Latest

Komodo: Indonesia’s Dragon Isle

Komodo Island kept bobbing in and out of my field of vision as we continued to circle in water that was churning. I could almost see the Pacific colliding with the Indian Ocean. Ali, one of the many talented dive guides from the luxury liveaboard Arenui, popped up from the depths and shouted, “The current is going off!”

Brazil’s Ilha Grande

There are a few places on this planet where things seem to fall into place without any hesitation. Ilha Grande, Brazil, is one of these places. Even on busy weekends, there is a no-stress atmosphere. On the beach, in the garden hammock, or at 20 metres depth—it’s all laid back and lazy.

Rebreather Forum 3 consensus statements

CHECKLISTS 1.

The forum recommends that rebreather manufacturers produce carefully designed checklists, which may be written and / or electronic, for use in the pre-dive preparation (unit assembly and immediate pre-dive) and post-dive management of their rebreathers. – Written checklists should be provided in a weatherproof or waterproof form. – The current version of these checklists annotated with the most recent revision date should be published on the manufacturer’s website

La Cuvée Neptune
Does the sea hold the secret to truly great wines? To find out a trio of French wine lovers – a vineyard manager, a barrel maker and an oyster farmer – teamed up to test the myth, above and below water.

Maturing wine in the ocean improves their quality

Bruno Lemoine, who runs the cellars of Chateau Larrivet Haut-Brion in the southwest Bordeaux region, asked his barrel-maker chum Pierre-Guillaume Chiberry to build him two small 56-litre wooden barrels in which to age his red wine by an extra six months.

One was to be kept in the chateau cellars, the other sunk underwater among the prized oyster beds of the Bay of Arcachon, north of Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast.

The barrel kept at the chateau was dubbed "Tellus", after the Roman goddess of the land, and the other "Neptune" after the sea god.

Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)
Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Tagging and tracking showed that white sharks travel thousands of kilometres.

Australia has two distinct white shark populations

Scientists identified two distinct populations of white shark at the east and west of Bass Strait in Australian waters, prompting researchers to suggest the huge fish may need a regional conservation plan.

The study examined tissue samples from 97 sharks collected around Australia since 1989 which were caught in beach safety programs, as fishery bycatch and during Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) field research. Its findings are broadly consistent with satellite and acoustic tracking research led by CSIRO’s Barry Bruce.

A large leatherback sea turtle with a school of fish off the coast of Brazil
A large leatherback sea turtle with a school of fish off the coast of Brazil

Climate change threaten baby leatherbacks

The study also predict, based on projections from multiple models, that egg and hatchling survival will drop by half in the next 100 years as a result of global climate change.

When leatherback turtle hatchlings dig out of their nests buried in the sandy Playa Grande beach in northwest Costa Rica, they enter a world filled with dangers. This critically endangered species faces threats that include egg poaching and human fishing practices.

Miriam Weber measures the oxygen concentration
Miriam Weber measures the oxygen concentration

Rapid coral death by a deadly chain reaction

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology from Bremen together with their colleagues from Australia, Sultanate of Oman and Italy have investigated how and why the corals die when exposed to sedimentation. According to their findings, oxygen depletion, together with an acidification of the environment, creates a chain reaction that leads to coral death.

Beer discovered two years ago onboard a shipwreck from the mid-1800s could possibly be recreated using living bacteria discovered in the brew, Finnish researchers announced last Thursday. Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1byWC)

Beer from 1840's shipwreck anyone?

A few bottles of beer were found in an old shipwreck in the archipelago of Åland in Finland during the summer of 2010. Researchers have now managed to isolate four different species of live lactic acid bacteria from the beer.

The 2010 discovery of the ship, believed to have sunk in the 1840s, also included the world's oldest champagne considered drinkable which has since been auctioned off.