title: Wild card (sports)

text: In 1986, the playoff format was changed. The new format the fourth place team in one division to qualify if it finished with an outright better record than the third place team in the other division. The Eastern owners agreed in exchange for expanding the schedule to 18 games, and also with a stipulation that the qualifying fourth-place team would stay in its own division for the playoffs. As a result, the change introduced the possibility of a four team bracket in one division and a two-game total point series in the other (the two game total point format was nothing new in Canadian football - it was commonly used until the early 1970s). It also introduced the possibility of the first place teams losing their traditional byes based on results elsewhere in the league. This occurred in 1986, when the 11-7 Calgary Stampeders qualified in place of the 4-14 Montreal Alouettes. The Alouettes folded before the start of the following season. Although it is highly questionable whether a 1986 playoff appearance would have saved the floundering Montreal franchise, the CFL quickly re-instated the traditional playoff format for the 1987 season. It also moved the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (the West's easternmost team) to the Eastern Division. This balanced the divisions both in numbers as well as, to a considerable extent, in playing caliber, and the reduction in teams also caused the schedule to be changed to emphasize more divisional games. As a result, the three top finishers of the two divisions finishers always had the six best league records from 1987 up until the start of the league's U.S. expansion experiment, which started in the 1993.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The current rule was adopted after the league re-activated the Alouettes and reverted to an all-Canadian alignment in 1996. It allows the fourth place team of one division to "cross over" and take the place of the third place team in the other divisional bracket, provided the fourth place team has more points (i.e. an outright better record) than the third place team. Since the cross over team enters as the third place team, it never receives home field advantage in the playoffs, even if its record is better than that of one or both of the qualifying teams in the other division.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: As of 2019, all teams to qualify under this rule have crossed over from the Western Division to the Eastern bracket, although there have been a handful of occasions where a fourth placed Eastern team was in mathematical contention for a Western cross-over berth late in the season. Cross-over teams have advanced as far as the Eastern Final, but as of 2018 have never advanced to the Grey Cup game. There is no provision for a fifth placed team in one division to cross over in place of the other division's runner-up, even if it has a better record; in 2018 the Edmonton Eskimos finished fifth in the West with a 9–9 record and missed the playoffs while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats finished 8-10 and qualified as Eastern runners-up. Thus, it is theoretically possible (but it has not yet occurred) that all four Eastern Division teams could reach the playoffs, but not for all five Western Division teams.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In professional tennis tournaments, a wildcard refers to a tournament entry awarded to a player at the discretion of the organizers. All ATP and WTA tournaments have a few spots set aside for wildcards in both the main draw, and the qualifying draw, for players who otherwise would not have made either of these draws with their professional ranking. They are usually awarded to players from the home and/or sponsoring country (sometimes after a tournament where the winner is awarded the wildcard), promising young players, players that are likely to draw a large crowd, or have won the tournament earlier or players who were once ranked higher and are attempting a comeback (for instance, following a long-term injury). High-ranked players can also ask for a wildcard if they want to enter a non-mandatory tournament after the normal entry deadline; for example, because they lost early in another tournament. This means a wildcard player sometimes becomes the top seed.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The organizers of three of the Grand Slam tournaments —the Australian Open, French Open, and US Open— grant one wildcard nomination to each of the other two. Christopher Clarey described this practice as "nothing more than mutual back scratching" and "an outdated symbol of elitism".


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In motorcycle racing the term 'wildcard' is used for competitors only involved in individual rounds of a championship, usually their local round. Local riders taking advantage of their local knowledge (often having raced that circuit on that bike before) and affording to take risks without planning for a championship, often upset established runners. Makoto Tamada and Shaky Byrne have both taken double victories in Superbike World Championship rounds in their home countries.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The most famous wildcard entry perhaps was the late Daijiro Kato with finishing 3rd at his first appearance in 1996 and then winning the Japanese 250cc Grand Prix back to back in 1997 and 1998 on his way to become the most successful 250cc World Champion of all time in 2001.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Each Grand Prix host Federation (FMNR) may nominate 3 wildcard entries for the Moto3 and Moto2 classes in their own Grand Prix only.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The MSMA (Motorcycle Sport Manufacturers’ Association) may, at each event, nominate 1 wildcard entry for the Moto2 and MotoGP classes.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The FIM may, at each event, nominate 2 wildcard entries for the Moto3 and Moto2 classes and FIM/DORNA may, at each event, nominate 1 wildcard entry for the MotoGP class.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Each Event host Federation (FMNR) may nominate 4 wildcard entries for the Superbike class and 2 wildcard entries for the Supersport and Superstock classes, in their own event only.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In Motorcycle Speedway, wildcards compete in the Speedway Grand Prix events in which there is 1 wildcard per competition (until 2005 there were 2 per Grand Prix). six wildcards have won a Grand Prix: Mark Loram in 1999, Martin Dugard in 2000, Hans Andersen in 2006 (later that year he replaced a permanent rider and went on to win another GP), Michael Jepsen Jensen in 2012, Adrian Miedziński in 2013 and Bartosz Zmarzlik in 2014.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: wildcard entries are not unknown in auto racing either, although the Concorde Agreement in modern-day Formula One requires all teams to participate in every event. John Love came close to winning the 1967 South African Grand Prix in a wildcard-type situation, long before the term had been coined. Although the term is rarely used in NASCAR, the concept of a road course ringer is similar. Before the late-1990s, NEXTEL Cup and Busch Series races in the West and Northeast respectively would have several drivers from the Winston West and Busch North series, as the series regulations were very similar, and until the mid-2000s, ARCA drivers would usually attempt Cup races in the Midwest and at restrictor-plate races.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: NASCAR has rules currently in lower-tier series (Xfinity and Truck), but prior to 2015, Cup, where the top teams that did not qualify on time qualified based on owner points. Officially known a provisional starting positions, they are the opportunity for a "wildcard" type starting position at the end of the grid. This allowed track owners to advertise and guarantee to fans that the most popular drivers would participate in the race (pleasing fans in attendance, and preventing no-shows) even if the driver had an unfortunate mishap (e.g., blown engine) or crash during time trials. All provisionals are based on team performance, except in lower tiers where past champion status or most recent winning driver, can earn the provisional.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: During the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race (a non-points exhibition event) one driver who fails to qualify for the race is awarded a wildcard spot via "Fans Choice" vote. In 2008, Kasey Kahne, was selected as a wildcard via fan vote, and went on to win the race.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: From 2011 to 2013, NASCAR's top-level Sprint Cup Series, since renamed the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, used "wildcards" in a different context, namely that of qualifying for the season-ending Chase for the Sprint Cup, now rebranded as the NASCAR playoffs. In previous seasons, the top 12 drivers in championship points after the first 26 races of the season automatically qualified for the Chase, with their points reset to a point unreachable by any other driver. Under the 2011–2013 system, only the top 10 drivers automatically qualified. The other two Chase qualifiers were the two drivers ranked from 11th through 20th after 26 races with the most race wins, with tiebreakers used as necessary to restrict the number of "wildcards" to two. Major changes to the Chase format that took effect in 2014, most notably determining the newly expanded Chase field of 16 mainly by race wins, eliminated this type of "wildcard".


title: Wild card (sports)

text: NCAA tournaments in all of its sports have included wildcard berths, typically known as at-large berths or at-large bids. Winners of each athletic conference's tournament (or, in the case of basketball's National Invitation Tournament, the team with the best regular season record in that conference) are granted automatic bids into the tournament, and a selection committee fills the remaining slots in the tournament bracket with who it determines to be the best teams who did not win their tournament (in practice, major conferences with stronger reputations and more revenue are invariably favored over mid-majors with similar records).


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Each year, the NCAA grants automatic berths in both the men's and women's Division I basketball tournaments to the winners of 32 conferences. Since the Ivy League added a conference tournament in 2017, every conference's automatic berth is granted to the team that wins its conference postseason tournament.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The NCAA has established Selection Committees for both the men's and women's tournaments. Teams that did not win their conference tournament may be eligible to earn an at-large berth. At-large berths are determined by record, ranking, the strength of schedule, and many other factors. A key factor in determining at-large berths is the Ratings Percentage Index, popularly referred to as the NET.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The fields of 68 teams that participate in both the men's tournament and the women's tournament are filled as follows:


title: Wild card (sports)

text: After all automatic berths are filled, the teams that did not win their conference tournaments are studied to see if they can make the tournament anyway. Once conference tournaments are complete, the Selection Committee need not consider conference affiliations in determining at-large berths, making it free to select as many teams from one conference as it deems correct. Most mid-major conferences or smaller conferences will receive no at-large berths, and only the winner of the conference tournament will advance to the NCAA Tournament, making for some heartbreaking moments in the tournaments of smaller conferences.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The conference tournaments of major conferences are generally less important, as most losers will make the "Big Dance" via an at-large bid, but often lesser big conference teams will sneak in using the conference tournament, stealing a bid from a deserving mid-major team in the long run.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: At-large berths are not necessarily lesser teams than automatic berths. They simply did not play well enough at the time of their conference tournaments. Often, at-large berths will get higher seeds than the teams that beat them in the conference tourney, because the Selection Committee judges base their judgment on the entire season.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Division I independents do not play a conference tournament and therefore do not have an automatic berth, and can only receive an at-large bid to the tournament, which rarely happens in today's game. Sometimes, a team that is otherwise deserving of a bid may be ineligible for the tournament due to an NCAA post-season ban, applied only as a punishment for egregious violations of NCAA rules in that school's program in that sport.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: With a 68-team field and 32 automatic berths, the Selection Committee must pick the 36 (men's and women's) most deserving teams that are left, which ends up being a long difficult process, which culminates in one of the most intense days in U.S. sports, Selection Sunday. Selection Sunday is a televised event where the brackets are revealed. There are almost always interesting arguments about who should be in and who should be out because there are often more than 34 teams that could be considered deserving of a bid. Many final teams that make it, and final teams that are cut are often thought of as interchangeable. This ends up resulting, sometimes, in major surprises of who makes the tournament as at-large teams. At-large teams often will win the tournament which included the last four NCAA Men's Basketball Champions (Connecticut in 2014, Duke in 2015, Villanova in 2016 and North Carolina in 2017).


