oceans
Vehicles
Matte Black Earthrace Power Boat Hunts Those Who Hunt Whales
4:00AM Jack Loftus | Last we heard from Earthrace, the super sleek 24m power boat that runs on its captain’s fat, it was circumnavigating the globe. Today, the ship has a new Batman paint job and a new mission: Hunting whalers. More »
Science
Declassified Russian UFO Files More Abyss Than Close Encounters
7:00AM Jack Loftus | Traditional conspiracy theorists would have you believe classified military UFO reports are all about flying saucers and little green men. Truth is, at least in Russia, the aliens had a penchant for aquatic locales—not space. More »
Science
Russia To Ring The Arctic With Floating Nuclear Power Stations
7:00AM Jack Loftus | Poor Mr. Polar Bear. When he’s not jumping from melting ice chunk to ice chunk trying desperately not to drown, he’s avoiding the floating Russian nuclear power stations and their potential toxic waste. More »
Online
Download Google Earth 5.0 Now: Explore the Oceans and Travel Back in Time
4:31AM Matt Buchanan | Google Earth 5.0 beta is live and more amazing than ever: You can travel back in time and see how a place has developed, go ocean-diving with Jacques Cousteau, and record your journeys to share. More »
Gadgets
Searaser Wave Buoy Can Generate, Store Enough Power For 470 Homes
10:34PM Kit Eaton | We’ve mentioned ocean power stations a bit recently, and now here’s one with a rather different approach: It can store power for when its needed. Searaser is in prototype form at the moment, and it works by bobbing up and down as waves pass by. An underwater pump uses this motion to push water into a reservoir 160 feet uphill. And there it sits until it’s simply released to power a generator. Neat stuff, particularly when the inventors say a full-sized version can power about 470 homes all by itself. [The TImes via Dvice] More »
Cameras
World’s Deepest Living Fish Filmed for the First Time Are Gross
8:00AM Jesus Diaz | This is a group of snailfish–the deepest living fish in existence–filmed alive for the first time in history in the name science and nausea. They live at depths of 4.6 miles (7,500 meters) or more, so scientists had to develop new camera technology capable of supporting a pressure of 8,000 tonnes per square metre–”the equivalent to that of 1600 elephants standing on the roof of a Mini car”–for a period of days. More »
Science
Water Invisibility Barrier Protects Against Tsunamis
1:35PM Gizmodo US Edition | Research into invisibility cloaks, which work by bending light around 2D objects, could end up protecting offshore rigs and vulnerable coastlines from water. Scientists at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France said that established cloaking principles can be applied to ocean waves, and built a 10cm model to show how carefully placed concentric pillars make objects in the centre “invisible” to the sea. More »
Science
Scientists Propose Adding Lime to Oceans to Reduce CO2
2:20AM Kit Eaton | The oceans already absorb megatons of atmospheric carbon, but scientists say that there’s a way to boost this so that CO2 levels could drop to pre-industrial age levels. The answer sounds like a cocktail recipe: add lime. Limed seawater has boosted alkalinity, which lets it absorb more CO2 and stops it from releasing it back so readily. The idea’s been around for a while, but the new proposition is that lime production should occur in areas rich in energy resources and limestone, but where commercial power generation is overly expensive. One suggested location is Nullarbor Plain in Australia which has limestone and abundant sunlight for solar power. Sounds like a whacky but not-infeasible scheme, though I suspect there’re quite a few “polluting the oceans” concerns to get around before it could be tried out. [Physorg] More »
Gadgets
World’s First Tidal Turbine Power Station Goes Online, Doesn’t Blend Seals
9:09PM Kit Eaton | However exciting the rubber robot snake wave power generator sounds, a real seagoing power station is way more interesting. And over in the UK, they’ve just turned on the world’s first commercial tidal power generator station. SeaGen is situated in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, and it has twin turbines that spin as the tide rushes into and out of the lough at up to 8 knots. The moving seawater spins the turbines for around 20 hours each day and when it’s up to full operating capacity, SeaGen will be pushing out 1.2 megawatts of power, roughly enough to supply 1,000 homes. And since the revolution speed is only around 10 to 15 per minute, the blades shouldn’t offer a threat to sealife like the local common seals. Eco-friendliness all ’round. [Daily Mail] More »
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