http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/whales/commercial_whaling.cfm

The site I posted is very simple and designed for kids, but that's exactly why I posted it. A lot of the really science-y articles can lose people in the details, missing the larger pictures (and problems). There are TONS of other websites describing what this site describes in more detail, but I thought this would be a good intro to our upcoming presentation.

Commercial Whaling has been a serious problem; and, although we've done a decent job at protecting the whales in recent times, most of them have not made swift recoveries. I hope everyone gets a sense of how incredibly powerful us humans are; we can give creatures that have been around for literally millions and MILLIONS of years a run for their money. Whales are huge creatures and there were once tons of them. They primarily feed off of tiny creatures, and when whales die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean to be a food source for other creatures.

Whales are a vital key to the food chain, and we've taken a serious hit at their chance for survival. We (mostly) stopped whaling about 60 years ago.....and there is still barely any improvement.

Let this be a lesson, and a warning. We have a much stronger affect on creatures than we believe; the ocean is not an endless food store.

So this only has five views and I'm assuming two of them are Kasey and Dr. Reid.
I will be asking questions from this **short** article on Thursday; it's worth reading, I promise!

I totally agree; it isn't enough to just pass laws and make statements. Anyone can say "Protect the Whales" and most congresses would be willing to pass acts to protect them.....but how many of those people and congresses actually provide the money and manpower to do something? Have there been actual enforcements behind the regulations, or are these "rules" more like "suggestions"?

Honestly, a lot of enforcement would be difficult. We can't have police ships all over the ocean, checking the speed of boats who may or may not be near whales, but it's at least worth some extra effort. If there really are so few of these whales, which I believe there are, then it shouldn't be too difficult to track at least some of them. By taking a look at where the whales are in real time, maybe we could have police ships in the area (or just regular ships in the area, for that matter) look out for them?

Some may argue that this is too great of a cost on the economy and we don't have enough space in our budget for action like this. My question back is, how valuable will money be when don't have whales in our ocean, fish on our plates, or medicines from the deep sea? It isn't enough to just say this is an important problem, we NEED to actually do something! Good article.

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/7931886-502/iceland-different-kind-of-hot-spot.html

This article is a lot different from the standard science-focused articles we've been posting. This is an article from the Chicago Sun Times, by Lori Rackl, a journalist, not a scientist. The article is about exploring Iceland and all it has to offer, so it provides a few really interesting insights into what the geography is like.

The endless supply of hot water coming from beneath the cracking crust provides for an "almost endless supply of natural hot water." Knowing that there's an underwater mountain range is one thing, but actually grasping an idea of what it means to be on top of the mid-atlantic ridge is a totally separate thing. The article is really descriptive and has some nice flowery language- kind of interesting to read for a change of pace!

It also brings up the question of whether or not we're using our resources effectively. If Iceland can use their springs to provide eco-friendly geothermal energy, maybe we could harness the energy of other springs on the mid-atlantic ridge? I'm not really sure about the logistics of that idea, I'm also probably not the first one to think of it. But, doesn't it seem like a decent idea? Maybe someone else could look up if they've tried it?

Seeing how effectively Iceland is using its heat source could set a really nice example for the rest of the world if, and only if, we're actually able to duplicate the process under water.

Thanks for looking it up!! =] It seems like a great idea, but like I said, I'm sure I couldn't have been the first one to think of it and if we're not doing it, there must be a reason why. Maybe we're just not there yet? I wonder what Dr. Reid or Kasey think on this? Why don't we use more geothermal sources for energy? Can we harness more vents where heat is so obvious and powerful?

The article makes a point of explaining the great initial cost, but in the beginning of searching for other resources (drilling for oil, gathering coal, etc), the initial cost was also extremely high. For a resource that's so environmentally friendly and promising, I'd be really surprised if geothermal energy didn't catch up in the next few years. I'm actually wondering why we haven't used more of it...it almost seems like a waste!

I'm not exactly sure about how energy gets transported in general, but the article seems to say that because the heat is only in some areas of the country, only some areas of the country would get the energy. But can't we transport all sorts of other energy? Again, I'm no energy expert, it just seems like a strange problem to have as far as "difficult problems" go. Also, aesthetics? Really? NOW we're concerned about how energy-gathering things look? Honestly, I find it mildly comical that anyone would make a con out of it looking unattractive. Out of all the ways we gather energy, this seems like one of the LEAST ugly methods! Mining dirty coal, pulling out gross, sticky, dark oil, cutting down entire forests and jungles, I mean, really? Now all of the sudden we care how things look? Not only are other methods unattractive and harmful, but no one seems to point out their ugliness as a con for their usage. Sure, people point out their ugliness, but how many people say, "that's why we shouldn't use it" afterwards?
People are quite strange.

