Cathleen Turner
The pH of the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre has been dropping since 1981
Has the pH of our oceans decreased significantly? Lauvset and Gruber say yes, for the North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre.
3…2…1…Liftoff! Squid can launch out of water like rockets
Stories about squid “flying” over the ocean’s surface have existed for many years. In the summer of 2001 marine biologist Silvia Maciá delivered pictures as proof to the scientific community, and co-authored one of the first papers on “squid aeronautics” in 2004. This article explains how squid fly using Maciá’s pictures.
DIY Science: Scientists create a LED photometer that can measure the pH of seawater with an accuracy of 0.01, for under $50
Do you own an aquarium with high-maintenance saltwater fish that are happy within a narrow pH range? Maybe you just got your first Arduino (http://www.arduino.cc/) or Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) and you want to set up your own rig but don’t know what to do. Or maybe you are a citizen scientist who wants to do pH measurements but you have significant budget constraints. Yang and colleagues from the University of South Florida devised a portable LED photometer that produces pH measurements within .01 units of state-of-the-art spectrophotometric measurements and has a precision of +/- .002. The rig can fit in a shoe box.
Worm food: Whale bones found in Antarctica are teeming with life
Marine biologists have discovered a whale skeleton nearly a mile below the surface in an undersea crater near Antarctica. At least nine new species of deep-sea organisms were discovered, including a new species of Osedax, the ‘bone eating’ worm.
Annual fishing weir catches may be under-reported to the U.N. by Persian Gulf Nations
Scientists from the University of British Columbia who are a part of the Sea Around Us Project use Google Earth to estimate fish catches in the Persian Gulf. Their findings show that the estimated catch is up to six times greater than official figures from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Emissions from International Shipping Vessels Contribute to Ocean Acidification
Ship emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides (SOx, NOx) can be deposited and form sulfuric and nitric acid in surface water. Do heavily-trafficked trade routes result in “hotspots” of ocean acidification? Hassellöv and her team show “hotspots” that coincide with areas of heavy shipping traffic and seasonal stratification.
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic…for microbes in the plastisphere
Scientists find a diverse and distinct community of microorganisms that live on plastic trash at the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean. Is the “plastisphere” only a buzzword? Or can plastic waste be considered a new, man-made ecological habitat in the open ocean?
© 2017 oceanbites. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 