Ice ice baby

NASA has started testing its new Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE) prototype, and as you can see above, it looks markedly different from its predecessor. It's taller, thicker, has rotating segments to be able to take pictures from different directions and can withstand depths up to 700 feet.This prototype also has communications equipment and sensors similar to those used for Mars Cube One. That's the communications CubeSat slated to escort the InSight lander to the red planet.The agency recently put the new BRUIE to the test for a few days inside a 188,000-gallon tank at the California Science Center, where it spent its...

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The worlds green laughter

The day started as anticipated, grey, overcast and around 15-18 knots E., but we're diving so who cares! Watching the rollers coming in just off shore, it was a safe bet to go North, where we ended up at Split Rock.As soon as we jumped in and headed through the split, we got instant shark action and seeing as everyone was heading East, we went West and was rewarded with three separate reef sharks cruising round and checking us out, up close and personal.They hung around for about 20 minutes or so and then disappeared off to do better things with their time.A little bit further round the corner there was a nice outcrop which house a pair...

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Oceanic beloved

Happy world oceans day! Love the oceans and take care of them as they're the only ones we have.Link: HERE"World Oceans Day, held every June 8th, is the United Nations-recognized day of ocean celebration and action. People all over our blue planet organize celebrations � which can be a huge event in your community, a special announcement, or anything in between � to support action to protect the ocean. This year, the theme is Healthy oceans, healthy planet, and we�re making a special effort to stop plastic pollutio...

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Wash away those years

 A Dutch man barely out of his teens is leading one of the most ambitious ocean cleanup efforts ever: to halve the amount of plastic debris floating in the Pacific within a decade.The man�s name is Boyan Slat, and he�s come up with a pretty ingenious way of doing it. Instead of clamoring around the globe on a never-ending junk hunt, he wants the ocean to �clean itself.�Link: HERE Every year, 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans. Slat�s plan is to place enormous floating barriers in rotating tidal locations around the globe (called gyres), and let the plastic waste naturally flow into capture. These barriers aren�t nets�sea...

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