Watchful eyes, thoughtful mind: oceanography

Showing posts with label oceanography. Show all posts

27 Jul 2010

TED Tuesday: Ocean's glory and horror

Photographer Brian Skerry shoots life above and below the waves -- as he puts it, both the horror and the magic of the ocean. Sharing amazing, intimate shots of undersea creatures, he shows how powerful images can help make change.

17 Dec 2009

Big brother ... REAL BIG!!!

Yeah, I know ... try and close your mouth now. That picture above would have given you a pretty good idea of what's coming. Science reporter Rebecca Morell of BBC News reports about the colossal sea monster, Pliosaur, whose fossilised skull has been unearthed along the UK's Jurassic Coast by a local collector. In the video on the webpage (which I could not embed here) Palaeontologist Richard Forrest explains why the T. rex was a kitten compared with this monster.

Richard Forrest, a plesiosaur expert, said: "Pliosaur skulls are very big, but not that robust, in general, and you tend to find them crushed flat - completely 'pancaked'. "What is fantastic about this new skull, not only is it absolutely enormous, but it is pretty much in 3D and not much distorted."

Pliosaur means 'more like lizard' and are characterised by having a short neck and an elongated head, in contrast to the long-necked plesiosaurs. Pliosaur fossils have been found before around Norway, Mexico etc. But this find in the UK is by far the largest specimen yet found. If the pictures above and the description has still not convinced you to click on the link in the first paragraph and go watch the video, may be this will.

"It could have taken a human in one gulp; in fact, something like a T. Rex would have been breakfast for a beast like this."

10 Dec 2009

Pushing it back

This is a short post sharing two stories of latest archaeological discoveries that are once again pushing back the dates of the advent of “civilised” humans.

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK) reports on EurekaAlert of Pavlopetri -- the world's oldest known submerged town.

The world's oldest known submerged town has been revealed through the discovery of late Neolithic pottery. The finds were made during an archaeological survey of Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia coast of Greece. Marine geo-archaeologist Dr Nic Flemming of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton said: "The discovery of Neolithic pottery is incredible! It means that we are looking at a port city which may be 5000-6000 years old, with trade goods and wrecks nearby showing some of the very earliest days of seafaring trade in the Mediterranean." [...]"What we've got here is something which is two or even three thousand years older than most of the submerged cities which have been studied," said Flemming: "And it is uniquely complete. We have almost the complete town plan, the main streets and all of the domestic buildings. "

William G. Gilroy writes in ScienceDaily, based on materials provided by University of Notre Dame, about how World's Oldest Known Granaries Predate Agriculture.

A new study co-authored by Ian Kuijt, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, describes recent excavations in Jordan that reveal evidence of the world's oldest know granaries. [...]However, in a paper appearing in the June 23 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, Kuijt and Bill Finlayson, director, Council for British Research in the Levant, describe recent excavations at Dhra' near the Dead Sea in Jordan that provide evidence of granaries that precede the emergence of fully domesticated plants and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years.

These kinds of discoveries keep scientists on their toes, rethinking the flow of history and pre-history. Some day perhaps the concept of Yuga cycles and that of advanced knowledge that ancients possessed will be vindicated through such discoveries.

3 Dec 2009

Here we go again ...

Technological advances have a peculiar way about them. They always seem to progress in steps of exponential growth followed by a period of lull. This trend is closely followed by our ability to learn new things about the world around us. And so human beings, particularly scientists, go through alternating periods of “discovery frenzy” and complacency that there’s nothing more left to explain. We had hit such a complacent period a few decades ago as regards origin and evolution of life on our planet. But now we’re in the “discovery frenzy” stage for the same and hence getting disillusioned about many theories and principles that we thought were invincible. Many new discoveries using newest and (so far) most accurate techniques are making it more than clear that the question of “how life originated on Earth?” is far from settled.

