The deepest spot on Earth is a surprisingly noisy place, scientists from Oregon discovered when they lowered a hydrophone almost seven miles below the ocean surface into the Challenger Deep. Listen to what they found.
Source: Ocean’s deepest spot a noisy place, Oregon scientists find
From Prozac to caffeine to cholesterol medicine, from ibuprofen to bug spray, researchers found an alphabet soup of drugs and other personal-care products in sewage-treatment wastewater and in the tissue of juvenile chinook in Puget Sound.
Source: Cocaine, Prozac, other drugs found in Puget Sound salmon from tainted wastewater | The Seattle Times
Scientists studying what is killing starfish from Alaska to Mexico are beginning to put some of the pieces of the puzzle together. They’ve linked warmer ocean temperatures to the devastation of the wasting disease.
Source: Scientists now link massive starfish die-off, warming ocean | The Seattle Times
New data on the economic health of the ocean and coastal economies suggest that future growth will largely take place in the narrow band of coastal lands threatened by climate change and sea level rise. The forecast is contained in the latest report from the National Ocean Economic Program (NOEP), a unit of the Center for the Blue Economy (CBE) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA.
The funds, which will be distributed over the next two-three years, will support seven new projects designed to increase our understanding of how climate change can affect fish stocks, fisheries, and the communities that depend on them for their livelihood.
“Warmer coastal and ocean waters and ocean acidification are already affecting our nation’s fisheries,” said NOAA Fisheries chief science advisor Richard Merrick, Ph.D. “NOAA is working to ensure the resilience of healthy, productive fisheries that are essential to U.S. coastal communities. Sustainable fisheries create jobs, stabilize coastal economies, enhance commerce, and help to meet the growing demand for seafood.”
The speed of vessels operating near endangered killer whales in Washington is the most influential factor – more so than vessel size – in how much noise from the boats reaches the whales, according to a new study published today in the online journal PLOS ONE.
The new study by scientists from the University of Washington and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries is the first to examine how much noise from individual boats reaches the whales in the inland waters of Washington and British Columbia, where they are a popular attraction for recreational and commercial whale watching vessels.
Source: Vessel speed biggest factor in noise affecting killer whales | UW Today
Recent work by University of Washington researchers shows noise in some Puget Sound shipping channels regularly meets or exceeds levels the federal government suggests may be harmful to marine life.
Source: Noisy ships, ferries create racket below Puget Sound | The Seattle Times
Stanford University researchers are deploying a fleet of static buoys and Wave Glider robots to turn the waters off the coast of San Francisco into a huge WiFi network to track tagged fish and animals.
The network acts like a huge Wi-Fi system and relies on cheap, long-lasting acoustical tags. When a tagged fish passed within 1,000 feet (304.8 m) of a data receiver, the acoustic signal is recorded and uploaded along with a timestamp and GPS location to a shore station. The buoys that make up the static part of the network are placed where white sharks are most likely to be. However, it’s an axiom of science that if you already know where something is, then there’s no point in looking for it, so the network also uses Wave Glider robots to rove about the area to cover any holes.
Source: Wave Glider ocean robots to track sharks in northern California