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The conferences that are known for many at-large bids are generally the so-called Power Five conferences that receive automatic places in the bowl games associated with the College Football Playoff—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Other conferences that receive multiple at-large bids on a regular basis are the high-major offshoots of the original Big East Conference, the current Big East and The American. The Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West receive multiple bids on a regular basis as well. The Horizon League, Mid-American Conference, Missouri Valley and West Coast Conference have also received more than just the automatic berth several times.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Certain conferences have never, and probably will not in the near future, get an at-large bid, simply because no team in the conference can ever be one of the best 68 teams in the country, and even if one does, two at the same time would be virtually unheard of. Therefore, it is also often argued that these very small conferences do not even deserve their one automatic bid and it should be given to a more deserving large conference team. Most argue that this would take away from the point of the 68-team large tournament style, that always gives the underdog the chance for an upset. These conferences include the Big Sky Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference. One of these conferences recently made an argument for their best team to make the tournament, even though it lost in the conference tourney. Oral Roberts of the Mid-Continent Conference blew through their conference in the regular season but lost in the conference tournament, ending with a conference record of 17–1. They did not make the tournament, and Oakland University won the bid. Utah State and Holy Cross also had arguments like this recently. A new way to solve the problem is to attempt to switch to a more prominent conference, a phenomenon that was especially prevalent in 2005 and the early 2010s. Many teams made significant moves in that period, with some making multiple moves. A few of the more notable moves were:


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The NIT, held for the best teams that did not make the NCAA Tournament, was at one time an entirely at-large event (hence its name, the National Invitation Tournament); new regulations, however, offer automatic bids to teams regular season conference champions which failed to win their post-season conference tournament. The College Basketball Invitational and CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament both seed their entire tournaments with at-large bids.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: At-large bids are sometimes used for bowl games contested between NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Most bowl games have tie-ins with specific conferences; for example, the Rose Bowl Game has traditionally hosted conference champions from the Big Ten Conference and Pac-12 Conference (or their predecessors). Conferences are sometimes unable to provide a team to a bowl that they have a tie-in with; this happens when a conference has signed tie-in contracts with more bowls than the number of bowl-eligible teams it has in a given year. In such cases, bowl organizers will issue an at-large bid to a team in another conference or an independent team.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: For example, the 2009 Humanitarian Bowl had tie-ins with the Western Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Conference. However, the TCU Horned Frogs of Mountain West were selected for the Fiesta Bowl (a New Year's Six bowl game), and all of the Mountain West's other teams were either tied into other bowls or ineligible. As a result, bowl organizers issued an at-large bid, which went to the Bowling Green Falcons of the Mid-American Conference.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: "Jeopardy!" tournaments generally run for 10 consecutive episodes (which air from Monday to Friday inclusive over two weeks) and feature 15 contestants. The first week's five episodes, called the "quarter-finals", feature three new contestants each day. The winners of these five games, and the four highest scoring non-winners ("wildcards"), advance to the semi-finals, which run for three days. The winners of these three games advance to play in a two-game final match, in which the scores from both games are combined to determine the overall winner. This format has been used since the first Tournament of Champions in 1985 and was devised by the late long time host Alex Trebek himself.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: To prevent later contestants from playing to beat the earlier wildcard scores instead of playing to win, contestants are "completely isolated from the studio until it is their time to compete."


title: Wild card (sports)

text: If there is a tie for the final wildcard position, the non-winner that advances will be based on the same regulations as two contestants who tie for second in a regular game; the tie-breaker is the contestant's score after the Double Jeopardy! round, and if further tied, the score after the Jeopardy! round determines the contestant who advances as the wildcard.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: If two or more contestants tie for the highest score (greater than zero) at the end of a first round match, the standard tiebreaker is used with the player who loses that tiebreaker eligible for a wildcard. If none of the contestants in a quarter-final or semi-final game end with a positive score, no contestant automatically qualifies from that game, and an additional wildcard contestant advances instead. This occurred in the quarter-finals of the 1991 Seniors Tournament and the semi-finals of the 2013 Teen Tournament.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In the 2022 Polish version Tournament of Champions, which used 18 players, the 18 players were split into two groups of nine. The three winners in each group played in the semifinals, and the wild card was given to the highest scoring non-winner there to advance to the finals.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Although the term "wildcard" is not generally common in sports outside North America, a few competitions effectively (used to) employ such a system to determine one or more reserved places in a particular phase of a competition.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In the Olympics, several sport governing bodies award wildcards to nations in order to further promote their sport. Sports governing bodies will either make selections or hold a tournament to determine the wildcards. One such notable wildcard selection was Equatorial Guinea swimmer Eric Moussambani, who finished last in the 100m meter event in the 2000 Summer Olympics. Other times, wildcard spots are offered to ease political tension such as the case of North Korean athletes participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics despite most of them not meeting the qualification criteria.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The world championship for basketball, the FIBA Basketball World Cup, invites four wildcards to complete its 24-team field. Teams have to participate in qualifying for the World Cup, have to apply to be one, and FIBA is not allowed more than three teams from the same continent in order to be selected. This setup began in 2006, where Italy, Puerto Rico, Serbia and Montenegro, and Turkey were selected by FIBA; Turkey made the best performance, reaching the quarterfinals. In 2010, FIBA selected Germany, Lithuania, Lebanon, and Russia as the wildcards, with Lithuania finishing third, and Russia making it to the quarterfinals. For the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, FIBA selected Brazil, Finland, Greece, and Turkey; 2014 will be the last time FIBA will select wildcards, as the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup would no longer have wildcards when it expands to 32 teams. The perennial top two FIBA Oceania team namely Australia and New Zealand as wildcard teams of FIBA Asia Cup 2017 in Lebanon. These two teams are also part of FIBA Asia in Basketball tournaments including FIBA World Qualifying Tournament for FIBA World Cup 2019 in China.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In the Philippine Basketball Association, the playoffs are done after an elimination (in 2005–06, a classification) round where the top two teams with the best records are given semi-final byes, the next 3 are given quarterfinal byes, the next 4 are given entry to the wildcard phase, and the tenth team is eliminated.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The winner of the wildcard playoffs, varying in format from a round-robin, a single-elimination or sudden death, usually meets the strongest quarterfinalist (the 3rd seed). The wildcard winner's next opponent for the quarterfinals rested while the wildcard phase was ongoing so the chance of advancing to the semi-finals (in which a team rested longer) is slim.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The only wildcard champion are the 7th-seeded Barangay Ginebra Kings in the 2004 PBA Fiesta Conference after 7 years of championship drought they made an epic run all the way to the throne, in which the top 2 teams were given semifinal byes while the bottom eight went through a knock-out wildcard tournament. Since the addition of the quarterfinal bye, no wildcard has entered the Finals, although the Air21 Express won the third-place trophy at the 2005-06 PBA Fiesta Conference. The wildcard set up was no longer used when the league reverted to the 3-conference format starting from the 2010–11 PBA season.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The Euroleague, a Europe-wide competition for elite basketball clubs, once had one "wildcard" advancing from its first phase, officially the Regular Season, to its second, called the Top 16. The rule was in place through the 2007–08 season.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: At that time, the competition began each year with 24 clubs, divided into three groups. (Today, the competition starts with a preliminary stage of 16 teams playing down to two survivors, who join 22 other teams in the Regular Season.) Then as now, the groups played a double round-robin for the Regular Season, with eight clubs eliminated and the remaining clubs advancing to the Top 16. Under the rules in place through 2007–08, the top five clubs in each group automatically advanced. The final "wildcard" spot in the Top 16 went to the sixth-place club with the best overall record, with three potential tiebreaking steps. A coin toss is not indicated as a possible step.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Starting in 2008–09, the "wildcard" was abolished when the Regular Season was reorganized into four groups with 6 teams apiece. Now, the top four teams in each group advance to the Top 16. No change to the tiebreakers was made.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: For both the junior and senior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final (which starting in the 2008–2009 figure skating season will be merged into a single two-division event), the hosting federation may issue a wildcard invitation to one of their own skaters should no skater from the host country qualify for the event through the Grand Prix circuit. Use of the wildcard has not been common; however, it was used at the 2007–2008 Junior Grand Prix Final by the Polish federation.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the premier competition in Gaelic football, each of the thirty-two counties in Ireland as well as London and New York play in their respective Provincial Championships through a knock-out cup competition format without seeds. The winners of each of the four Provincial Championships earn one of eight places in the All-Ireland Quarter Finals.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The thirty teams that fail to win their respective Provincial Championships receive a second opportunity to reach the All-Ireland Series via the All Ireland Qualifiers (also known as the 'back door', similar to a wildcard).