Nick Lane, the first Provost's Venture Research Fellow at University College London and author of Life Ascending: The ten great inventions of evolution, has written a detailed article in the New Scientist on 19th October, 2009 about an alternative theory for origin of life. This is only the latest one in the long line of many such that came before it but didn’t survive the scientific scrutiny. It is based on not-so-conventional ideas of Peter Mitchell who was initially dismissed by his contemporaries but won a Nobel in 1978. Geochemist Mike Russell of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is rethinking the origin of life and finds Mitchell’s ‘Chemiosmosis’ a valid candidate. The following text from Lane’s article explains the idea,

Before Mitchell, everyone assumed that cells got their energy using straightforward chemistry. The universal energy currency of life is a molecule called ATP [...] generated from food by a series of standard chemical reactions. Mitchell thought otherwise. Life, he argued, is powered not by the kind of chemistry that goes on in a test tube but by a kind of electricity. The energy from food, [...] is used to pump [...] protons, through a membrane. As protons accumulate on one side, an electrochemical gradient builds up across the membrane. Given the chance, the protons will flow back across, releasing energy that can be harnessed to assemble ATP molecules. In energy terms, the process is analogous to filling a raised tank with buckets of water, then using the water to drive a waterwheel.

Even though this seems a counterintuitive and roundabout way to produce energy to power life, there is a growing body of evidence of this process occurring everywhere in nature. Aided with the latest knowledge of fellow biologists and using a logical process of elimination, author Lane reaches a baffling conclusion. The common ancestor of all life on Earth was something with components of a modern cell but no walls or boundaries. Now that’s a stunner! But nature has never failed to provide us evidence for the most unexpected and hence broaden the horizons of our knowledge. So along came the surprise discovery of alkaline hyrdrothermal vents just off the mid-Atlantic ridge in 2000. It turns out that the combination of their peculiar structure and the chemical conditions of atmosphere and ocean the on the early Earth provide a perfect toolkit for the production of DNA, RNA, an ATP prototype, all without the requirement for a wall or boundary. I have only given an outline of what Nick Lane’s article describes in a great detail. So if my summary makes you curious, go read the full article.

I’ll end this post with the apt ending Nick Lane provides to his article,

Many details have yet to be filled in, and it may never be possible to prove beyond any doubt that life evolved by this mechanism. The evidence, however, is growing. This scenario matches the known properties of all life on Earth, is energetically plausible - and returns Mitchell's great theory to its rightful place at the very centre of biology.

Chemiosmotic Proton Circuits in Biological Membranes (In Honor of Peter Mitchell)

12 Nov 2009

Diving into history

Archaeology is kind of a non-glamorous branch of science. It is a convergence of many different physical and social sciences which are used as tools to construct the jigsaw puzzle of our past. But sadly humans are not as interested in the past as they are in the future. General public thinks of archaeologists as khaki-wearing folk who love meticulously dusting off the tiny little pieces of shards made by unknown people from thousands of years ago. So most of the archaeological discoveries manage to excite only the members of this close community and go unappreciated by the general populous. Only a few discoveries like that of Tutankhamen’s (lovingly dubbed King Tut) gold-laden tomb makes it to the front pages of newspapers and magazines.

Even more obscure branch of archaeology is underwater archaeology. Although a lot of our history lies submerged underwater not many of us think there is anything valuable to look there. Only when something astonishing like the Bimini wall or the Antikythera device comes out of the depths of the ocean, does our attention get focused on it briefly. However there has been increasing interest among the archaeologists of today to go diving to peer into the past. Archaeology, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, highlights just a few of these ongoing underwater archaeology projects, from the recovery of a sixth-century B.C. Phoenician shipwreck, where excavators found a cargo that included elephant tusks and amber, to work on a 19th-century vessel in Oklahoma's Red River that has given archaeologists their first look at early steamship design.

One great work of research based on a worldwide exploration diving for the underwater ruins of a lost civilization is the book Underworld by investigative journalist and author, Graham Hancock. This book follows clues in ancient scriptures and mythology and in the scientific evidence of the flood that swept the Earth at the end of the last Ice Age. I believe such works are rare because of our belief that we are the most advanced humans this planet has ever seen and so there’s nothing to look for in the past except exploits of primitive cavemen. However if you do believe the cyclic model of life in ancient Hindu philosophy, the Yuga cycle, then you should definitely be curious as to what is hidden away in the blue depths that cover 3/4th of our planet today.

