Meet Swima Bombaviridis, a newly discovered species found at great depths of the Pacific Ocean. They drop green bioluminescent “bombs” to evade predators.

 

 Green Bomber Worms: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When Jean-Michel Cousteau came to give a presentation at Nightlife this spring, we had the great opportunity to interview him for Science in Action.

Because of his work to help establish the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument in 2006, we thought this would be a good subject to have him discuss. California Academy of Sciences researchers were instrumental in the monuments declared earlier this year and we wanted to do a story on it.

These designations, covering over 325,000 square miles of ocean, represent former President Bush’s so-called Blue Legacy. A very surprising legacy, indeed.

 

 Marine National Monuments: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A voyage across the ocean in a plastic boat seems an unlikely way to fight the buildup of plastic in the ocean. Yet that is just what David de Rothschild and team are planning as they build a 60 foot boat made entirely from recycled plastic. Dubbed “Plastiki”, after Thor Hyerdahl’s “Kon-Tiki” that made a similar voyage in 1947, the vessel is being manufactured out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - the same material used to make water bottles. Their goal is to change the public view of plastic as a one-use material into one that sees plastic for what it really is - a cheap and versatile raw material that can be reused time and time again.

The voyage calls attention to the toxic soup created from decades of dumping used plastic into the ocean. The mess created by our throw-away society has been consolidated by the winds and currents of the North Pacific Gyre into vast floating garbage patches. Much of the plastic is visible - bottles, toys, bags, netting, etc., but most of what is floating is invisible, because over time, plastic breaks apart into micro-particles. In some areas of the gyre the ratio of plastic to plankton is as high six to one.  Birds, fish and mammals choke on and are poisoned by the bigger pieces, while the tiny particles are ingested by small marine life and enter the food chain. To make matters worse, the micro-particles attract and absorb toxic chemicals that are ingested as well.

As de Rothschild likes to say, the solution to pollution is not dilution. We need to change our thinking about the life cycle of plastic.  The voyage of Plastiki demonstrates that plastic is not the problem – it’s how we use plastic. We don’t think of steel as a material to be dumped in the ocean after a single use. Steel is melted down and reformed. We can do the same with plastic - it is a matter of changing how we view it.

-Pete

 

 Plastics in our Oceans: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Atlantis Found?

The biggest news since the launch of Google Ocean was the supposed find of Atlantis.

English aeronautical engineer, Bernie Bamford thought he found the famed city when he viewed what looked like a grid of streets and outlines of a big city on the sea floor 600 miles off the coast of West Africa on the Google software.

However, Google publicly disputed the discovery of Atlantis.  The grids are in fact gaps in data collected using sonar technology.  A Google spokesperson stated to the press; “The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data. The fact there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world’s oceans. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor.”

Although, Google Earth has been an effective research and data collection tool, Atlantis will not be added to the list of discoveries.  Discoveries by Google Earth also include pristine forest in Mozambique and the remains of an ancient Roman villa.  Academy entomologist Brian Fisher even immortalized the name Google in the annals of science by naming a new ant species after it back in 2005.  He named the ant Proceratium google because of the incredible support Google gave to creating antweb.com. The Antweb site allowed scientists and ant aficionados to download the Google Earth program in order to plot known ants to Antweb on a three dimensional, interactive globe of satellite images. The technology looked up ants by location, rather than by name.  Therefore a team collecting ants could quickly assess if they have found a new species using the website.

With such an incredible tool now delving into the depths of the oceans, it is only a matter of time for yet another spectacular discovery to make it to the list.  Who knows?  Atlantis might still be out there waiting to be found…

-Cat

 

 Google Oceans: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download