http://planetgreen.discovery.com/videos/blue-august-our-oceans-can-we-fix-them.html

In class we have talked about the major problems facing our oceans today, but what hope does this lead for the future? This short video provides that hope. The video points out that our ocean is in fact resilient. To keep the ocean's healthy we must restore depleted fish populations, establish marine protected areas, and reduce nutrient pollution, just to name a few. If humans have caused damage to the oceans, then humans are certainly capable of reversing that damage.

Although it is important to bring light to the important issues facing the oceans today, I believe it is just as important to point out what can be done to reverse the damage and improve the state of the ocean. What else do you think can be done besides the few things mentioned in the video?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-saving-energy-means-conserving-water

This article from Scientific American focuses on how power and water are interconnected. In the West, specifically places like California, a campaign was started to save water. As it turned out, saving water was the most effective way to save energy. The article says that just delivering water in California accounts for 20 percent of the state's energy consumption, because it takes energy to gather, purify, and distribute water.

The increasing energy demands and changing climate will only make it tougher and tougher to find water for energy. What would be some good ways to implement changes in our daily lives in order to really save water and thus conserve energy?

http://www.universetoday.com/199/gps-can-predict-tsunamis/

Many of us have heard of tsunamis and the subsequent damage a tsunami can cause, but did any of us know that there are ways to predict tsunamis? This article mentions that scientists have been searching for ways to predict tsunamis, and have recently shown that GPS is able to determine the strength of an earthquake and whether or not that earthquake is strong enough to generate a tsunami. Seismometer and ocean buoy data are also important tools to predict tsunamis and administer tsunami warnings, but GPS will tell how much the ocean floor moved and better estimate an earthquakes potential for generating a tsunami.

What are some of the positive implications for predicting tsunamis earlier and more accurately? Do you think there will a better, even more accurate way in the future to better predict the generation of a tsunami?

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/10/south_africa_th.html

Click on the link and read the article, but more importantly watch the video. This is a PBS frontline video concerning a problem in many developing countries: limited access to clean water.

The class presentation on water shortages sparked my interest and I recalled this video that I watched a few years ago in one of my college classes. There are so many people (the article says around 5 million) who do not have access to clean drinking water. The play pump is a merry-go-round type thing where as the children spin it around water is pumped up from a borehole into a tank. The original goal for the play pump was to install 1,000 pumps in each country. This goal was achieved in 2008 with a new goal of installing 4,000 pumps. The play pumps made a major difference in providing access to clean water; specifically for children. For example, installing play pumps near schools increased attendance where children would show up early to school to play on the pumps, as well as decreased the amount of water-borne illnesses in children. The original video called play pumps "one of the best grassroots technologies"; and I agree.

Here is a second video of play pumps operating in Malawi, Africa if you are interested in more information:
http://www.waterforpeople.org/extras/playpumps/playpumps-video.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/science/26shipwreck.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science

This article, published yesterday in the NY times, tells of a World War II ship that was recently found by divers containing up to 240 tons of silver. The ship set out in 1941 heading toward Liverpool, England but ended up 300 miles Southwest of Ireland and disappeared three miles deep into the ocean.

These divers were not the first that attempted to find the shipwreck. Reading this article got me thinking about how far technology must have come in order to successfully find the location of this ship.

The article also has implications for the potential of increasing revenue, since the many ships that sunk during each World War probably contained millions of ounces of silver.

The last paragraph of the article states that technology is opening up a very big door, and there is no doubt that this is true. What other benefits might these technological advances provide in terms of studying the past history of the ocean?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tatooine-planet

I found this article on Scientific American that is also related to the findings of new planets that touches on the same issue discussed in Megan's post. In class we discussed whether or not there could be life on Mars in a few billion years when the Earth is destroyed, but what about life on planets that have not yet been discovered or studied in full?

This article suggests that there are still many planets waiting to be discovered. What do you think the odds are that one of these "exoplanets" could support human life?

The idea that there are extrasolar planets yet to be discovered and still being studied shows that there is still much more to learn about the galaxy. Earth may not be the only planet capable of supporting human life.

When you think of ocean pollution there are many things that come to mind. You may imagine trash and plastic debris, oil spills, or chemical substances being discarded into the ocean. My personal interest involves plastic for two reasons: (1) when I was a kid I made a habit of cutting up the 6-ringed plastic packaging that comes on soda cans, because I was told that animals could become entangled (2) I love sea lions. When I read this article on entanglements of marine mammals and seabirds this issue hit close to home.

http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/assets/pdfs/vetsci-stranding/scientific-contributions/2009/moore-2009-marine-mammal.pdf

This study analyzes numbers of entangled marine mammals and seabirds along the west coast of the U.S. between 2001 and 2005. My favorite, California sea lions, were one of the most frequently entangled species. The article points out that these entanglements were often young animals. The number of entanglements each year shows that this is a persistent problem among marine animals.

Educating people about the problem of ocean pollution and finding ways to improve this problem is very important to me. What types of problems affecting the ocean are important to you and why?

This summer I was in San Francisco and had the unique experience of visiting the marine mammal center. Check out their website for more information:

http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/