cmcclain
Posts by this author
August 19, 2007
Imagine yourself laying on a sandy beach. As you take in the supple views and iconic air, you reach for your multi-fruit, multi-liquor, multi-umbrella, tropical drink. But wait! Wouldn't you rather have a beverage "bottled and certified at the source in Hawaii...the result of this ancient water…
August 16, 2007
Hat tip goes to Kiki, who pointed out a recent article in Wired, U.S. Readies for Polar Warfare (Updated). There you have it...Canada is amping up its military presence in the Arctic and so is the U.S. In an recent announcement titled Technologies for Persistent Operations in High LAtitude…
August 16, 2007
To nice to save till tomorrow, Kevin sent along a "old" submersible chapter from Hill's The Sea from 1963. The chapter itself is authored by Dietz and covers bathyscaphs and other deep submerisbles for oceanographic research. You can read and see more of the Trieste here.
August 15, 2007
And two the highest bidder goes Papua New Guinea's government, mineral rights, and everything else is up for sale in this huge mid-year blowout sale. Over at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets (the only blog I read more than mine) a great article about PNG's impending fall.Somare [the re-…
August 15, 2007
In the race for the Arctic there is Canada, United States, and Russia all staking claim on the increasingly accessible Northwest Passage and the mineral rights for the region. You have Canada building up a polar fleet and Arctic bases at the cost of several billion dollars. You have the Russians…
August 12, 2007
In the deep dark sea, bioluminescence is the name of game. Its central role is unequivocal for many organisms. Do different sexes of species display dimorphism with respect to bioluminescence? Does it have a role in the dirty deeds that occur in the dark? The following is an illuminating dirty…
August 10, 2007
It's Friday afternoon and your setting there staring at the monitor. Sure you could be productive and continue on until 5. But hey, it's Friday afternoon why be productive and if you are reading this already I know you are looking for a way out. Over at The Other 95%, Kevin posts a new…
August 8, 2007
More on the race to claim the Arctic. The Russian "scientific" operation was a sham.Despite the fact that a huge number of people were involved in the mission, it was more of a tourist trip than a scientific expedition. Two foreigners paid a substantial part of the expedition costs. According to…
August 8, 2007
...munitionsFrom the daily blog of the University of Washington students aboard R/V Thomas Thompson using the ROV ROPOS to conduct seafloor surveys in support of the NEPTUNE Canada cabled observatory and to recover seismometers at Endeavour.
The start of the midnite to 4 am watch marked the…
August 8, 2007
Goes to the Yangtze river dolphin...After a fruitless search lasting six weeks, scientists failed to find a single Yangtze river dolphin, also known as the Baiji, in its natural habitat in China. They will now propose that the dolphin be formally reclassified this autumn as "possibly extinct" and…
August 6, 2007
Carl Zimmer over at The Loom as a post titled Branded with Science.
So I'm wondering now--have I bumped into the tip of a vast hidden iceberg, or do I just happen to know the few scientists with tattoos of their science? If anyone wants to send me a jpg, I'll post it. If you're worried about…
August 6, 2007
...go near the QE2
Duke Riley, a heavily tattooed Brooklyn artist, was arrested after his homemade submarine that looked like an 18th century Bushnell Turtle drifted near the restricted waters near the QE2 ship.
August 6, 2007
From news@nature.com...
Russian marine biologist was drowned, and an Italian badly hurt, when the research vessel on which they were working was rammed by a cargo ship and sank off the coast of Sicily on 3 August. The ship, Thetis, was measuring marine biomass around seven kilometres off the island…
August 5, 2007
The latest and best of salt-water writing is up at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets.
