Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
It's amazing that nobody has spotted it before. Superimposed on every ocean on the planet there is a striped pattern of currents. Yet what causes them is a mystery. Between 1992 and 2003, Peter Niiler of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, and colleagues collected data from more than 10,000 drifting ocean buoys, which they tracked with satellites. As expected, the buoys' movements were influenced mainly by known global currents, which are driven by wind and by differences in the temperature and salinity of seawater. But when the team analysed the data, it emerged that something else had been subtly influencing the buoys' paths. It turned out that there were alternating strips of water running eastward or westward, a bit like parallel moving pavements. Niiler recalls his reaction: "My God, we've never seen these before."
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
50 Euros off a 10-dive package in Malta.
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Malaysia is home to one of the most famous dive sites in the World: Sipadan. Learn Malaysian with the World Nomads Malay iPod language guide. You won't learn Malaysian in full, but this language guide contains enough of the most common travel phrases to help you get by.
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Friday, April 25th, 2008
The oceans just got a little safer for sharks. Fishermen must bring their shark catches to shore with fins still attached, the US fisheries service has decided. The new rule, put forward last week, aims to prevent fishermen from slicing fins off vulnerable species and discarding the rest at sea.
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Thursday, April 24th, 2008
See the bestselling SCUBA books and DVDs of the last 3 months. As usual, Dive Atlas of the World by Jack Jackson heads the list. World War II Wrecks of the Truk Lagoon makes a welcome re-entry and the Underwater Photographer appears for the first time.
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Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Four commonly found sunscreen ingredients can awaken dormant viruses in the symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae that live inside reef-building coral species. The chemicals cause the viruses to replicate until their algae hosts explode, spilling viruses into the surrounding seawater, where they can infect neighboring coral communities. Zooxanthellae provide coral with food energy through photosynthesis and contribute to the organisms' vibrant color. Without them, the coral "bleaches" - turns white - and dies.
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