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In road cycling (teams), a wildcard refers to an invitation to a race which a particular team would not normally be able to enter. Usually used for top division (currently UCI World Tour) races where the organization want more teams, lower league teams will be invited. It is very common to offer a wildcard for teams from the same country to help local sport and to boost national pride. For example, for the 100th "Tour de France" in 2013, the organisers (the Amaury Sport Organisation) awarded three wildcards to French teams: Cofidis, Sojasun and Team Europcar, all of which were UCI Professional Continental teams at the time and therefore not automatically invited, unlike the UCI ProTeams which made up the vast majority of the entry list.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In January 2015, Team MTN-Qhubeka from South Africa accepted an invitation to participate in the 2015 edition of "Tour de France". MTN-Qhubeka was the first African team to receive a wildcard entry into the event that was held from 4 to 26 July 2015.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Rugby union's analogue to the Euroleague is the European Rugby Champions Cup, which replaced the previous top-level club competition, the Heineken Cup, starting with the 2014–15 season. The Champions Cup maintains a system originally created for the Heineken Cup in which some "wildcard" teams advance to the competition's knockout stages. Also starting in 2014–15, the organiser of the Champions Cup, European Professional Club Rugby, introduced this type of "wildcard" to the second-level European Rugby Challenge Cup.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: During the last five seasons of the Heineken Cup (2009–10 to 2013–14), another "wildcard" system allowed teams to parachute into the original European Challenge Cup, which has now been replaced by the current Challenge Cup. This was scrapped with the creation of the current Challenge Cup.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Both the Champions Cup and current Challenge Cup involve 20 clubs (compared to 24 in the Heineken Cup and 20 in the original Challenge Cup), divided into pools of four clubs with each club playing a double round-robin within its pool. In both competitions, eight clubs advance to the knockout stages. The top club in each pool advances; the three "wildcard" places are filled by the second-place clubs with the best overall records. For the Champions Cup, the number of wildcards increased by one from the Heineken Cup era; both versions of the Challenge Cup had three wildcards, but the original version filled them in an entirely different manner.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In the final years of the Heineken Cup, starting in 2009–10 and ending with the 2014 reorganisation of European club rugby, the three second-place teams with the next-best records after those that advanced to the Heineken Cup knockout stage parachuted into the Challenge Cup.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The tiebreaking procedure used to determine overall seeding, which was devised in the Heineken Cup era and carried over intact into the current era, is almost as elaborate as that of the NFL, with a total of seven steps (a coin flip is the last).


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Prior to 2009–10, the original Challenge Cup also had "wildcard" teams entering its knockout stages. The top club in each pool advanced to the knockout stage, along with the three second-place teams with the best records, using the same tiebreaking procedure as the Heineken Cup. Starting in 2009–10, only the winner of each pool entered the knockout stage, to be joined by the teams parachuting in from the Heineken Cup. As noted above, with the creation of the new Challenge Cup, that competition abandoned this system in favour of the system used in the Champions Cup.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The Super Rugby competition, involving regional franchises from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, adopted a new playoff system with "wildcards" when it expanded to 15 teams in 2011.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In its previous incarnations as Super 12 and Super 14 (each number reflecting the number of teams in the competition), it used a Shaughnessy playoff system in which the top four teams advanced to a knockout stage. The expansion to 15 teams led to major changes in the competition format.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Through the 2015 season, the competition was divided into three conferences of five teams each, with every conference consisting solely of teams from one of the participating countries. At the end of the regular season, the winners of each conference received playoff berths. These teams were joined by three "wildcards", specifically the three non-winners with the most competition points without regard to conference. (Tiebreakers were employed as necessary.)


title: Wild card (sports)

text: With the expansion of Super Rugby to 18 teams in 2016, featuring a permanent sixth franchise for South Africa and new teams based in Argentina and Japan, the competition format was changed again.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: The competition is now divided into the Australasian Group, including all Australian and New Zealand teams, and the African Group, consisting of the South African teams plus the Argentine and Japanese franchises. In turn, the Australasian Group is divided into Australia and New Zealand Conferences, and the African Group is split into Africa 1 and Africa 2 Conferences. As in the 2011–15 system, the conference winners will receive playoff berths. The number of wildcards will increase to four, with the three top non-winners from the Australasian Group and the top non-winner from the African Group, again based on competition points, earning those spots.


title: Wild card (sports)

text: In the current format of the Rugby World Cup, a team that finishes 3rd in their group automatically gains a berth in the next Rugby World Cup (although they do not advance to the next round).


title: Wild card (sports)

text: Additionally, the Rugby World Cup qualifying format uses a repechage, in which teams from other regions that did not gain the automatic spot play each other for the final spots in the World Cup.


title: 1974 FIFA World Cup squads

text: Below are the squads for the 1974 FIFA World Cup final tournament in West Germany. For the first time, a majority of countries (9 of 16) had players representing foreign clubs.


title: 1974 FIFA World Cup squads

text: Note that this squad is numbered alphabetically by surname, unlike traditional numbering systems where the goalkeeper has shirt number 1 and so forth. An exception was Johan Cruyff, who was given his favoured 14.


title: 1974 FIFA World Cup squads

text: Note that this squad is numbered alphabetically by surname, with the exception of the goalkeepers which received traditional numbers 1, 12 and 21.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: National Velvet is a 1944 American Technicolor sports film directed by Clarence Brown and based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Enid Bagnold. It stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere, Reginald Owen, and an adolescent Elizabeth Taylor.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: In 2003, "National Velvet" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


title: National Velvet (film)

text: "National Velvet" is the story of a 12-year-old, horse-crazy girl, Velvet Brown, who lives in the small town of Sewels in Sussex, England. She wins a spirited gelding in a raffle and decides to train him for the Grand National steeplechase. Velvet is aided by a penniless young drifter named Mi Taylor, who discovered Mrs. Brown's name and address among his late father's effects, though he is unaware of why it was there. Hoping to profit from the association, Mi accepts an invitation to dinner and a night's lodging at the Browns' home, but Mrs. Brown is unwilling to allow Mi to trade on his father's good name and remains vague about their connection. Nevertheless, she convinces her husband to hire Mi over his better judgment, and Mi is brought into the home as a hired hand. It is revealed that Mi's career as a jockey ended in a collision which resulted in another jockey's death. Mi has not held a job since, and now hates horses because of the accident.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: Velvet names the horse she won "The Pie" because his previous owner, Mr. Ede, called the troublesome gelding a pirate. Seeing Pie's natural talent, Velvet pleads with Mi to train him for the Grand National. Mi believes it a fool's errand, not because the horse lacks ability, but because they have no way to finance the effort. He makes his case to Mrs. Brown, but she consents to Velvet's desire to train the horse. To cover the entrance fee and other costs, Mrs. Brown gives Velvet the prize money she won for swimming the English Channel. Velvet and Mi train the horse and enter him into the race.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: Mi and Velvet travel to the Grand National. Mi hires a professional jockey, but the night before the race, Velvet senses he lacks faith in the Pie and will lose. Velvet dismisses the jockey, leaving them without a rider. That night, Mi overcomes his fear of riding and intends to race Pie himself. He discovers that Velvet has donned the jockey silks and intends to ride. Knowing the dangers, Mi attempts to dissuade Velvet, who is determined to ride. As the race unfolds, Velvet and Pie clear all hurdles and win the race. Elated but exhausted, Velvet falls off her mount just after the finish. However, since rule 144 requires that the winning jockey not dismount before reaching the enclosure, Velvet and Pie are disqualified.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: When it is discovered that the jockey is a girl, Velvet becomes a media sensation and is offered large amounts of money to travel to Hollywood and be filmed with Pie. To her father's disappointment, Velvet tearfully refuses the offers, claiming that Pie would dislike being stared at. Velvet says that she raced Pie at the Grand National because he deserved a chance for greatness. Velvet chooses a normal life for her and her horse. At the close of the film, Mi, ready to resume his old life, takes his leave without bidding Velvet goodbye. Before he gets too far, Mrs. Brown gives Velvet permission to reveal her relationship with his father. Velvet gallops off on Pie and finds Mi on the road. The movie ends with a long shot of Velvet stopping Mi at the top of a hill against a sunset sky, and presumably telling him about his father.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: An 18-year-old Gene Tierney, who was then appearing on Broadway, was offered the role of Velvet Brown in 1939. Production was delayed, however, so Tierney returned to Broadway. Much of the film was shot in Pebble Beach, California, with the most-scenic views on the Pebble Beach Golf Links (with golf holes visible in the background). Elizabeth Taylor was given "The Pie" as a birthday gift after filming was over.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: This was the first of two films casting Elizabeth Taylor and Anne Revere. The other film, "A Place in the Sun", featured Revere as the mother of Taylor's love interest, played by Montgomery Clift. In that film, however, the two actresses never shared the screen with each other in any scene.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: Mickey Rooney's scenes were shot first in one month allotted by the U.S. Army before Rooney was inducted in June 1944.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: The film differs from the book in a number of respects. For example, Velvet's horse in the book is a piebald, and thus is given the name "The Piebald" or "The Pie" for short. In the movie, Pie is a chestnut, and another explanation for his name was given. Velvet, in the book, is a sickly child who is given to great imagination and spirit; her father is stern and given to anger, but the mother is stronger still and stands up to him. Since her days as a swimmer, she has become a large woman and weighs 16 stone— at the time of the story, and warns Velvet never to allow herself to be burdened by weight. In the book Mr. and Mrs. Brown also have a 15-year-old daughter named Meredith, in addition to Edwina, Malvolia, Velvet, and Donald. In the novel, the professional jockey hired by Mi to race at the Grand National is said to have finished in 4th place at the previous event, it is possible this character is a reference to 1932 Ascot Gold Cup disgraced competitor Arthur Pasquier. The Meredith character does not appear in the movie.


title: National Velvet (film)

text: "National Velvet" holds a 100% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 8.09/10. The site's consensus reads: ""National Velvet" makes the most of a breakout performance from Elizabeth Taylor, delivering a timeless family-friendly tearjerker that avoids straying into the sentimental".


title: National Velvet (film)

text: In 1978, the sequel "International Velvet" was released. The film stars Tatum O'Neal, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Hopkins, and Nanette Newman, who plays Velvet Brown as an adult. After the events of "National Velvet", Donald got married, had a daughter named Sarah Velvet Brown, and moved from England to Cave Creek, Arizona. Sarah comes to live with Velvet and her boyfriend John after Donald and his wife die from their injuries in a car accident. Elizabeth Taylor did not reprise her role as Velvet in the sequel.