August 3, 2007
A day ~575 million years ago seemed like any other. Life was simple, not as in life was easy, but organisms were simple creatures. Then, geologically-speaking, BAMM!, complex life forms. Sure they were not the showy creatures of today, but the Ediacara biota (580Ma) of centimeter- to meter-sized…
August 3, 2007
As atmospheric CO2 increases, the ocean will become more acidic. The oceans are known to absorb about 1/3 of the CO2 we put into the air. Current projections indicate the pH of the ocean will drop by 1.4 over the next 300 years. Now keep in mind this is on a log-scale so the current ph of the…
August 3, 2007
The orange gas hydrate is home to Hesiocaeca methanicola, a newly discovered species of marine worm found in the Gulf of Mexico in 1997. This lobe of hydrate was exposed on the seafloor. The Deep East Expedition will investigate the life above and in a shallow bed on the Blake Ridge where other…
August 1, 2007
It appears that Lockheed Martin will be building the replacement for the Alvin submersible, which I am now officially calling A2. The price for A2? WHOI awarded the contract for a reasonable $2.8 million. Call me crazy, but submersible technology must have went down in price because this seems…
July 31, 2007
As I finish off my day, three separate stories are rolling around in my head.
This year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone, that fun-loving anoxic zone of death, didn't meet size expectations but is still the third largest. Is this good or bad? Texas not wanting to be outdone by Louisiana, now boasts its…
July 31, 2007
Well three years in to this intellectual hurricane we call DSN and I am going have to take down my beloved "We Never Won A Blog Award Blog Award". This is all thanks to Jeremy Bruno Over at Voltage Gate who tagged us with a Thinking Blogger award. While it may not be a Tony or a Koufax it did…
July 30, 2007
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army, In 1964, mustard gas canisters are pushed into the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey. Millions of pounds were dumped this way.Following the web frenzy that followed our post on ocean dumping, Brian Ross and the Investigative Team at ABC News post on their blog The…
July 30, 2007
A three-week Canadian expedition recently finished that documented a protected area near Sable Island referred to as the Gully. The Gully is the largest submarine canyon in eastern North America, approximately the size of the Grand Canyon. The submersible expedition can be classified as a success…
July 29, 2007
From the Moscow Times...Two deep-sea submersibles made a test dive in polar waters Sunday ahead of a mission to be the first to reach the seabed under the North Pole. It took an hour for Mir-1 and Mir-2, each carrying one pilot, to reach the seabed at a depth of 1,311 meters, 87 kilometers north of…
July 29, 2007
Get This Widget!TOPP.org
During Megavertebrate Week, DSN teamed up with several people and organizations. One of these was Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP), the same people who brought the Great Turtle Race, a sort a Big Brother of Marine Verts. TOPP is a 10-year project headquartered at…
July 26, 2007
Image credit: (c) 2003 MBARI, A pair of Humboldt squid hunting in Monterey Bay. Over the last five years, large, predatory Humboldt squid have moved north from equatorial waters and invaded the sea off Central California, where they may be decimating populations of Pacific hake, an important…
July 26, 2007
No that's not real and neither are the others in the post! Argonauta Argo, National Museum& Gallery, Cardiff
Spending time at the Museum Comparative Zoology at Harvard (MCZ), a Museum of a Museum, I realize the potential for items to get lost in unvisited cabinets. This happens regularly in…
July 25, 2007
On the wire from Oceana (Europe)...
Just a few weeks into our summer-long expedition, the crew of Oceana's Ranger experienced an intense day at sea....At the time of the incident we had filmed, photographed and recorded the positions and catch of about 80 French illegal driftnetters...Seven ships…
July 25, 2007
Growing up to two meters (six feet) long, Humboldt squid are formidable predators that hunt krill and a variety of fishes. Their normal habitat is within the tropical and subtropical waters of the East Pacific. Over the last few years, however, Humboldt squid have begun moving into cooler-water…
July 25, 2007
Image above: NEEMO 11 crew member works near the undersea habitat "Aquarius" during a session of extravehicular activity for the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) project. Image credit: NASANemo is some cute cuddly fish for children and Disney wallets. NEEMO on the other hand…
July 25, 2007
Scholastic.com just launched Investigate the Giant Squid: Mysterious Cephalopod of the Deep. The site is geared for children and provides numerous links and activities to learn more. Also included are teacher's resources and guide.