Somali pirates may face death penalty

Rob Almeida -

Three Somali men accused of hijacking a sailboat in the Indian Ocean and killing the four Americans on board could face the death penalty, rather than life imprisonment, if they are convicted.

A fresh indictment issued Friday by a grand jury in Norfolk, Va., now includes more than 20 charges making the Somalis eligible for the death penalty.

The three were captured in February shortly after allegedly gunning down the Americans aboard their yacht. Previously, the men had been charged with piracy and kidnapping, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The Somalis are accused of killing Scott Adam, Jean Adam, Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle four days after seizing the Americans’ 58-foot sailboat. U.S. Navy forces trailed the hijacked vessel and were negotiating for the sailors’ release when the Americans were killed.

Navy SEALs stormed the boat, the S/V Quest, killed several pirates and captured 14 others. Eleven of the men have already pleaded guilty to piracy charges that carry mandatory life sentences.

Prosecutors said the new charges were meant to highlight the allegation that the three Somalis—Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nuraniu Shiekh Abrar—played a direct role in “summarily executing” the American sailors.

“Today’s charges underscore that we have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to attacks on our citizens,” said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride.

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Mysterious seaweed dump chokes S.Leone's coastline

France 24 -

Massive piles of seaweed have washed ashore along Sierra Leone's coastline, covering the white sand and raising fears for tourism and the fishing industry, officials said Monday.

"People should stay away until we determine through lab tests whether the weeds are toxic and harmful to human beings. We are now turning people away from the area," warned Momodu Bah of the country's Environmental Protection Agency.

About 15 miles (24 kilometres) of beach is affected.

Residents and hotel owners along the 4km-long Lumley Beach in the west of Freetown said they were startled by the appearance of the thick brown seaweed which started washing up early Sunday and by late Monday stretched across the beach, covering every inch of sand.

Bah said scientists from the Institute of Marine Biology and Oceanography had taken samples for laboratory tests.

"We are now working to identify the source and whether it is as a result of a seismic survey for oil and gas exploration as Sierra Leone is within the West African Maritime eco-region and shares a border with Liberia where drilling for oil is also going on," he said.

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Science can 'curb our ocean abuses'

Scot Mackay -

A top New Zealand marine scientist is concerned about the detrimental effect human activities are having on the environment and the scant resources used to combat it.

Otago University marine science head of department Professor Gary Wilson yesterday said more resources needed to be applied to research into the marine environment to protect the future of ecosystems.

New Zealand was a maritime nation with the fourth biggest marine estate in the world and relied heavily on it for everything from food to tourism, but there was limited funding put towards understanding the environment and the impact humans had on it, he said.

"It is frightening to think, considering the size of the marine realm and the influence it has on the terrestrial environment where we all live, how few people and what limited resources we have to understand it," he said.

Some people were scared of what science could show but, by being able to build data and understand how one ecosystem relied on another, it could help increase productivity while also protecting the environment, he said.

"In some ways we are frightened to learn [what impacts we are having] ... because of our reliance on the environment – but in reality science doesn't prejudge the outcome, the outcome has the opportunity to be more helpful than not," he said.

Mr Wilson's comments echoed the concerns outlined by National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research principal scientist of coastal ecosystems Simon Thrush, who spoke before about 150 marine enthusiasts during the opening presentation of the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society's annual conference.

Dr Thrush said New Zealanders needed to recognize the true value of nature and marine biodiversity to sustain it for future generations and that management needed to come through an integrated scientific and political process.

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Honeymooner's diving death 'an accident, not murder'

Jennifer Cooke -

One of the world's leading experts on diving deaths believes Tina Watson, an American whose honeymoon death on the Great Barrier Reef seven years ago sparked a controversial murder case, was the victim of a simple diving accident.

Dr Carl Edmonds claims "a grave injustice may have been done" in relation to Tina's husband of 11 days, Gabe Watson. He was charged with her murder by a Queensland coroner after a month-long inquest but served 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to her manslaughter.

Watson is now fighting fresh murder charges in Alabama related to his wife's diving death, after he was deported to the US last year.

Sydney-based Dr Edmonds, who co-wrote Diving Medicine for Scuba Divers, and has written specialist journal articles on more than 100 diving deaths, told the Herald that Watson's account to police of the events underwater on October 22, 2003, "all fits together very reasonably in a simple, straightforward diving accident".

Tina Watson, 26, of slim build, was "grossly overweighted" with nine kilograms of weights for her first ocean dive - more than twice what she needed with the equipment she was using, he said.

After analysing her husband's statements to police, together with other medical evidence and equipment reports given to the inquest into Tina's death, Dr Edmonds believes the novice diver did not inflate her buoyancy compensator vest - as all experienced divers would have done automatically - while descending to about 15 metres, above the wreck of the SS Yongala, south-east of Townsville.

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Attack of the jellyfish

Daily Mail -

Another power station was shut down by jellyfish today amid claims that climate change is causing a population surge among the species.

Hadera ran into trouble when jellyfish blocked its seawater supply, which it uses for cooling purposes, forcing officials to use diggers to remove them.

Almost 2,000 beach-goers were stung as they celebrated Independence Day weekend in the surf at Volusia County, Florida.

Beach Patrol spokeswoman Captain Tamara Marris reported the staggering statistics but stressed that no victims were seriously injured.

Amid soaring temperatures in the sunshine state, Jellyfish targeted sunseekers along a 20-mile stretch from Ormond Beach to New Smyrna Beach.

The influx was thought to be down to onshore winds bringing more jellyfish into contact with bathers.