title: Space probe

text: A space probe is an artificial satellite that travels through space to collect scientific data. A space probe may orbit Earth; approach the Moon; travel through interplanetary space; flyby, orbit, or land or fly on other planetary bodies; or enter interstellar space.


title: Space probe

text: Many countries and private companies have launched probes to planets, asteroids, moons around the Solar System, including the Soviet Union, the United States, India, and many more.


title: Space probe

text: On 4 October 1957, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth was Sputnik 1, launched by the USSR. Four months later, on 1 February 1958, Explorer 1 was launched by the United States, being the first space probe. Explorer 1, collecting data on temperature, cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. The first attempted lunar probe was the Luna E-1 No.1, launched on 23 September 1958. The goal of a lunar probe repeatedly failed until 4 January 1959 when Luna 1 orbited around the moon and then the sun.


title: Space probe

text: The success of these early missions began a race between the US and the USSR to outdo each other with increasingly ambitious probes. Each new satellite cast a shadow on the one that came before. "Mariner 2" was the first probe to study another planet, revealing Venus' extremely hot temperature to scientists in 1962, while the Soviet "Venera 4" was the first atmospheric probe to study Venus. "Mariner 4" 's 1965 Mars flyby snapped the first images of its cratered surface, which the Soviets responded to a few months later with images from on its surface from "Luna 9". In 1967, America's "Surveyor 3" gathered information about the Moon's surface that would prove crucial to the "Apollo 11" mission that landed humans on the moon two years later.


title: Space probe

text: The first interstellar probe was Voyager 1, launched 5 September 1977. It entered interstellar space on 25 August 2012, followed by its twin Voyager 2 on 5 November 2018. Both have collected science outside the heliosphere.


title: Space probe

text: Once a probe has left the vicinity of Earth, its trajectory will likely take it along an orbit around the Sun similar to the Earth's orbit. To reach another planet, the simplest practical method is a Hohmann transfer orbit. More complex techniques, such as gravitational slingshots, can be more fuel-efficient, though they may require the probe to spend more time in transit. Some high Delta-V missions (such as those with high inclination changes) can only be performed, within the limits of modern propulsion, using gravitational slingshots. A technique using very little propulsion, but requiring a considerable amount of time, is to follow a trajectory on the Interplanetary Transport Network.


title: Glen Coe

text: Glen Coe ( ) is a glen of volcanic origins, in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies in the north of the county of Argyll, close to the border with the historic province of Lochaber, within the modern council area of Highland. Glen Coe is regarded as the home of Scottish mountaineering and is popular with hillwalkers and climbers.


title: Glen Coe

text: A 2010 review by Scottish Natural Heritage into the special qualities of Scotland's National scenic areas listed the "soaring, dramatic splendour of Glen Coe", and "the suddenness of the transition between high mountain pass and the lightly wooded strath" as being of note. The review also described the journey through the glen on the main A82 road as "one of the classic Highland journeys". The main settlement is the village of Glencoe located at the foot of the glen.


title: Glen Coe

text: On the 13 February 1692, in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising of 1689, an incident known as the Massacre of Glencoe took place in the glen. Thirty-eight men from Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by government forces who were billeted with them on the grounds that they had not been prompt in pledging allegiance to the new monarchs, William and Mary.


title: Glen Coe

text: The Glen is named after the River Coe which runs through it. The name of the river may predate the Gaelic language, as its meaning is not known. It is possible that the name stems from an individual personal name, Comhan (genitive Comhain).


title: Glen Coe

text: The glen is U-shaped, formed by an ice age glacier, about long with the floor of the glen being less than wide, narrowing sharply at the "Pass of Glen Coe".


title: Glen Coe

text: The entrance to the glen from the east is below the foot of Buachaille Etive Beag just west of Lochan na Fola, from where waters run west to Loch Leven via the River Coe. The river—Ossian's "dark Cona"—passes over waterfalls at the Pass of Glen Coe before flowing down to the small Loch Achtriochtan. Loch Achtriochtan is "Loch Trychardan" (loch of the three friends or relatives) in Timothy Pont's map of the area. After the loch the river turns north-west, passing through Glencoe village, before flowing into the sea loch of Loch Leven (a salt-water arm of Loch Linnhe) at Invercoe. The area to east of Lochan na Fola is often classed as part of Glen Coe (see for example the location of Glencoe ski centre), but is in fact part of the upper reaches of Glen Etive.


title: Glen Coe

text: The south side of the glen is marked by a succession of distinct peaks: Buachaille Etive Beag at the eastern end, followed by the "Three Sisters", shoulders of the Bidean nam Bian massif which are subdivided by Coire Gabhail and Coire nan Lochan. The name Coire Gabhail (corrie of the "bounty", or "hollow of capture") refers to former times when the corrie was used by members of Clan MacDonald to hide cattle and other livestock, whether their own or stolen from others. The wide flat glen is well suited for this purpose since from Glen Coe it appears to be a normal v-shaped glen approached only by a steep narrow gorge. Summits in the Bidean nam Bian massif include Stob Coire Sgreamhach, Stob Coire nan Lochan and Aonach Dubh (the third "sister"). By contrast the north side of the glen is a stark wall of mountain, the Aonach Eagach ridge. The ridge is crossed at the eastern end by the Devil's Staircase, an old military road opposite Buachaille Etive Mòr. The western end terminates with the conical Pap of Glencoe ("Sgùrr na Cìche"), above Glencoe village, at the point where the glen opens out to Loch Leven.


title: Glen Coe

text: Other than a few scattered farms, the only settlement in Glen Coe is the village of Glencoe, which lies at the western end of the glen close to Invercoe where the river joins Loch Leven. About to the west, on the southern shore of the loch, is the village of Ballachulish, known in the past for its slate quarries, which have been worked since 1693.


title: Glen Coe

text: Geologically speaking, Glen Coe is the remains of an ancient supervolcano. The caldera forming eruptions took place about 420 million years ago during the Silurian period, and the volcano has long since become extinct. The glen is considered to be one of the best examples of a subsidence caldera, being the place where this phenomenon was first described. A caldera is a volcanic process in which a circular fault allows a section of crust to sink, leading to magma being forced to the surface at the periphery. This sinking allows layers of rock which would otherwise have been eroded to remain visible, can be seen in Glen Coe most strikingly in Devonian volcanic lavas on Bidean nam Bian, as well as at Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, An t-Sron, and in the bed of the River Coe below Loch Achtriochtan. Surrounding the caldera the rocks consists of schist and quartzite with a ring of granite marking the main ring fault.


title: Glen Coe

text: The landscape was further shaped by the processes of glaciation during the last ice ages, ending 10,000 years ago.


title: Glen Coe

text: Habitats within Glen Coe include birch woodland, moorland and peatbogs. The upland parts of the glen are one of the best habitats for alpine and sub-alpine plants in Lochaber, due to the underlying geology and range of altitude. Typical plants found on the highest slopes of the glen include lady's mantle,"Sibbaldia procumbens" and areas of willow scrub and "Racomitrium lanuginosum" moss-heath. In the lower areas of the glen bog myrtle, cotton grass, butterwort, sundew and bladderwort are to be found. There are areas of wet woodland on the floor of the glen: the woodlands are composed of alder and ash, and also provide a habitat for ground plants such as tufted hair-grass and marsh hawk's-beard. Glen Coe hosts several nationally scarce species of liverworts and mosses.


title: Glen Coe

text: The peaks of the glen are home to snow bunting and ptarmigan, and the area also supports buzzards and golden eagles.


title: Glen Coe

text: The Massacre of Glencoe () took place on 13 February 1692, following the Jacobite uprising of 1689–92. An estimated thirty-eight members and associates of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by government forces billeted with them, with others later alleged to have died of exposure, on the grounds they had not been prompt in pledging allegiance to the new monarchs, William III of England and II of Scotland and Mary II. The Iona cross was erected in 1883 by a Macdonald in memory of clansmen who perished in the massacre.


title: Glen Coe

text: Glen Coe was once part of the lands of Clan Donald, though since the ending of the clan structure they progressively sold off their estates. Most of the Glen is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), whose visitor centre has displays about both the natural and historical significance of the glen. The land was purchased by the National Trust for Scotland in 1935 using money donated by the Scottish Mountaineering Club. It was later found out that most of the money came from the SMC's then chair, Percy Unna. He laid out a number of conditions, known as the "Unna Principles" regarding how the NTS should manage the estate with regard to access and maintaining the wild nature of the land. The building of a visitor centre caused some controversy, as some felt this to be a contravention of Unna's "Principles". The original centre was later closed, and a new one built further west, down the glen on land not part of the original purchase.


title: Glen Coe

text: The last area of Glen Coe to be owned by the MacDonalds was the area around Invercoe. In 1894, Sir Donald A. Smith (who was later, in August 1897, elevated to the peerage as The 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal) purchased this area and built a country house, Mount Royal. In 2002, Alistair MacDonald of Glencoe made a successful eleventh-hour bid, and purchased the remaining lands of Lord Strathcona from his descendants. Alistair received unsecured loans from just six donors, and immediately set up the Glencoe Heritage Trust, a non-profit-making charitable trust, to secure the heritage of this part of Glen Coe.


title: Glen Coe

text: In 2017, NTS took out a trademark on the "Glencoe" name following an attempt to trademark the name of another NTS property (St Kilda) by a third party without their knowledge or consent. The Trust stated that it would not prevent local businesses from continuing to use the name; however, they were accused of heavy-handedness when an attempt was made to stop Hilltrek, a company based in Aberdeenshire, from selling a "Glencoe" waterproof jacket. The dispute ended amicably with NTS agreeing to allow Hilltrek to continue to sell the jacket with the Glencoe name.