31 Oct 2009

Almost gone ... Sharks

Guest post series 'Almost gone ...' by Scott Bright (@Speciesguy)

About five months ago I learned about shark fin soup. Over one hundred million sharks are being removed out of the ocean every year to this soup and long lining. The kids of the world have a right to know what's going on with the shark, they are, after all, are going to be the next stewards of this blue sphere. Parents, please share this with your kids so they can take action.

I studied about a number of different sharks and discovered that each species has great purpose. Ironically, what's being removed is what makes them so profoundly unique. I learned so much about the value of this species while writing the blog which is written for kids and all. So parents, please share this important information with your kids. I learned recently that sharks have been around for four hundred million years. They are such an evolved species, they can detect electrical signals under the sand, and lunch is served. But they will be gone in five if a billion of us don't join together and say enough is enough. My heart goes out to the shark at this time. More than ever before in their history of being on our humble planet, they need people to speak for them.

Cool information about sharks

There is nothing quite like a kid that is passionate about something. When you and your kids learn why the sharks have immense value, they can share that with their friends, and maybe even a leader! And if a lot of kids get enthused, the sharks will be around for a long to come.

Check this out! This is amazing. Sharks have different kinds of tails because they are assigned different jobs in the ocean. This is the Tiger Shark. It needs to move slowly for cruising, and sudden burst of power and speed. This shark has to do a lot of twist and turns.

Why is that so important?

Well, lets look at what they eat: Fish, seals, birds, and smaller sharks. Oh, and don't forget squids and turtles. Turtles! Yeah, I know I love the guys just as much as you. If the turtle is not eaten, then there will be too many of them. It is all part of the balance my friend.

The tail makes the difference

Kids, the design of the tail are why the tiger shark is great at catching these ocean critters. I also read that this shark will eat pretty much anything, like tires and car license plates. And this guy can grow to 11 to 17 feet and weigh as much as 1700 lbs. That is huge!

Share this one with your dentist

Some sharks replace their teeth, up to 30,000 in their life- time! They have a conveyor belt of them. If only we had that feature, because we would be able to say, look mom, no cavities!

Yes indeed, sharks eat things

They are what are referred to as a keystone species. If you've read my stuff, I mention this a lot. The sharks eat things, and they are the professionals. But each shark is assigned to eating specific things in the ocean. Can you see why ALL sharks are important?

Different tails for different jobs

This is the Short fin Mako Shark. It can swim at speeds of thirty plus miles an hour! That is fast underwater. Why do they swim so fast? Well, I'm sure they eat things that swim at that speed. Yep, they eat things that swim fast like tuna, mackerel, and the great swordfish. But they also eat porpoises, sea turtles and seabirds. Remember, it's all about balance. Plus, they have a way of keeping they're body warmer with the use of some red muscle that's located near the centre of its body. And this generates heat. If they didn't have this feature, they could not swim, catch and eat what it is made to do.

Can you see the value of each shark in the ocean? To learn more, look at the books I have on my site, and buy the DVD called, "Shark Water." This series says that sharks are not the monsters of the sea that we have all been taught to fear. I have a place on my humble site where kids and all can write to the President of the United States, and the Minister of Environmental Protection of China. Hey, if just one kid shares with passion why they are speaking for sharks, shark fin soup will be a thing of the past! I know fisherman make a hefty profit for the fins, but to have the entire species go extinct is unconscionable!

Bottom Line

Please sign this petition to write to the minister of environmental protection in China, Mr. Zhou Shengxian. This is one of the most important letters your kids or you could write. 100 million sharks leave the ocean for good every year to shark fin soup. And don't forget to include long lining. Come to my site and write to President Obama. Just click the cute moving blue bird at RaceToSaveTheRaces.com. Think about it. The shark has been around for four hundred million years, and will be gone forever in five if we don't act!

http://www.specieshelp.com/
Kids Books For Endangered Species
Twitter.com/speciesguy

15 Sept 2009

TED Tuesday: Seas of plastic

Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he's drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.

