Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
Police arrested six people suspected of trying to illegally sell more than 52000 sea turtle eggs in southern Mexico. The five men and one woman were caught Friday transporting the eggs in dozens of plastic bags. Mexico is a major nesting area for several species of sea turtles, which are endangered and protected by law. Harvesting or selling their eggs is punishable by up to nine years in prison and fines.
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Tuesday, August 28th, 2007
Iceland has stopped commercial whaling after whalers discovered they cannot find domestic markets for the meat they have caught. Iceland's fisheries minister Einar K. Guofinnsson said that it made no sense to issue new quotas if the market for whale meat was not strong enough. Iceland announced last year it would allow up to 30 minke whales and 9 fin whales to be hunted, controversially ending a ban in place internationally since 1986. But Iceland's whalers have killed just seven minke whales and seven fin whales because of slack demand for whale meat and products.
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Friday, August 24th, 2007
Researchers at the Hyperbaric Medicine Department, San Diego, have developed a three-point scale to diagnose decompression sickness. There are currently no universally accepted diagnostic criteria for the diagnosis of DCS. The new SANDHOG (SAN Diego Diving and Hyperbaric Organizations) criteria uses a point scale and entrance level for the diagnosis of decompression sickness. Once the entrance criterion has been met, points are awarded based upon the diver's symptoms and their time of onset.
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Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
A conservation organization has requested that Alaska and six other states add bodies of water to their list of impaired waterways: the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The reason: ocean acidification, the changing of sea water chemistry because of absorption of carbon dioxide produced by humans. A center attorney, Miyoko Sakashita, said listing the oceans as impaired under the Clean Water Act would allow states to set limits on the discharge of pollutants.
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Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
More dive site and dive operator recommendations are in the Spain section of the SCUBA Travel site.
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Monday, August 20th, 2007
The North Atlantic is stirring fitfully. A new monitoring system has shown that the ocean's currents change rapidly, surging or slowing from one week to the next. That makes it difficult to judge whether they really are slowing down over the long term, as one study has suggested.
An overall slowdown might be bad news for Europe, which is warmed by a current called the North Atlantic Drift, and it might be even worse for the rest of the world because the North Atlantic forms a vital piece of planetary plumbing. When the North Atlantic Drift reaches the Arctic, it cools, sinks and flows back to the south, helping to drive global ocean circulation.
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