title: Glen Coe

text: Hamish MacInnes, veteran of Mount Everest expeditions, climbing consultant for such films as "The Eiger Sanction" and a mountain rescue pioneer, was a well-known resident of Glencoe. MacInnes developed a new design of mountain rescue stretcher whilst living at Allt-na-reigh cottage near the head of the glen; the cottage later belonged to DJ Jimmy Savile. Following the posthumous revelation that Savile was a child abuser there were calls for the cottage to be demolished, although it remains standing but unoccupied as of February 2018.


title: Glen Coe

text: During the 2020s, several companies started offering the title of "Lord" or "Lady" of Glen Coe to anyone interested online. One such company used the Oscars to advertise themselves by giving away titles of land ownership to such celebrities as Billie Eilish, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jessica Chastain. Such titles, however, do not actually bestow official nobility or land to buyers. One company, which started operating in 2007, has been accused by several Scotland residents of making a mockery of Scotland's heritage. Kate Moss, Nelson Mandela, Ozzy Osbourne, Philip Schofield and Elizabeth Hurley are among those who have received certificates of mock title and ownership from these companies as personal presents. Some of the companies do clarify in their webpages that the word "Laird" is used in Scotland to describe all home or land owners and is an equivalent to the English language word "Lord", or to "Landlord" in the United States, and thus no official land ownership or nobility is bestowed on buyers.


title: Glen Coe

text: Since 2017 Glen Coe has been designated as a national nature reserve (NNR), and is classified as a Category IV protected area by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Glen Coe is also designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and the south side of the glen falls within the "Glen Etive and Glen Fyne Special Protection Area" (SPA). The scenic beauty of the glen has led to its inclusion in the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe National Scenic Area, being one of 40 such areas in Scotland, which are defined so as to identify areas of exceptional scenery and to ensure its protection from inappropriate development.


title: Glen Coe

text: There have been several proposals for Glen Coe to be included within a national park, mostly recently in 2013. In September 2016 Roseanna Cunningham, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform told the Scottish Parliament that the Government had no plans to designate new national parks in Scotland and instead planned to focus on the two existing national parks.


title: Glen Coe

text: Glen Coe is a very popular tourist destination, partly because of its scenic qualities and historical associations, partly because it is on the main road north (the A82), and also because of its attraction for walkers and climbers. It is famous for the quality, and variety of its winter climbing, most of its routes being comparatively easy to access from the main road. Noted climbing venues include Buachaille Etive Mòr (1,018 m), often called simply "The Beuchle", and various routes on the Three Sisters (shoulders of Bidean nam Bian). Other points of interest include the waterfalls at The Study in the Pass of Glen Coe.


title: Glen Coe

text: For adventurous experienced hillwalkers the Aonach Eagach offers one of the finest mainland scrambles in Scotland. This extended scramble boasts two of Scotland's trickiest Munro hills, Sgorr nam Fiannaidh () and Meall Dearg (). The Aonach Eagach ridge terminates at the Pap of Glencoe (). There are also routes on the Bidean nam Bian (1,150 m) massif which forms a complex Y-shaped hill with several lesser tops, including Stob Coire Sgreamhach (1,072 m) which also has Munro status. One way in to these tops ascends from the Pass of Glen Coe up Coire Gabhail (the "hidden valley") to the ridge. Both Buachaille Etive Beag (958 m) and Buachaille Etive Mòr (1,022 m) also offer opportunities to hillwalkers.


title: Glen Coe

text: Many walkers come to Glen Coe on the West Highland Way following the old military road over Rannoch Moor which crosses the River Etive at the Kings House Hotel. From there it is about to the head of the glen, then about 2 km into the glen the Way ascends the Devil's Staircase, a steep, boulder-strewn "cut" (352 m high) which is part of the old military road and drove road north across the hills to Kinlochleven.


title: Glen Coe

text: The Glencoe ski centre, also known as the "White Corries", is on the hill of Meall a' Bhuiridh () which is on the east side of Glen Etive, outside Glen Coe proper. This centre is popular with locals and is used by many skiers from the Glasgow area as the nearest ski resort at under from the city centre. It forms part of the "Black Mount" estate, which is based on Loch Tulla which is to the south-east.


title: Glen Coe

text: The famous Clachaig Inn, a pub much favoured by climbers and hillwalkers, is sited at the bend in the glen about from Glencoe village. A Scottish Youth Hostels Association hostel is sited about from the village, on the way to the inn, close to an independent hostel (Glencoe Independent Hostel) and the Red Squirrel campsite. The Kings House Hotel, lying about 2 km to the east of the head of the glen towards Rannoch Moor, is former a coaching inn, standing on the main route between Ballachulish and Tyndrum (the route of one of William Caulfeild's military roads). One can also stay in The Glencoe Inn, located in the heart of Glencoe village.


title: Glen Coe

text: For campers, there are three official campsites in and around the glen. Wild camping is permitted in certain areas of the Glen, in accordance with the Scottish outdoor access code and the principles specified by Percy Unna. However, environmental concerns and increasing pollution of the River Coe in the mid 1990s led to a decision to exclude a specific area and prohibit wild camping within that area. The area is to the east of the Clachaig Hotel, from the River Coe to the Aonach Eagach, and east as far as the junction of the Old Military Road and the modern A82. The exclusion has led to improvements being observed in the river and the Clachaig area.


title: Glen Coe

text: Glencoe is supposed to have been the birthplace of Ossian according to John Cameron (1822–1898), a local bard who was also Bard to the Ossianic Society. "In the middle of the vale runs 'the roaring stream of Cona', the mountain of Malmor rises on the south side, and the celebrated Dun-Fionn'—'the hill of Fingal' on the north. Several of the names referring either to the heroes of the Fingalian race, or to their general occupation, hunting, are numerous in the district. Sgur-mam-Fiann, 'the mountain of the Fingalians'; Coe, the name of the river is supposed to be the Cona of Ossian; Grianan Dearduil, 'the sunny place of Darthula'; Acha-nan-con, 'the field of the dogs'; Caolas-nan-con, 'the ferry of the dogs', and the neighbouring country bear similar traces. Morven is the peculiar name of Fingal's domain; an island in Loch Etive is supposed to be named from Usnoth, the father of Nathos; and Etive itself is named from the deer of its mountains."


title: Glen Coe

text: Sir Donald Smith, high financier and businessman of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway, owned land near Glencoe and when made a lord, invented the name Strathcona to represent Glencoe. Many places in Canada now bear the name Strathcona after Lord Strathcona.


title: Glen Coe

text: The Pass of Glen Coe was used as the location for "The Bridge of Death" and "The Gorge of Eternal Peril" in filming "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", attracting Monty Python pilgrims. Sets for the third "Harry Potter" film, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", were built near to the bottom of Clachaig Gully, north of the Clachaig Inn. There are also some shots of the eastern glen, including Buachaille Etive Mòr in the Bollywood film "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai", and in the James Bond film "Skyfall" (which was mainly set in Glen Etive), although the majority of the filming for Bond's Scottish home was in Southern England. There is a folk museum in Glencoe village.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: The K-278 "Komsomolets" was the "Project-685 Plavnik" (Russian: проект-685 плавник, meaning "fin", also known by her NATO reporting name of "Mike"-class), nuclear-powered attack submarine of the Soviet Navy; the only submarine of her design class.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: In the inventory of the Soviet military, "K-278" was unique for her submarine depth rating, having reached a depth of in the Norwegian Sea on 4 August 1984. Although "K-278" was commissioned in the Soviet Navy to evaluate the technology for the fourth-generation of Russian nuclear submarines, she was capable of combat maneuvering and deployment. During her third operational patrol in the Arctic Ocean in 1989, a serious fire in the aft compartments led to her sinking in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: Despite the fire in the engineering compartment, "K-278" was able to surface and remained afloat for approximately five hours before sinking. Many of the crew perished before rescue, leading to 42 total dead.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: The wrecked submarine is on the floor of the Barents Sea, about 1.7 km (1 mile) deep, with her nuclear reactor and two nuclear warhead-armed torpedoes still on board.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: The Project 685 was designed by the Rubin Design Bureau in response to a challenge to develop an advanced submarine that could carry a mix of torpedoes and cruise missiles with conventional or nuclear warheads. The order to design the submarine was issued in 1966 and design was completed in 1974. The keel was laid down on 22 April 1978 at Severodvinsk. "K-278" was launched on 3 June 1983 and commissioned on 28 December 1983.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: "K-278" had a double hull, the inner one being composed of titanium, which gave her an operating depth far greater than that of the best American submarines. The pressure hull was composed of seven compartments with the second and third protected by stronger forward and aft bulkheads creating a "safety zone" in case of an emergency. An escape capsule was fitted in the fin above these compartments to enable the crew to abandon ship in the event of an underwater emergency. Initial Western intelligence estimates of "K-278"'s speed were based on the assumption that the boat was powered by a pair of liquid metal cooled reactors. When the Soviet Union revealed that the submarine used a single OK-650b-3 conventional pressurized-water reactor, these speed estimates were lowered.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: According to Norman Polmar and Kenneth J. Moore, two Western experts on Soviet submarine design and operations, the Project 685's advanced design included many automated systems which allowed for fewer crew members than usual for a submarine of her size. The manning table approved by the Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1982 called for a crew of 57 men. This was later increased to 64: 30 officers, 22 warrant officers, and 12 petty officers and seamen. At the time of the boat's sinking, 69 were aboard.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: In October 1988, "K-278" became one of the few Soviet submarines to be given a name: "Komsomolets" ("Комсомолец", meaning "a member of the Komsomol"), and her commanding officer, Captain 1st rank Yuriy Zelenskiy was honoured for diving to .