18 Aug 2009

TED Tuesday: Uncharted oceans

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard takes us on a mindbending trip to hidden worlds underwater, where he and other researchers are finding unexpected life, resources, even new mountains. He makes a case for serious exploration and mapping. Google Ocean, anyone?

16 Jul 2009

Of midgets and giants

I didn't know that in island environments small mammals (e.g. rodents) tend to evolve to be larger (Island gigantism), and large mammals (e.g. elephants) tend to evolve to be smaller (Island dwarfism). This is not considered to be evolutionary trend by some due to the fact that different parameters apply in an isolated island environment. Wikipedia telle me that J. Bristol Foster published his work in 1964, now known as 'Island rule', in which he suggested the simple explanation that smaller creatures get larger in the absence of the predators they had attracted on the mainland and larger creatures become smaller with the absence of food sources. An article in Science Daily suggests, however, that the original size of the species was said to be the key determining factor in these changes. And that the new research by a group in Imperial College London have shown that "bigger becoming smaller and vice versa" is not always the case and varies depending on each islan's environment.

Interestingly, recent research in marine biology led by MBARI postdoctoral fellow Craig McClain suggests that a similar trend affects animals as they adapt to life in the deep sea. However, once again the trends are not uniform from species to species and the causes are not very clear either. So in general, it looks like we've still got quite a bit to learn about our fellow Earthlings in isolated environments.

14 Jul 2009

TED Tuesday: Underwater astonishments

David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a color-shifting cuttlefish, a perfectly camouflaged octopus, and a Times Square's worth of neon light displays from fish who live in the blackest depths of the ocean.

With vibrant video clips captured by submarines, David Gallo takes us to some of Earth's darkest, most violent, toxic and beautiful habitats, the valleys and volcanic ridges of the oceans' depths, where life is bizarre, resilient and shockingly abundant.

16 Jun 2009

TED Tuesday: Swimming with Sunfish

Marine biologist Tierney Thys gives a very captivating, informative and at the same time, wittily funny talk! She asks us to step into the water to visit the world of the Mola mola, or giant ocean sunfish. Basking, eating jellyfish and getting massages, this behemoth offers clues to life in the open sea. A must watch for everyone, even though you have nothing to do with the ocean!

12 Mar 2009

Dissolving coral reefs

Coral Reefs May Start Dissolving When Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles

ScienceDaily (2009-03-10) -- Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists. A new study warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world. ... read full article

28 Feb 2009

WOW! Yes, simply wow!!!

This is a spontaneous post I'm doing as I'm reading through my emails. I've come across these two absolutely unusual and stunning marine species reported by NatGeo among their top stories of the week.

A HUGE sting-ray (6.6 ft wide x 6.9 ft long!)

A fish with transparent head (Yes, you can see its inner organs!)

It is impossible not to be astonished and fascinated.

22 Feb 2009

As above, so below

Catherine Brahic of the New Scientist reports a very interesting observation made by marine scientists as a result of a census of marine life carried out recently. “Poles apart, but intimately linked. Of the thousands of species that populate Antarctica and the Arctic, it seems hundreds are "bipolar": found spanning 11,000 kilometres between the polar regions.” The slideshow shows 5 of the 235 species believed to be “bipolar”. The 235 species that we believe are found at both poles include a great variety of animals, says Julian Gutt of the Alfred Wegner Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. Although this observation is a mystery to the scientists till now, they believe the species might be undertaking this humongous journey in their larval stage.

The article also reports some other interesting but mysterious facts brought forth by the survey. “Expeditions carried out under the auspices of the Census of Marine Life also revealed that the Antarctic acts as a cold incubator for the rest of the world's seafloor communities. More than 30 million years ago there was not enough oxygen in the deep ocean to support life. But creatures that live there now had to come from somewhere. As some of the conditions in the deep ocean are similar to those on the continental shelf of Antarctica, it is possible that is where the ancestors of deep ocean species came from.”