A final point the article makes is that the energy produced and gathered might not be strong enough, or the right type, for our current power grid systems. Again, doesn't seem like a major roadblock. We can surely redesign power grid systems, or at least create adapters. We've worked through much larger problems before, so instead of dismissing it as a roadblock and avoiding it, I think maybe we should take a few trial and error shots at it first. Again, not a scientist, not an engineer, just a college student, what do I know? But idealistically...seems like a decent idea to me! =]

I was curious as to what these things looked like and how exactly they worked, so I pulled up some pictures and graphs, feel free to click or avoid, it was just something I was curious about:

http://visual.merriam-webster.com/images/energy/geothermal-fossil-energy/production-electricity-from-geothermal-energy.jpg

(above, how it works and its parts)
(below, what it looks like from the outside)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/NesjavellirPowerPlant_edit2.jpg/280px-NesjavellirPowerPlant_edit2.jpg

http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/geowells.jpeg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15181123


A new study (literally brand new, came out today) found a comet that has water similar to Earth's water. Most of the water on Earth is assumed to have come from outer space, since Earth's beginning was a hot, rocky one at best. The bodies bringing water to the planet were most likely comets, like this one, though the water most likely changed after reacting with the balance of Earth.

The article also reveals that asteroids and comets may be more similar than once thought. While scientists believe it's important to distinguish- I'm not so sure. Personally, I believe whatever type of body/bodies brought water to the Earth must have been large, or at least come in great numbers, so there was probably a mix of bodies anyway. The article goes on to discuss the importance in finding out which type of body would have brought over water, but the fact that they found similar water to our own on a comet is the most important part to me.

As you probably know from my previous posts, I'm not a big space fan. I do, however, think the idea of billions and billions of gallons of water appearing on Earth is quite remarkable. Getting a better look at where the water came from could help us locate other planets with water like our own, although, again, I think finding out more about our own planet first would probably be a better use of time, energy, and money.

The source cites Nature, but when I went to read the original Nature article, I understood relatively little of it. Here's the article, just for kicks:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10519.html

If you can understand any of it, more power to you, but wow, it's a lot of jargon to me. The fact that the site cited its source is important, however. To those more science-minded viewers out there, I'm sure the Nature article was very helpful. It also proves the cites reliability, though since the information is relatively new, who knows what studies will come out next disproving the first studies! As is the way of science...

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/faculty/drazen/fishes.htm

The title pretty much says it all; this site is about deep sea creatures with names, pictures, cited sources, the whole shebang.

We will be providing more information on this topic tomorrow in class, but it's really worth glancing over if you get the chance. Even if you're feeling lazy and don't want to read the words, the pictures are incredible. The person who wrote it is a professor who studies deep sea fish off of Hawai'i, so he knows what he's talking about, but also speaks at an understandable complexity level.

For sure worth a glance!

Besides exploring the sea to find medicine, to find hints at the origin of life, to find new creatures, and to grasp a better understanding of our planet...we should explore the oceans because they're just plain interesting!

For example, take a look at this!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1150846/Atlantis-revealed--just-load-old-Googles.html

There are a bunch of "Atlantis"-like sunken cities. Because of sudden shifts in land and floods, there are plenty of areas where cities or parts of civilization have been submerged. As we all know by now, the ocean and the land are not two distinct, totally separate, unchangeable entities.

Not to mention, besides the fact that it's plain interesting, there's tons we can learn about previous civilizations! Maybe I'm a nerd for being interested, but seeing that myths could have even little tiny bits of truth in them is surely interesting.



BUT! If that last site wasn't interesting enough to catch your attention, you'll certainly be interested in scrolling through this site:

http://www.oddee.com/item_79915.aspx

Yes, yes, I know it's just a science-nerd blog. It has virtually no credentials, but the pictures and descriptions are fascinating and you can find other pictures and descriptions of the fish elsewhere on the internet...leading me to believe the blog has at least some clue what it's doing.

There are tons of interesting things in the deep sea. For those who don't care much about the logical side of exploration, the idea of fish without eyes and huge teeth have got to have at least a little curiosity appeal.

When you think about history we've uncovered through fossils or deserted cities, it seems pretty awesome that we can virtually see this history being saved in real time. Relatively, these cities aren't that old. Future generations will be able to take a look at these preserved cities and discover (and judge, of course) what life was like and what we were like... pretty cool thought that today's cities could become the representation for mankind in our time period.