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: On 7 April 1989, while under the command of Captain 1st Rank Evgeny Vanin and running submerged at a depth of about southwest of Bear Island (Norway), a fire broke out in an engineering compartment due to a short circuit, and even though watertight doors were shut, the resulting fire spread through bulkhead cable penetrations. The reactor scrammed and propulsion was lost. Electrical problems spread as cables burned through, and control of the boat was threatened. An emergency ballast tank blow was performed and the submarine surfaced eleven minutes after the fire began. Distress calls were made, and most of the crew abandoned ship.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: The fire continued to burn, fed by the compressed air system. At 15:15, several hours after surfacing, the boat sank in of water, about SSW off Bear Island. The commanding officer and four others who were still on board entered the escape capsule and ejected it. Only one of the five to reach the surface was able to leave the capsule and survive before it sank in the rough seas. Captain Vanin was among the dead.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: Rescue aircraft arrived quickly and dropped small rafts, but winds and sea conditions precluded their use. Many men had already died from hypothermia in the water of the Barents Sea. The floating fish factory B-64/10 "Aleksey Khlobystov" ("Алексей Хлобыстов") arrived 81 minutes after "K-278" sank, and took aboard survivors.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: Of the 69 crewmen, 27 survived the incident and 42 died: 9 during the accident and the subsequent sinking, 30 in the water of hypothermia or injuries, and three aboard the rescue boat. The crew were awarded the Order of the Red Banner after the incident.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: As well as eight standard torpedoes, "K-278" was carrying two torpedoes armed with nuclear warheads. Under pressure from Norway, the Soviet Union used deep sea submersibles operated from the oceanographic research ship "Keldysh" to search for "K-278". In June 1989, two months after the sinking, the wreck was located. Soviet officials stated that any possible leaks were insignificant and posed no threat to the environment.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: In 1993, Vice Admiral Chernov, commander of the submarine group of which the "Komsomolets" was part, founded the "Komsomolets" Nuclear Submarine Memorial Society, a charity to support the widows and orphans of his former command. Since then, the Society's charter has expanded to provide assistance to the families of all Soviet and Russian submariners lost at sea, and 7 April has become a day of commemoration for all submariners lost at sea.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: An expedition in mid-1994 revealed some plutonium leakage from one of the two nuclear-armed torpedoes. On 24 June 1995, "Keldysh" set out again from Saint Petersburg to the "Komsomolets" to seal the hull fractures in Compartment 1 and cover the nuclear warheads, and declared success at the end of a subsequent expedition in July 1996. Furfurol, the jelly-like sealant, was projected to make the wreck radiation safe for 20 to 30 years, that is, until 2015 to 2025.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: Norwegian authorities from the Marine Environmental Agency and Radiation Agency take water and ground samples from the vicinity of the wreck on a yearly basis.


title: Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets

text: In July 2019, a joint Norwegian-Russian expedition found "clouds" emitted from a ventilation pipe and a nearby grille. They took water samples from the pipe and from several metres above, and analysed them for caesium-137. That pipe had been identified as a leak in several Mir missions up to 1998 and 2007. The activity levels in the six samples out of the pipe were up to 800 Bq/L (9 July). No activity could be detected in the free-water samples. Due to dilution, there is no threat to the environment. The Norwegian limit on caesium-137 in food products is 600 Bq/kg. The background activity of caesium-137 in the water body is as low as 0.001 Bq/L. More sensitive measurements of the samples were reported to be in progress.


title: Idara Victor

text: Idara Victor is a Nigerian-American actress best known for her lead roles in "Rizzoli & Isles" and "".


title: Idara Victor

text: Idara Victor was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Barbara and Stan Victor, both from Akwa Ibom State in southern Nigeria, and she is the middle child of three girls, who grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island, New York. Victor "was probably the loudest of the siblings", and started dancing and playing piano at the age of eight, that led to her singing an opera aria for the first time at the age of 15 in a state competition and exhibition. At the age of 13, she won the Miss New York Junior Teen contest. She was discovered by an agent at a fashion show commitment, and pushed towards a career in modeling, but she intended to pursue an acting career.


title: Idara Victor

text: After graduating high school, Victor enrolled in the undergrad program of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied entrepreneurial management and marketing. With friends she performed plays in parks around Philadelphia and studied acting privately, going to a few professional auditions and booking work while she was home in New York on summer breaks.


title: Idara Victor

text: At UPenn, she still performed Shakespeare readings and danced with the dance troupe African Rhythms West African ballet and Afro-Cuban dance in her free time. When Victor graduated, she left a job offer at "InStyle" magazine, started making music with her friend Mike "Double-O" ("Kidz in the Hall"), and began training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, a conservatory of the Tisch School of the Arts. She developed her artist community with many friends from the NYU program, and her friend Hyun Kim linked her up with the Nigerian-American actress Adepero Oduye for mentoring support. To finance her studies, Victor provided an online clothing store called Girled-Out, and also trained daily with actors from all over the world. As she watched Cate Blanchett in a movie, "the truth would grip me, I would think, I'm dying – my heart has definitely stopped, and if I don't get to get up there and do it too, I might as well just keep it off permanently."


title: Idara Victor

text: In New York City, John Caird introduced Victor into the New York theatre scene straight out of college, hiring her for her first Broadway show that fall, in the revival of "Les Misérables" – "an amazing thing I learned was that when I went on as Cosette, I was the first African-American woman to ever play the role in the show's 20 years of running".


title: Idara Victor

text: Victor continued training and working in New York, and soon booked work over the next two years at The Public Theater ("The Bacchae"), Lincoln Center ("Happiness"), and the Roundabout Theater Company ("The Tin Pan Alley Rag"), to work with the directors Susan Stroman, Joanne Akalaitis, James Lapine, Stafford Arima and Tina Landau. Victor is a natural operatic soprano, also sang Joplin's ragtime opera "Treemonisha", and performed at the 85th Academy Awards.


title: Idara Victor

text: While still in her studies, Victor first appeared on screen in the indie film "Not Just Yet" and her first television role was in the TV series "Starved", playing opposite Sterling K. Brown. During her time as a cast member in "Les Misérables", she also played recurring roles on "Guiding Light" and appeared on the television shows "Law & Order", "", "All My Children" and "How to Make It in America".


title: Idara Victor

text: After moving to Los Angeles, she appeared in television series including "Mad Men", "Private Practice", "Grey's Anatomy", and "Castle". She also played in recurring and lead roles in various television series, among them "The Young and the Restless", "Unicorn Plan-It", "Vegas" (2013) and Issa Rae's "The Choir" (2013). She performed live in New York in 2008 in a televised production of "Camelot" with the New York Philharmonic. In 2013, she performed onstage at the 85th Annual Academy Awards with the lead cast of the 2012 film "Les Misérables".


title: Idara Victor

text: From August 2014 to September 2016, she gained wider prominence as the character Nina Holiday, crime scene analyst and IT tech of the Boston Police Department, on the crime drama series "Rizzoli & Isles". Victor became a member of the regular cast of the season 6, replacing the late Lee Thompson Young. In addition to her role as Nina Holiday, Victor had a recurring role on the AMC drama "", from 2014 to 2017, and appeared in the 2016 productions "Pure Genius" and "". She appeared in the 2019 film "" from writer and producer James Cameron and director Robert Rodriguez, playing opposite Christoph Waltz.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: Blu DeTiger (born February 22, 1998) is an American singer-songwriter, bass guitar player, record producer, and DJ based in New York City.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: DeTiger was born in New York City and grew up in NoHo, Manhattan. Her older brother suggested the name 'Blu' when she was born and her parents went along with it; her surname comes from her Dutch father, who is a visual artist. She started playing bass guitar at 7 years old, inspired by her brother Rex, who played drums, and she was enrolled in School of Rock from age 7 to 13. Through that program, she played at CBGB at age 7. Until she was 14 years old, her family spent summers in Ibiza, which exposed her to DJs and house music. She was also influenced by funk music and disco music and, when she was 13 or 14, she learned slapping. Throughout middle school and high school, DeTiger played in bands with kids generally older than her.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: DeTiger attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts for two and a half years, including a year at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, before dropping out to tour and promote her music. She was mentored by Steven Wolf. As a student, she DJ'd at clubs in Manhattan, playing disco, house and funk where she would simultaneously improvise playing bass lines over the songs.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: Along with her brother, in 2018, DeTiger was a touring member of Kitten on their tour with Blue October.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: DeTiger released her debut single "In My Head" on January 23, 2019. It was produced by The Knocks, and she subsequently toured with them. In 2019 and early 2020, DeTiger toured as a bassist with Caroline Polachek and FLETCHER. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, she posted her bass cover versions of songs by Prince, Janet Jackson, Russ, and Megan Thee Stallion on TikTok, which went viral.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: Her debut EP "How Did We Get Here?" was released on March 5, 2021 on ALT:Vision records, with production help from her brother. She contributed bass to the Bleachers single "Stop Making This Hurt", released in May 2021.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: She was featured on one of four covers of the August 2021 issue of "Bass Player", which described her as the “future of bass”. That month, her song "Go Bad" was released on the soundtrack for the Netflix film "He's All That". In September 2021, Fender collaborated with DeTiger to launch a new line of bass guitars for the Fender Player Plus series and named her an official Fender Next Player. The following month, DeTiger signed with Capitol Records. She subsequently released her debut "Blondes" with Capitol.


title: Blu DeTiger

text: On January 15, 2022, DeTiger made her national TV debut on "Saturday Night Live", accompanying Bleachers on bass. She featured in the 2022 film "" that March. During the summer of 2022, DeTiger headlined a European tour and performed at festivals such as Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, Lightning in a Bottle, Hangout, and the Governors Ball. She began an extensive North American tour in November 2022. DeTiger was listed in the music category for the 2023 edition of "Forbes" 30 Under 30.