13 Feb 2009

Live webcam from 3000 ft under-sea

The so-called ‘Eye-in-the-Sea’, a 502-pound video camera, is a recent addition to the first observatory operating in deep sea water. It will become part of a new kind of scientific exploration to assess the impacts of climate change on marine life. The observatory, Monterey Accelerated Research Station or MARS, began operating in November 2008 off the California coast. It is in form of a giant metal pyramid connected to shore by 32 miles of cable and serves as a gigantic electrical outlet for equipment such as the camera. Instruments onboard measure currents, seismic activity and effect of higher acidity on the marine life. The observatory and webcam permit real time information to be streamed ashore, giving researchers an opportunity to watch life at 500 fathoms and understand the effect of greenhouse gasses faster and better than before.

The observatory, its instruments and the webcam are the product of research and funding of Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA). ORCA is dedicated to the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems and the species they sustain through the development of innovative technologies and science based conservation action. Their website gives a good overview of the research undertaken and gives one an opportunity to look at the streaming video feed coming in from the deep-sea webcam. There are also links for volunteer opportunities and donations for those so inclined.

3 Jan 2009

Mix, don't mess, with nature

There are quite a lot of interesting and informative videos on Lonely Planet's YouTube channel which give us a glimpse of foreign lands and cultures through eyes of various tourists from diverse backgrounds. I feel, besides publishing greatly informative travel guides, Lonely Planet has done well to start this channel and share their own (Tony Wheeler slide shows) as well as others' travel videos on it.

I particularly felt like sharing this video on my blog because it showcases a community still in harmony with nature and untouched by modern society/culture/technology, the Batwa Pygmies of Burundi. The biggest mistake of human beings is our irreverence towards nature and the attempts to "conquer" it! Nature is vastly more powerful and complex than us and we should humbly recognise and accept this fact. Living in harmony with nature is the only way of ending all the miseries humankind is facing today.

I also saw the movie Wild Ocean 3D at Imax the other day. That served to provide another example of how mankind messes up the ecological balance anywhere and everywhere possible by their arrival. Africa is probably the only haven left on Earth for species other than human beings to survive and hopefully thrive. The movie is set on the coast of South Africa, in KwaZulu-Natal, where the sea is still like it was world over thousands of years ago....teeming with plenty and diverse sea creatures. But now due to fishing of 1000s of tonnes of sardines each year by us, the food chain is disrupted!

I hope, like the tourist couple in the Lonely Planet video, more and more people would want to learn from the "tribal" folk and return to where we belong. That doesn't necessarily mean going to live in a forest. But one could at least think 10 times before constructing a dam or fishing for tonnes of sardines the next time.

15 Oct 2008

Bloop or Upsweep: which one sounds cooler?

No, the title of this blog entry is not self-explanatory at all. Read on and it will all fall in place.....

Today while surfing the internet, I came across the website of the Acoustic Monitoring Project run by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US federal agency focused on the condition of the oceans and the atmosphere. The Acoustic Monitoring Project of the VENTS Program has performed continuous monitoring of ocean noise since August, 1991 using the U.S. Navy SOund SUrveillance System (SOSUS) network and autonomous underwater hydrophones. The website gives heaps of information on various acoustic monitoring projects, the research carried out, the details of equipment and methods used and how this information is applied to acquire some useful knowledge. The sounds recorded are identified as either of seismic, biological or environmental origin. But occasionally sounds are heard that cannot be classified as emerging from any of these sources and are therefore classified as "unidentified sounds".

This is the category on the 'multimedia' page of the website that interested me the most. The "bloop" and "upsweep" are examples of such unidentified sounds. The page lets you hear these various cool sounds! Upsweep is my personal favourite :). It also, of course, gives information like the place of origin and the spectrograms (example shown in the figure above) of each for those who can actually make sense out of them. All the sound signals are sped up by 10 to 16 times to make them audible to human ear as the original sounds fall in the low-frequency region which we humans cannot tune into. This is what the introductory webpage of the 'multimedia' section tells you, "Low-frequency sound in the ocean can be "viewed" in the form of time versus frequency "spectrograms" (warm colors represent strong energy) or "listened to" if the natural sound is raised to human hearing by "speeding up" the original signals. These sample sounds represent seismic and biological sources, as well as sounds of unknown origin."

So if you are ready to listen to some really cool sounds, that of an earthquake tremor or a blue whale or an airgun or the "Bloop", tune in!!!