Just wondering what you think...how do you think people would react to spending $50 mil on a single person going down to explore the ocean? Do you think it'd even get seriously considered? I think there may be a serious double standard here; I have a hard time believing people would support something like this if it were to explore the ocean. We can make international space stations, but have we spent any time focusing on deep sea stations?

Not that space is unimportant; I do value space exploration. However, I'm just wondering what you think. Do you think we'd ever allocate that type of funding to ocean exploration?

I have a pretty good idea for a tactic to convince people that ocean exploration is important: the amount of lives that could be saved because of new medicinal discoveries.

There's an entire field of study devoted to biomedicine and ocean medicine. The ocean houses the widest variety of animals there is, not to mention we haven't even skimmed the surface of knowledge available.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0807_wireseamed1_2.html

The national geographic site is generally pretty reputable. From curing muscle diseases to curing retinal defects, we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what the ocean has to offer us (as selfish as that sounds). But, we must keep in mind, we can't just keep taking from the ocean without returning anything.

But, maybe people would be more interested in exploring the ocean if they knew all the medicinal cures there could be.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast06oct_1/

Science.nasa.gov is a highly credible site and provides a lot of extra information about the topics we discussed in the presentation today. For example, the additional information about the details of Pangea Ultima cite the fact that any possible "doom" is at least 50 million years away.

Guessing on who is going to win the presidency, much less the football game, is a complete toss up. Sure, there are a few things we can predict in the future: the sun will probably continue to rise and water will probably continue to be wet, but other than that... how far ahead can we possibly predict correctly?

I once read an argument stating that the Earth is a living organism (not literally- figuratively) and that it will take care of itself. We can fill the Earth's atmosphere with gasses, pollute the ocean, do whatever we want....but at the end of the day, human beings will be the ones to suffer. The Earth will no longer support human life and once we're gone, it'll have plenty of time to recover.

My point is, even if worst comes to worst and the Earth "decides" to move all of the continents into one area, we shouldn't worry about it. There's nothing we can do and it wouldn't happen for a long, long time. The Earth is going to do what the Earth is going to do; we should do our best to understand it and prepare, but for now, losing sleep over the issue may be a little excessive.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334360/title/Summer_Arctic_melt_among_worst_ever

The title pretty much says it all. This isn't an article meant to "convince" you that global climate change, this is an article meant to convey the imperative need for action. New ice, old ice, snow, everything...it's all melting. And while yes, it does usually melt this time of year, it doesn't usually melt to this extent.

The proof is in the pudding. If the graphs and charts haven't already convinced people that global climate change is real, I'm not sure what will. The only thing I hope to convey is the importance of action. Because, quite frankly, just recognizing the reality of it all isn't even good enough. We have to do something.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, but don't stop there. From water bottles to requesting clean energy from your power provider, there's plenty you can do.
Check this website for more tips:

http://www.bluemarble4us.com/

https://motivate.maths.org/content/AreWeAlone/SolarSystem

Though this website does not directly discuss much about the actual life possibilities on other planets (though it seems like it should, based off the title), it does do an excellent job describing each of the planets and the two different categories of planets, inner and outer planets.

The website also discusses one of the points I brought up in class: it's nearly impossible to rule out life in space because space is so large, there are myriad different types of life, and there are myriad different places for life to exist.

Anyway, it's an excellent summary of our inner and outer planets. There's enough detail for some real, substantive information, but it's also simple enough to understand. (It's also backed by Cambridge and info from NASA, so it appears to be quite legitimate. Not to mention, the pictures are STUNNING).

Also, I think we should keep in mind that Earth may be the only planet that can support HUMAN life, but there are plenty of other forms of life out there. I really enjoyed Monica's article because I think it explains the idea completely and does a good job of transforming a complex idea into an understandable one. The site also has many similar websites that provide more information- for example:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=habitable-exoplanet-gliese-581

Same reputable site, same argument, different portrayal of facts and ideas. (Also, this new link provides a lot about the "Goldilocks Zone," one of the things I find most interesting about this whole planet + life thing. The Goldilocks Zone is the area where there could be life- not too hot, not too cold, not to far from heat source, not too quickly rotating, etc. ).

I think the idea that we've just recently discovered new elements and new life on our own planet makes the chances that we will find what we've been looking for on other planets even greater.

http://technorati.com/lifestyle/green/article/coastal-cleanup-day-helping-to-keep2/

This website is written in blog form about new technology and advances by Caroline Higgens. This particular article discusses International Coastal Cleanup Day, started by the reputable Ocean Conservancy.