title: Data dredging

text: Data dredging (also known as data snooping or "p"-hacking) is the misuse of data analysis to find patterns in data that can be presented as statistically significant, thus dramatically increasing and understating the risk of false positives. This is done by performing many statistical tests on the data and only reporting those that come back with significant results.


title: Data dredging

text: The process of data dredging involves testing multiple hypotheses using a single data set by exhaustively searching—perhaps for combinations of variables that might show a correlation, and perhaps for groups of cases or observations that show differences in their mean or in their breakdown by some other variable.


title: Data dredging

text: Conventional tests of statistical significance are based on the probability that a particular result would arise if chance alone were at work, and necessarily accept some risk of mistaken conclusions of a certain type (mistaken rejections of the null hypothesis). This level of risk is called the "significance". When large numbers of tests are performed, some produce false results of this type; hence 5% of randomly chosen hypotheses might be (erroneously) reported to be statistically significant at the 5% significance level, 1% might be (erroneously) reported to be statistically significant at the 1% significance level, and so on, by chance alone. When enough hypotheses are tested, it is virtually certain that some will be reported to be statistically significant (even though this is misleading), since almost every data set with any degree of randomness is likely to contain (for example) some spurious correlations. If they are not cautious, researchers using data mining techniques can be easily misled by these results.


title: Data dredging

text: Data dredging is an example of disregarding the multiple comparisons problem. One form is when subgroups are compared without alerting the reader to the total number of subgroup comparisons examined.


title: Data dredging

text: The conventional frequentist statistical hypothesis testing procedure is to formulate a research hypothesis, such as "people in higher social classes live longer", then collect relevant data, followed by carrying out a statistical significance test to see how likely such results would be found if chance alone were at work. (The last step is called testing against the null hypothesis.)


title: Data dredging

text: A key point in proper statistical analysis is to test a hypothesis with evidence (data) that was not used in constructing the hypothesis. This is critical because every data set contains some patterns due entirely to chance. If the hypothesis is not tested on a different data set from the same statistical population, it is impossible to assess the likelihood that chance alone would produce such patterns. See testing hypotheses suggested by the data.


title: Data dredging

text: Here is a simple example. Throwing a coin five times, with a result of 2 heads and 3 tails, might lead one to hypothesize that the coin favors tails by 3/5 to 2/5. If this hypothesis is then tested on the existing data set, it is confirmed, but the confirmation is meaningless. The proper procedure would have been to form in advance a hypothesis of what the tails probability is, and then throw the coin various times to see if the hypothesis is rejected or not. If three tails and two heads are observed, another hypothesis, that the tails probability is 3/5, could be formed, but it could only be tested by a new set of coin tosses. It is important to realize that the statistical significance under the incorrect procedure is completely spurious – significance tests do not protect against data dredging.


title: Data dredging

text: Suppose that a study of a random sample of people includes exactly two people with a birthday of August 7: Mary and John. Someone engaged in data snooping might try to find additional similarities between Mary and John. By going through hundreds or thousands of potential similarities between the two, each having a low probability of being true, an unusual similarity can almost certainly be found. Perhaps John and Mary are the only two people in the study who switched minors three times in college. A hypothesis, biased by data snooping, could then be "People born on August 7 have a much higher chance of switching minors more than twice in college."


title: Data dredging

text: The data itself taken out of context might be seen as strongly supporting that correlation, since no one with a different birthday had switched minors three times in college. However, if (as is likely) this is a spurious hypothesis, this result will most likely not be reproducible; any attempt to check if others with an August 7 birthday have a similar rate of changing minors will most likely get contradictory results almost immediately.


title: Data dredging

text: Bias is a systematic error in the analysis. For example, doctors directed HIV patients at high cardiovascular risk to a particular HIV treatment, abacavir, and lower-risk patients to other drugs, preventing a simple assessment of abacavir compared to other treatments. An analysis that did not correct for this bias unfairly penalised abacavir, since its patients were more high-risk so more of them had heart attacks. This problem can be very severe, for example, in the observational study.


title: Data dredging

text: By selecting papers with a significant "p"-value, negative studies are selected against—which is the publication bias. This is also known as "file drawer bias", because less significant "p"-value results are left in the file drawer and never published.


title: Data dredging

text: Another aspect of the conditioning of statistical tests by knowledge of the data can be seen while using the A crucial step in the process is to decide which covariates to include in a relationship explaining one or more other variables. There are both statistical (see Stepwise regression) and substantive considerations that lead the authors to favor some of their models over others, and there is a liberal use of statistical tests. However, to discard one or more variables from an explanatory relation on the basis of the data means one cannot validly apply standard statistical procedures to the retained variables in the relation as though nothing had happened. In the nature of the case, the retained variables have had to pass some kind of preliminary test (possibly an imprecise intuitive one) that the discarded variables failed. In 1966, Selvin and Stuart compared variables retained in the model to the fish that don't fall through the net—in the sense that their effects are bound to be bigger than those that do fall through the net. Not only does this alter the performance of all subsequent tests on the retained explanatory model, but it may also introduce bias and alter mean square error in estimation.


title: Data dredging

text: In meteorology, hypotheses are often formulated using weather data up to the present and tested against future weather data, which ensures that, even subconsciously, future data could not influence the formulation of the hypothesis. Of course, such a discipline necessitates waiting for new data to come in, to show the formulated theory's predictive power versus the null hypothesis. This process ensures that no one can accuse the researcher of hand-tailoring the predictive model to the data on hand, since the upcoming weather is not yet available.


title: Data dredging

text: As another example, suppose that observers note that a particular town appears to have a cancer cluster, but lack a firm hypothesis of why this is so. However, they have access to a large amount of demographic data about the town and surrounding area, containing measurements for the area of hundreds or thousands of different variables, mostly uncorrelated. Even if all these variables are independent of the cancer incidence rate, it is highly likely that at least one variable correlates significantly with the cancer rate across the area. While this may suggest a hypothesis, further testing using the same variables but with data from a different location is needed to confirm. Note that a "p"-value of 0.01 suggests that 1% of the time a result at least that extreme would be obtained by chance; if hundreds or thousands of hypotheses (with mutually relatively uncorrelated independent variables) are tested, then one is likely to obtain a "p"-value less than 0.01 for many null hypotheses.


title: Data dredging

text: Looking for patterns in data is legitimate. Applying a statistical test of significance, or hypothesis test, to the same data that a pattern emerges from is wrong. One way to construct hypotheses while avoiding data dredging is to conduct randomized out-of-sample tests. The researcher collects a data set, then randomly partitions it into two subsets, A and B. Only one subset—say, subset A—is examined for creating hypotheses. Once a hypothesis is formulated, it must be tested on subset B, which was not used to construct the hypothesis. Only where B also supports such a hypothesis is it reasonable to believe the hypothesis might be valid. (This is a simple type of cross-validation and is often termed training-test or split-half validation.)


title: Data dredging

text: Another remedy for data dredging is to record the number of all significance tests conducted during the study and simply divide one's criterion for significance ("alpha") by this number; this is the Bonferroni correction. However, this is a very conservative metric. A family-wise alpha of 0.05, divided in this way by 1,000 to account for 1,000 significance tests, yields a very stringent per-hypothesis alpha of 0.00005. Methods particularly useful in analysis of variance, and in constructing simultaneous confidence bands for regressions involving basis functions are the Scheffé method and, if the researcher has in mind only pairwise comparisons, the Tukey method. The use of Benjamini and Hochberg's false discovery rate is a more sophisticated approach that has become a popular method for control of multiple hypothesis tests.


title: Data dredging

text: When neither approach is practical, one can make a clear distinction between data analyses that are confirmatory and analyses that are exploratory. Statistical inference is appropriate only for the former.


title: Data dredging

text: Ultimately, the statistical significance of a test and the statistical confidence of a finding are joint properties of data and the method used to examine the data. Thus, if someone says that a certain event has probability of 20% ± 2% 19 times out of 20, this means that if the probability of the event is estimated "by the same method" used to obtain the 20% estimate, the result is between 18% and 22% with probability 0.95. No claim of statistical significance can be made by only looking, without due regard to the method used to assess the data.


title: Data dredging

text: Academic journals increasingly shift to the registered report format, which aims to counteract very serious issues such as data dredging and , which have made theory-testing research very unreliable. For example, Nature Human Behaviour has adopted the registered report format, as it “shift[s] the emphasis from the results of research to the questions that guide the research and the methods used to answer them”. The European Journal of Personality defines this format as follows: “In a registered report, authors create a study proposal that includes theoretical and empirical background, research questions/hypotheses, and pilot data (if available). Upon submission, this proposal will then be reviewed prior to data collection, and if accepted, the paper resulting from this peer-reviewed procedure will be published, regardless of the study outcomes.”


title: Data dredging

text: Methods and results can also be made publicly available, as in the open science approach, making it yet more difficult for data dredging to take place.


title: Bt cotton

text: Bt cotton is a genetically modified pest resistant plant cotton variety, which produces an insecticide to combat bollworm.


title: Bt cotton

text: Strains of the bacterium "Bacillus thuringiensis" produce over 200 different Bt toxins, each harmful to different insects. Most notably, Bt toxins are insecticidal to the larvae of moths and butterflies, beetles, cotton bollworms and flies but are harmless to other forms of life. The gene coding for Bt toxin has been inserted into cotton as a transgene, causing it to produce this natural insecticide in its tissues. In many regions, the main pests in commercial cotton are lepidopteran larvae, which are killed by the Bt protein in the genetically modified cotton they eat. This eliminates the need to use large amounts of broad-spectrum insecticides to kill lepidopteran pests (some of which have developed pyrethroid resistance). This spares natural insect predators in the farm ecology and further contributes to noninsecticide pest management.


