joyita had passed through a fleet of Japanese fishing boats and “had observed something the Japanese did not want them to see.”

What was it? No one knows.

| Crime · Oddities

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And, of course, Google itself.

| Technology

Yellowstone Caldera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Grand_prismatic_spring_edit.jpg

Most people know that Yellowstone National Park is geologically active, but few realize that it sits atop a gigantic volcano. No one knows when it will blow next, but past eruptions have been huge, up to 2,500 times the size of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Today that would kill millions and change the worldwide climate catastrophically.

For now, we just have to wait — the problem is far too big for today’s engineers to tackle.

| Science & Math