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RISE ABOVE PLASTIC (RAP) SUCCESS! Green Ambassadors, in partnership with The Surfrider Foundation and The Algalita Marine Research Foundation, created the Rise Above Plastics Program, a student speaker series that encourages Los Angelenos to curb their single-use habits. Through the program, students learn about the impact of plastics on our lives and the environment, including plastic marine debris, chemicals and toxins. Students spread the word to their peers and the community by delivering engaging presentations that encourage practical solutions. In addition to learning about the inherent problems of living in a throwaway society, students learn the value of teamwork and polish their public speaking and presentation skills. In 2009, nearly 20 students participated in the program, delivering 30 presentations to more than 850 students and community members!

Endangered Species Bulletin The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers the quarterly Endangered Species Bulletin, with information on rulemakings, recovery plans and activities, conservation partnerships, research developments, and a variety of other issues. The Summer 2009 issue was focused entirely oceans and includes articles on corals, sea turtles, the Hawaiian Monk Seal, and more.

The term ocean acidification is used to describe the ongoing decrease in ocean pH caused by human CO2 emissions, such as the burning of fossil fuels. It is the little known consequence of living in a high CO2 world, dubbed at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) as the "evil twin of climate change". The oceans currently absorb approximately half of the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuel; put simply, climate change would be far worse if it were not for the oceans. However, there is a cost to the oceans - when CO2 dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid and as more CO2 is taken up by the oceans surface, the pH decreases, moving towards a less alkaline and therefore more acidic state. Already ocean pH has decreased by about 30% and if we continue emitting CO2 at the same rate by 2100 ocean acidity will increase by about 150%, a rate that has not been experienced for at least 400,000 years. Such a monumental alteration in basic ocean chemistry is likely to have wide implications for ocean life, especially for those organisms that require calcium carbonate to build shells or skeletons. Ocean acidification is a relatively new field of research, with most of the studies having been conducted over the last decade. While it is gaining some attention among policy makers, international leaders and the media, scientists find there is still a lack of understanding.

"We present a reference, comprehensive, high-resolution, digital mosaic of ice motion in Antarctica assembled from multiple satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar data acquired during the International Polar Year 2007 to 2009. The data reveal widespread, patterned, enhanced flow with tributary glaciers reaching hundreds to thousands of kilometers inland over the entire continent. This view of ice sheet motion emphasizes the importance of basal-slip-dominated tributary flow over deformation-dominated ice sheet flow, redefines our understanding of ice sheet dynamics, and has far-reaching implications for the reconstruction and prediction of ice sheet evolution. "

A new Rapid Response Assessment report released 14 October 2009 at the Diversitas Conference, Cape Town Conference Centre, South Africa. Compiled by experts at GRID-Arendal and UNEP in collaboration with the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the UNESCO International Oceanographic Commissions and other institutions, the report highlights the critical role of the oceans and ocean ecosystems in maintaining our climate and in assisting policy makers to mainstream an oceans agenda into national and international climate change initiatives

Science 8 July 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6039 pp. 173-175 Galaxy Zoo Volunteers Share Pain and Glory of Research 1. Daniel Clery A project to "crowdsource" galactic classifications has paid off in ways the astronomers who started it never expected. Figure View larger version: * In this page * In a new window Space oddity. Greenish "voorwerp" spotted by a Dutch volunteer still intrigues scientists. "CREDIT: NASA, ESA, W. KEEL (UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA), AND THE GALAXY ZOO TEAM" The automated surveys that are becoming increasingly common in astronomy are producing an embarrassment of riches for researchers. Projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) are generating so much data that, in some cases, astronomers don't know what to do with them all. SDSS has compiled a list of more than 1 million galaxies. To glean information about galaxy evolution, however, astronomers need to know what type of galaxy each one is: spiral, barred spiral, elliptical, or something else. At present, the only reliable way to classify galaxies is to look at each one. But the SDSS list is so long that all the world's astronomers working together couldn't muster enough eyeballs for the task. Enter the "wisdom of crowds." An online effort called Galaxy Zoo, launched in 2007, set a standard for citizen-scientist participation projects. Zealous volunteers astonished the project's organizers by classifying the entire catalog years ahead of schedule. The results have brought real statistical rigor to a field used to samples too small to support firm conclusions. But that's not all. Buoyed by the curiosity and dedication of the volunteers, the Galaxy Zoo team went on to ask more-complicated classification questions that led to studies they hadn't thought possible. And in an online discussion forum on the Galaxy Zoo Web site, volunteers have pointed to anomalies that on closer inspection have turned out to be genuinely new astronomical objects. "I'm incredibly impres