title: Bt cotton

text: Bt cotton is ineffective against many cotton pests such as plant bugs, stink bugs, and aphids; depending on circumstances it may be desirable to use insecticides in prevention. A 2006 study done by Cornell researchers, the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy and the Chinese Academy of Science on Bt cotton farming in China found that after seven years these secondary pests that were normally controlled by pesticide had increased, necessitating the use of pesticides at similar levels to non-Bt cotton and causing less profit for farmers because of the extra expense of GM seeds.


title: Bt cotton

text: Bt cotton was created through the addition of genes encoding toxin crystals in the Cry group of endotoxin. When insects attack and eat the cotton plant the Cry toxins or crystal protein are dissolved due to the high pH level of the insect's stomach. The dissolved and activated Cry molecules bond to cadherin-like proteins on cells comprising the brush border molecules. The epithelium of the brush border membranes separates the body cavity from the gut while allowing access to nutrients. The Cry toxin molecules attach themselves to specific locations on the cadherin-like proteins present on the epithelial cells of the midgut and ion channels are formed which allow the flow of potassium. Regulation of potassium concentration is essential and, if left unchecked, causes death of cells. Due to the formation of Cry ion channels sufficient regulation of potassium ions is lost, resulting in the death of epithelial cells. The death of such cells creates gaps in the brush border membrane.


title: Bt cotton

text: Bt cotton was first approved for field trials in the United States in 1993, and first approved for commercial use in the United States in 1995. Bt cotton was approved by the Chinese government in 1997.


title: Bt cotton

text: In 2011, India grew the largest GM cotton crop at 10.6 million hectares. The U.S. GM cotton crop was 4.0 million hectares, the second largest area in the world, followed by China with 3.9 million hectares and Pakistan with 2.6 million hectares.


title: Bt cotton

text: By 2014, 96% of cotton grown in the United States was genetically modified and 95% of cotton grown in India was GM. India is the largest producer of cotton, and GM cotton, as of 2014.


title: Bt cotton

text: Bt cotton has several advantages over non-Bt cotton. The important advantages of Bt cotton are briefly :


title: Bt cotton

text: The main selling points of Bt cotton are the reductions in pesticides to be sprayed on a crop and the ecological benefits which stem from that. China first planted Bt cotton in 1997 specifically in response to an outbreak of cotton bollworm, "Helicoverpa armigera", that farmers were struggling to control with conventional pesticides. Similarly in India and the US, Bt cotton initially alleviated the issues with pests whilst increasing yields and delivering higher profits for farmers.


title: Bt cotton

text: Studies showed that the lower levels of pesticide being sprayed on the cotton crops promoted biodiversity by allowing non-target species like ladybirds, lacewings and spiders to become more abundant. Likewise it was found that integrated pest management strategies (IPM) were becoming more effective due to the lower levels of pesticide encouraging the growth of natural enemy populations.


title: Bt cotton

text: In India alone widespread adoption of Bt cotton led to 2.4-9 millions less cases of pesticide poisoning, with similar reduction also seen in other countries.


title: Bt cotton

text: After the introduction of Bt cotton in northern China, non-target pests such as mirid bugs ("Heteroptera: Miridae") became more abundant, because less pesticides were sprayed. In 2013, a second issue being seen across the world, was the development of Bt resistant pests limiting the usefulness of Bt crops.


title: Bt cotton

text: Main drivers for the widespread resistance in India and China included the high proportion of Bt cotton being planted, 90% and 95% respectively in 2011, and few refuge areas.


title: Bt cotton

text: Refuge areas of non-Bt crops limit resistance development in targeted pests. The US Environmental Protection Agency requires farmers to have refuge areas of 20–50% non-Bt crops within 0.8 km of their Bt fields. Such requirements were not seen in China, where instead farmers relied on natural refuge areas to decrease resistance.


title: Bt cotton

text: In 2009, a novel solution to the resistance problem was trialed in Arizona, when sterile male pink bollworms ("Pectinophora gossypiella") were released into populations of their wild Bt-resistant counterparts. The hypothesis was that sterile males mating with the few surviving females, who had developed resistance, would lead to a decrease in pests in the following generation. There was a dramatic reduction in pink bollworms, with only two pink bollworm larvae being found by the third year of the study.


title: Bt cotton

text: In India, Bt cotton has been enveloped in controversies due to its supposed failure to reduce the need for pesticides and increase yield. The link between the introduction of Bt cotton to India and a surge in farmer suicides has been refuted by other studies, with decreased farmer suicides since Bt cotton was introduced. Bt cotton accounts for 93% of cotton grown in India.


title: Bt cotton

text: In 2001, prior to the approval of Monsanto/Mahyco Bt cotton, Navbaharat Seeds sold illegal, unapproved Bt cotton, which was grown on 11,000 hectares in Gujarat.


title: Bt cotton

text: The use of Bt cotton in India has grown exponentially since its introduction in 2002. Eight years after the deployment of Bt cotton, India became the number one exporter of cotton globally and the second largest cotton producer in the world. India has bred Bt-cotton varieties such as "Bikaneri Nerma" and hybrids such as NHH-44.


title: Bt cotton

text: Socio-economic surveys confirm that Bt cotton continues to deliver significant and multiple agronomic, economic, environmental and welfare benefits to Indian farmers and society including halved insecticide requirements and a doubling of yields.


title: Bt cotton

text: India's success has been subject to scrutiny. Monsanto's seeds are expensive and lose vigour after one generation, prompting the Indian Council of Agricultural Research to develop a cheaper Bt cotton variety with seeds that could be reused. The cotton incorporated the cry1Ac gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), making the cotton toxic to bollworms. This variety showed poor yield, was removed within a year, and contained a DNA sequence owned by Monsanto, prompting an investigation. In parts of India cases of acquired resistance against Bt cotton has occurred. Monsanto has admitted that the pink bollworm is resistant to the first generation transgenic Bt cotton that expresses the single Bt gene (Cry1Ac).


title: Bt cotton

text: The state of Maharashtra banned the sale and distribution of Bt cotton in 2012, to promote local Indian seeds, which demand less water, fertilizers and pesticide input, but lifted the ban in 2013.


title: Bt cotton

text: Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has successfully developed the country's first Bt cotton varieties. ICAR has identified three varieties, namely PAU Bt 1, F1861 and RS 2013, for cultivation in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan. It is a cheaper alternative to Bt cotton hybrid seed.


title: Bt cotton

text: In Hawaii, growing GMO cotton has been prohibited since 2013. Hybridization with the wild cotton species Gossypium tomentosum may be possible. Transgenic cotton is also banned in some parts of Florida.


title: Bt cotton

text: Burkina Faso, Africa's top cotton producer, banned GM cotton in 2016, because of economic and quality concerns.


title: Bt cotton

text: Bt cotton is legal in Kenya having been conditionally approved by the National Biosafety Authority in 2016, conditional on the approval of the National Environment Management Authority. The Government is promoting its use, expecting greatly increased output and some greater filling of its own domestic demand.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: Harsh Ramesh Sanghvi (born 8 January 1985) is currently Home Minister (state). In the new Gujarat CM Bhupendrabhai Patel’s cabinet, Sanghavi has been allocated nine portfolios which are Home, disaster management and police housing; MoS in sports, youth and cultural activities, NRI, excise and prohibition, border security and prisons. Before sanghvi Pradip Singh Jadeja, Amit Shah, Haren Pandya and Gordhanbhai Zadafia have served as the home minister of Gujarat under the BJP regime. He is a member of Gujarat Legislative Assembly, Majura in Gujarat, India. He was also National Vice President of Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: Sanghvi was born in Surat on 8 January 1985. He came from a Gujarati family who were Jains. Ramesh bhuralal Sanghavi (father) was the Diamond Merchant of Surat. He was among the youth who hosted our national flag in kashmir, lal chowk. He then worked in a civic hospital. Later, he joined Yuva Morcha, the youth cell of BJP. He was appointed the youngest general secretary of state for the BJP. In the past, Sanghavi has also worked with Anurag Thakur, now the Minister of Information & Broadcasting, and MP Poonam Mahajan.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: Sanghavi was the youngest member of the Legislative Assembly in 2012 when he was elected for the first time at the age of 27 from Surat City (Majura) in 2012. He won Majura (Vidhan Sabha constituency) seat by a record-breaking margin and was the 4th highest winner of Gujarat Assembly. In 2013, Harsh was reappointed youth BJP state Vice President. In 2017, he was appointed National Vice President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. On 18 September 2021, he became Home Minister of Gujarat and assumed office as Home (MOS), disaster management and police housing; MoS in sports, youth and cultural activities, NRI, excise and prohibition, border security and prisons.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: On 28 June 2015, Harsh Sanghavi with 400 volunteers associated with the movement gathered at Navdi Ovara on the bank of river Tapi in Nanpura for cleaning it. The young volunteers who came with banners and brooms, stepped into thick muck on the river bank to remove plastic and waste. Wearing T-shirts with a message of 'Clean Tapi - Clean India', the participants carried out the cleaning work with a city-based rock band 'Antrikh' playing live music. Harsh belongs to visa shrimali baniya community.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: 2)Under his inspiration lakhs of people in need including migrants were provided food with support of SMC and surat officers Gymkhana.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: Harsh Ramesh Sanghavi, a BJP candidate, won the Majura Assembly constituency in Gujarat (December 8 2022). The counting of ballots for the Majura assembly seat is already complete. Majura was one of the most competitive constituencies in the Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022, with state home minister Harsh Sanghavi running as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate.


title: Harsh Sanghavi

text: Sanghavi beat Congress candidate Ashok Mohanlal Kothari by a significant margin of over 85 thousand votes in the 2017 elections. Majura assembly seat is part of the Navsari Lok Sabha constituency. PVS Sarma of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been nominated to contest Sanghavi on the Majura seat, while Balwant Shatilal Jain of the Congress has been nominated.