Free Republic

https://www.theoceancleanup.com/system001/ The Ocean Cleanup team claims their 2,000-foot tube will provide the solution to widespread plastic pollution in the world's seas. A ship departing Los Angeles on Saturday is carrying a giant floating tube which company researchers claim will help to clean plastic pieces spread throughout the ocean, the Guardian reports. The Ocean Cleanup has been in the planning stages for several years and is now testing its technology on the open sea. The first test launch was made on Saturday with the ship deploying System 001 tubes in the San Francisco Bay. The tubes were set to be in...

Emerald Isle, N.C. — A woman from Kentucky drowned Sunday while on vacation in Emerald Isle, according to officials. In a Facebook post, the Town of Emerald Isle stated that Donna Sue Miller, 49, became caught in a rip current with her friend and her friend's 9-year-old daughter. According to the post, the three were swimming near The Islander Hotel around 7 p.m. when the drowning occured. Officials say Miller was found facedown in the water and was carried to the shore by onlookers. The others made it safely to shore.

The man, identified as Brian Lamonds of Greensboro, NC, was reported missing Tuesday morning as the ship was sailing from Tampa to Key West. The Coast Guard was notified of the missing guest and is conducting a search, Carnival Cruise said in a statement to Fox News. … Coast Guard Key West watch was notified of the missing passenger around 10 a.m. and sent out a Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew, an Air Station Miami HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft crew and the crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Isaac Mayo to aid in the search.

A Republican lawmaker on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Thursday that rocks from the White Cliffs of Dover and the California coastline, as well as silt from rivers tumbling into the ocean, are contributing to high sea levels globally. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) made the comment during a hearing on technology and the changing climate, which largely turned into a Q&A on the basics of climate research. Climate scientist Philip Duffy testified before the panel, addressing lawmakers’ questions about climate change, according to E&E News. "The rate of global sea-level rise has accelerated and is now four...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- U.S. prosecutors filed a criminal charge Wednesday against the CEO of Bumble Bee Foods as part of an ongoing investigation into price fixing in the packaged seafood industry. A grand jury in San Francisco indicted Christopher Lischewski on one count of price fixing, alleging that from November 2010 to December 2013 he conspired with others in the industry to eliminate competition by setting prices for canned tuna. Three other people, including a former StarKist tuna company executive, have previously been charged. Stephen Hodge, a former senior vice president for sales at StarKist, pleaded guilty last year...

Full title: Researchers report that chemical weapons dumped at sea are corroding but have not yet released toxic contents KyleJuly 28, 2010DMZ Hawaii http://www.dmzhawaii.org/dmz-legacy-site-two/?p=7485  University of Hawai'i researchers have concluded a three year research project to determine whether chemical munitions dumped at sea off O'ahu pose a threat to the health of humans or the environment. Documents disclosed by the Army in 2007 reported that approximately 16,000 munitions containing 2,558 tons of chemical agents were dumped at three deep-water sites off Oahu.   The chemical agent included lewisite, mustard, cyanogen chloride and cyanide. According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser article: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/99399389.html...

This is the incredible moment a whale shark gulped down a never-before-photographed 'tornado' of plankton. Warren Baverstock, 49, hung a single light off the back of a boat to attract the phytoplankton that the huge fish love to eat - and then waited patiently out in the dark ocean. He was delighted when a 11.4ft juvenile whale shark rose from the depths to gobble up the plumes of gathering food, and he hopped in to capture silhouetted by the light.

The Thunder Child is a high speed, wave-piercing boat that's built to be uncapsizable. The boat was designed by Safehaven Marine for use by Navy, law enforcement, and other groups who sail in high-pressure situations. The boat can fit 10 crew members on board and has a sleeping cabin. It's built to absorb shocks from rough seas. But by far the most impressive thing about the Thunder Child is its ability to right itself even if it is completely capsized. The video below explains how. There are a few factors that allow this boat to sail through any conditions without...

Did someone send out a bat signal? Graceful bat rays have been spotted by divers all along Monterey's coast recently. The Monterey Bay Aquarium writes, "Bat rays swim gracefully by flapping their batlike wings (pectoral fins) bird style. They are found in muddy and sandy bottom bays, kelp forests and close to coral reefs. If disturbed while resting on the seafloor, bat rays raise themselves up on the tips of their pectoral fins with their backs arched, ready to swim away if a diver approaches too closely. Rays are known for their ability to jump out of the water and...

