ocean
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‘Point Nemo’ is the farthest you can get from land without being in outer space
The Pacific Ocean’s Pole of Inaccessibility, aka Point Nemo, is 1,670 miles from the nearest land. It’s the furthest you can get from terrestrial lifeforms without launching yourself into space.
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Critical List: Gulf of Mexico dolphins have serious health problems; tweeting from the ocean bottom
James Cameron hung out at the deepest point in the ocean yesterday — and tweeted about it. Dolphins that have been in living in the Gulf of Mexico have serious health problems — low body weight, liver and lung cancer — that scientists describe as “consistent with oil exposure.” Obama’s promoting an “all-of-the-above” energy plan, […]
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The big blue: Can deepwater fish farming be sustainable?
An experimental fish farm floating off the Big Island of Hawaii has the whole world watching.
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The hagfish defeats its predators with slime
This video from National Geographic will make any self-respecting maritime predator think twice before attacking a hagfish, an eel-like creature that secretes slime from its pores. Also, fair warning, you may not want to watch this with food in your mouth. (Click the image below to watch the video on the NatGeo site.)
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Climate change pantry raid: Oysters
Here's the current list of delicious foods that climate change is going to take away: pecan pie, chocolate, coffee, wine, bacon, peanut butter. Now, a new addition: oysters. This list does sound like the grocery list of a 1 percenter who shops only at a Dean & Deluca in Park Slope. (Wine-filled, coffee-flavored, bacon-flecked chocolate […]
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How do you calculate your plastic footprint?
Companies are on board with reporting their carbon usage, but what about the amount of plastic they produce? It's a different sort of problem than carbon emissions, but although the negative impacts of humanity's plastic habit have been known for years, the amount being used is only increasing.
This fall, the Hong Kong-based Ocean Recovery Alliance is moving forward with its Plastic Disclosure Project, which will ask companies to calculate and disclose their "plastic footprints," just as they report their carbon footprints. -
Watch a whale jump for joy after being freed from a net
It's worth watching a guy scramble around in a Speedo to see this boatload of conservationists save a humpback whale caught in a net. If you don't want to sit through tense Speedo-clad net-cutting, though, you can skip ahead to about 6:30 and watch the newly freed whale repeatedly leaping into the air in what […]
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Limitless supply of rare earth elements found in ocean — if we can get them
The seabed of the Pacific ocean contains 1,000 times as much tonnage of rare earth elements as all the deposits on land, says a new paper published in Nature Geoscience. The elements, which are key to cleantech innovations like solar panels, batteries and electric motors, have been in short supply lately as China, pretty much the world's sole supplier, clamps down on exports.
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Your beach has a good chance of being contaminated with bacteria
When mulling over that eternal 4th of July question, Mountains v. Beach, consider that mountains are never closed because of bacteria that transmit rashes, pink eye, respiratory infections, meningitis, and hepatitis. Beaches, on the other hand, are closed for exactly that reason. And last year the number of beach closings and advisories, most of which were connected to bacteria, reached the second highest level in the past two decades, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.