The day for the event is September 17th, or Saturday.

Personally, I think this would be a wonderful even to get involved in, even if you only participate for an hour. It's certainly a wonderful cause, and it definitely pertains to the topics we've discussed in class recently.

If you're not interested in picking up trash from a beach in the scorching sun (which is totally understandable), there are plenty of other ways to get involved. These foundations- and others like them- make it easy for students like us to donate a little bit of our time, while still making a large difference.

Anyway, just wanted to pass the website on- very interesting, very worthwhile.

The deepest place on Earth-and the deepest point in the ocean-the Mariana Trench.

http://www.marianatrench.com/

Most trenches are located in the Pacific; however, what sets the Mariana Trench apart is its depth, and capacity for new discoveries. The pressure at the deepest part (The Challenger Deep is the name of the deepest part) is more than 8 tons per square inch. Such an immense amount of pressure would (seemingly) crush all life that dared to go near the pitch-black hole.

The Mariana Trench is part of the Abyssal Zone, which is easy to remember because "Abyssal" sounds like "abysmal," meaning deep, dark, and bad. Some of the longest-living fish live near the bottom- some have found to be at least 150 years old.

My personal idea on the issue: given that life in the deep moves very slowly and organisms must conserve as much energy as possible, long, relaxing life spans are not surprising.

One thing all this deep-sea, high-pressure, super-dark, no-sound, situation reminds me of is outer space. I wonder if we learned more about the ocean, would we be able to apply those principals to space? What about the other way around?

The deep ocean and space do seem to draw some parallels...starting with how little we understand both of them.

I feel strongly that concentrating more resources on the ocean would benefit society much more than we currently recognize. And though I agree that there was a lack of technology, I believe this lack of technology existed because we didn't care enough to invent it.

Think about this: how many average citizens have heard of NASA? Black holes? Life on other planets? Possible life on Mars? The planets?

Now, how many of those same, average citizens can define, much less explain, oceanography? While it's true that ocean sciences may be catching up to outer space studies in the scientific communities, it's certainly not true in society. Most citizens know nothing about fishing, much less deep sea hydrothermal vents and the beginning of life originating in the ocean. If we can't devote enough time and money to understand our own planet, how can we possibly have time and money to understand other planets? And for goodness sakes, why are we more concerned with a sun blowing up in 5 BILLION YEARS, when we could be destroying our ocean's fragile ecosystem in the next TENS OF YEARS.

Again, scientists at NASA probably know more about the values of space than I do; likewise, oceanographers know more about the importance of ocean studies than I do. However, I think it's at least worth putting more thought into where we spend our valuable, limited resources.

http://www.ocean-news.com/

This website is dedicated to the ocean, the new ocean-related technological advancements, and ocean-environmental issues. If you are ever strapped for ocean news, I highly suggest checking out this site. They've got a lot of sources that can be contacted for further information as well. Sometimes the articles are a little "over our heads," written in a style that is clearly aimed towards oceanographers or other similarly-fielded professionals. It's worth a look, though!

I agree the search for water-bearing planets on Mars is interesting and plenty worth the search; however, it also seems to be that we are overlooking some major opportunities to find life. For example, what about Europa? Europa is one of Jupiter's moons--not a planet--that has a slushy, water-esque substance. Or Saturn's moon, Titan. As the book explains, Titan has its own form of a hydrocarbon ocean, except instead of water there's methane and ethane. By looking for life only in water-bearing areas, we may be overlooking forms of life that we could have missed.

http://discovermagazine.com/videos/27-life-on-europa

We've surely missed signs of life before, too. For example, it was once thought that the deep sea, I'm talking, deep, deep, deep sea, could have no life because there is a virtually negligible amount of oxygen and no sunlight. Because we assumed the hypothesis (that there was no life at the bottom of the ocean) we didn't look very hard to prove the hypothesis wrong. We surely proved it "right" a few times, but that means virtually nothing when you barely look. In reality, however, we now know that there are deep sea vents (hydrothermal vents) where a few extremely unique and well-adapted creatures reside.

http://www.wonderclub.com/WorldWonders/VentsHistory.html

"While East Coast communities continue to recuperate from the wrath of Hurricane Irene, which left at least 45 people dead, tropical storm Katia is stirring in the Atlantic Ocean and could escalate to a hurricane, The Wall Street Journal is reporting." The oceans and their forces are powerful indeed.