Oceans

Cameras

What It Looks Like Underneath A Wave

7:30AM February 7, 2012 | Michael Hession

The world is ripe with awe-inspiring footage of surfers riding waves. I mean who doesn’t love a giant wall of water? But rarely do we get to see the terrifying underbelly that lies beneath the surface. More »


Science

Researchers Pull Enormous Amphipod From The Depths Of New Zealand’s Seas

5:00PM February 3, 2012 | Andrew Tarantola

No, this photo hasn’t been ‘shopped. You are looking at a specimen from a barely-known and even-more-rarely-seen group of “Supergiant” amphipods — crustaceans that grow 20 times the size of their relatives and can measure a foot or more in length. More »


Geek Out

These Wipeouts Scare Me More Than Sharks

2:45PM January 17, 2012 | Roberto Baldwin

The chances of me getting eaten by a shark while surfing are slim. The chances of me getting pounded by a wave while surfing, that happens all the time. Fortunately, I’ve never had a wipeout as bad as the ones in this video. More »


Geek Out

Handheld Water Rescue Craft For Sci-Fi Life Guards

7:30AM December 7, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

Dragging a body any distance is tough enough on land, much less while swimming. And the faster you land that person, the more likely you are to resuscitate him. Unfortunately, most conventional life-saving equipment is either slow moving, like kick-boards, or slow launching, like wave-runners. Hence, the Asap Water Rescue Craft. More »


Science

Autonomous Wave Gliders Attempt Solo Pacific Crossing

2:40AM November 23, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

As NASA prepares to launch the Curiosity rover to explore Mars at the end of the month, a small fleet of Wave Gliders, autonomous sea-faring vehicles, have set sail on an equally audacious journey — swimming unassisted across of the Pacific Ocean. More »


Science

Giant Sea Sponge And Possible Eames Inspiration Rediscovered

9:40AM November 18, 2011 | Kristen Philipkoski

Doesn’t this amazing sea sponge look like an Eames moulded plastic chairs? We can’t say for sure it was the design duo’s inspiration, but we do know that until it was recently rediscovered, scientists thought “Neptune’s cup” was extinct. More »


Cameras

Super Slow Motion Ocean Waves Look Like Delicious Gigantic Jelly

5:00AM October 28, 2011 | Casey Chan

The Phantom HD Gold, a camera that brings out the life in things by capturing it in super slow motion, was used to film the oh so lovely ocean. Everything takes on a different personality in slow motion: waves look like jello, whitecaps look like cocaine and surfers, well, surfers are always awesome. More »


Science

The UK Wave Hub Powers 7500 Cornish Homes

2:30AM October 26, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

The English coast isn’t exactly suitable for large-scale solar projects but does have plenty of another renewable energy source: waves. This device turns all that kinetic energy into a vast swath of electricity. Here’s how. More »


Science

17,000 Litres Per Minute Oil Skimmer Wins $US1.4m X Challenge

12:20PM October 25, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

Current industry-standard oil recovery equipment pulls roughly 3785 litres a minute, but as the Deep Water Horizon incident showed, that simply isn’t good enough. So Wendy Schmidt — as in wife of ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt — put up a $US1.4 million purse for any team that could extract 9400 litres a minute. Here’s the winning design. More »


Science

Ten Centimetre-Long Amoebas Found In Mariana Trench

4:00AM October 23, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

What are 10cm across, live 9.7km under water and are incredibly toxic? The Xenophyophores of the Mariana Trench — the largest individual cells in existence More »