A young European cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) trying to escape predation by expressing dermal papillae in 3-D and a mottled pattern, both of which disrupt the body contour and allow the cuttlefish to fool predators by avoiding recognition. As reported by Gonzalez-Bellido et al., these muscular structures contain a mix of muscle types that allow the animal to express and flatten the papillae quickly, and to maintain papillae expression for extensive periods without the need for neural input. The circuit that controls them appears homologous to the squid skin iridescence circuit. Credit: P Gonzalez-Bellido. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ An international team of scientists has...

A huge, trillion-ton iceberg about the size of Delaware broke free from Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf in July 2017. As it moved away from its chilly birth mom and into the Weddell Sea, a vast expanse of water saw the light for the first time in up to 120,000 years. And this month, a team of scientists will venture to the long-ice-buried expanse to investigate the mysterious ecosystem that was hidden beneath the Antarctic ice shelf for so long. The newly exposed seabed stretches across an area of about 2,246 square miles (5,818 square kilometers), according to the British...

7,601,771 views The Ocean is a deep and scary world that is completely removed from most of our lives. In this video I explore just how deep the ocean actually is while discussing some of the strange life down there... and other just plain weird and odd things about the ocean. Feel free to leave any comments and share what you found interesting, or anything else you think that I should have added! Music is by Ross Bugden, seriously, his channel is great. Song used is called "Something Wicked" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuw_O...Link to Ross's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQKG... Please Subscribe: http://bit.ly/2dB7VTOFollow me on Facebook:...

Watching waves crash into the shoreline can be a beautiful and mesmerizing sight. And these stunning images snapped by the world's top surf photographers show the intense power the sea can have. The dramatic pictures form part of a eye-catching new book called Amazing Waves, that is aimed at surfers wanting to learn how to ride them.

A kayaking guide and a group of tourists witnessed an incredible life-and-death fight between a massive fur seal and a giant octopus in New Zealand earlier this week. The epic confrontation took place at South Bay, on New Zealand’s South Island, on June 20, the New Zealand Herald reports. Conner Stapley, a guide with Kaikoura Kayaks, saw thrashing on the surface of the water and soon realized the large male seal was attacking the octopus. Stapley and the three tourists he was accompanying got front-row seats to the gruesome battle, which was won by the hungry seal.

It is a big ocean. Until you have been far into it, it is really hard to appreciate just how big. Bringing a ship back from Japan to Hawaii, I once went ten days without seeing another ship, either by eye or radar. That is a long time to be alone in the world, especially if you are moving in a straight line and at good speed. On the other hand, you would be surprised at how crowded the ocean can get in certain places. The Strait of Malacca, for instance, divides the island of Sumatra from Malaysia. Not only...

Earlier today, MetOcean Solutions' wave buoy in the Southern Ocean recorded a whopping 19.4 m wave. Senior Oceanographer Dr Tom Durrant is thrilled. "This is one of the largest waves recorded in the Southern Hemisphere," he explains. "This is the world's southern-most wave buoy moored in the open ocean, and we are excited to put it to the test in large seas."

The world's oceans close to being starved of oxygen - and even that could lead to mass sea life extinction which could last a million years. University of Exeter scientists fear the modern ocean is 'on the edge of anoxia' - when the oceans are depleted of oxygen. [snip] Lead researcher PhD student Sarah Baker said it was now 'critical' for modern humans to limit carbon emissions to prevent this.

A stranded great white shark caused quite a stir along the California shore on Friday. Dozens of people gathered on the cliffs of Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz to watch the 8-foot shark trapped in the shallow reef. Video from CNN affiliate KSBW then captured the still-alive shark rolling in the incoming tide — bruised and bloodied. Authorities were notified in the afternoon by someone walking on the beach that people were taking pictures of the shark — including one person in the water, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

A remote part of the Indian Ocean has become, by chance, one of the best-mapped parts of the underwater world. The ocean is vast, deep, and unexplored. When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared three years ago this week, the search brought the ocean’s vastness into sharp relief. This is how deep and dark it is three miles down. This is how unlikely you are to spot a downed airliner in 120,000 square nautical miles of open ocean. This is how much we know about the ocean floor—less than we know about the surface of Mars. As the search dragged on...

A coalition of commercial fishing groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to challenge the creation of a national monument off the coast of New England. President Barack Obama created the monument in September using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. The monument is called the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and it is made up of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains. The creation of the monument closed the area to most commercial fishing and has been opposed by fishing groups for months. A coalition of the groups filed their lawsuit Tuesday in federal court....