Beach officials identified two species as the culprits - moon and cannonball jellyfish - but say moon jellyfish are likely to be the main culprits.

‘The cannonball jellyfish is not really a stinging jellyfish,’ Marris said.

‘It's really not a seasonal thing. They are just at the mercy of the wind and current, so they can show up any time of the year.’

Scientists say the number of jellyfish are on the rise thanks to the increasing acidity of the world’s oceans driving away the blubbery creatures' natural predators.

The warning came in a report into ocean acidification – an often overlooked side effect of burning fossil fuel.

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Snorkeler talks about being left behind by boat

Sarah Schulte -

A snorkeler left behind by a tour boat in Australia is back in the Chicago area and telling his story.

Ian Cole was snorkeling in the waters of Australia's Great Barrier Reef when he was left behind by the tour boat.

Cole is from Michigan, but he used to live in Chicago. He had spent months Down Under working and traveling. His last trip before heading home was to the reef.

It was the first time Cole had snorkeled, and the 28-year-old Michigan native says it will be the last time he goes with the Passions of Paradise tour company.

Ian Cole knows the outcome could have been worse. Cole is back in Chicago after spending nine months in Australia. He capped off his trip with a first-time snorkeling excursion to the Great Barrier Reef. Cole says that after spending close to two or three hours in the water, he thought it was time to get back to the boat.

"I paddled out to deeper water, where I was expecting my boat to be, and when I lifted my head up to get my bearings, I look and there is no boat," said Cole.

Cole says he began to panic, taking in water through his snorkel.

"This is a situation where you could drown, because you lose your composure, so after I was able to regain myself a little bit, I was able to see that there was another boat in the vicinity, so I made my way up to that," said Cole.

Cole asked the people on the other boat if they had seen his tour boat, and they told him it had left 15 minutes ago.

"I honestly thought the person was joking when she first said it, because she had a little bit of a wry smile," said Cole. "So I asked a second time... it wasn't until she said it again with a straight face that I'm like: 'Oh my goodness, it actually did leave me.'"

Cole later found out the Passions of Paradise employee responsible for checking off his name on the manifest had mistakenly done so without ever seeing Cole get back on the boat.

Cole says he immediately demanded an apology and a change of procedure from the company so it does not happen again. Instead, Cole received a form letter offering him a $200 gift certificate for fine dining and wines.

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Owners of Sir Peter Scott’s lighthouse in Sutton Bridge submit plans for visitor centre and museum

David Blackmore -

It was once home to the “founder father” of global conservation and now the current owners of Sutton Bridge’s East Lighthouse want to open it up to the public.

Doug and Sue Hilton have submitted proposals to council planners to build a visitor centre and museum on the site of the historic lighthouse, once home to well-known conservationist and painter Sir Peter Scott.

They are also going to open the lighthouse to the public over weekends in August to help start raising money to fund the building work, if approved.

The couple bought the lighthouse, which stands at the mouth of the River Nene looking out on to the Wash, last November from Commander David Joel who spent 25 years reviving it.

Mr Hilton said: “We weren’t aiming to do anything with the lighthouse this year because getting this place was hard enough and we wanted to sort ourselves out before we did anything else.

“But people in the area started asking us what we wanted to do with it and after we told them our plans, we started getting phone calls of support and it started to snowball from there.

“We then decided to sit down and get our ideas on paper and get the plans in and so far everyone has been really helpful and given us some useful suggestions.”

Mr Hilton said the museum would be dedicated to Sir Peter Scott, who lived in the lighthouse from 1933 to 1939, and the developed site will allow people to engage with wildlife.

He continued: “Everyone loves to visit a lighthouse but this is so much more than just a lighthouse – it is the starting point of global conservation.

“We reckon we will need about £250,000 to build the visitor centre and museum, which is a huge amount to raise.

“It is therefore hard to know exactly when we will be able to turn our dream into a reality.

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Archaeology: Black Sea's ancient coast found - report

The Sofia Echo - 

Bulgarian scientists have found the ancient shores of the Black Sea, currently deep beneath the waves, which they claim were the original shores about 7500 years ago, when the Black Sea at the time was just a fresh water lake, the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on July 7 2011.

The team, led by Professor Petko Dimitrov of the Institute of Oceanology in Varna, which is part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), returned from an expedition aboard the research vessel Akademik, saying that they have found the ancient coastline close to the Cape of Emine. Archaeological evidence suggest that this particular spot was part of the ancient coastline, the BNT said.

The common theory of the creation of the Black Sea says that there was a massive deluge through the straits of Bosporus (modern Istanbul), where waters from the Mediterranean flooded into the lake. Once the Mediterranean Sea breached the Bosporus Strait, it irreversibly changed the history of the people in the area, as well as the flora and fauna.

In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman published evidence that a massive flooding of the Black Sea occurred about 5600 BCE through the Bosporus. According to the theory, glacial melt-water had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes draining into the Aegean Sea before that event. As glaciers retreated, some of the rivers emptying into the Black Sea declined in volume and changed course to drain into the North Sea.

The Black Sea is the world’s largest meromictic basin where the deep waters do not mix with the upper layers of water that receive oxygen from the atmosphere, the report said. Subsequently, more than 90 per cent of the deeper Black Sea volume is anoxic water. 

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The National Maritime Musuem: Time and a place

Ike Ijeh - 

There can be few more intimidating places to insert contemporary architecture in London than Greenwich. The Queen’s House was the first classical building ever built in the British Isles.

The Old Royal Naval College is considered by many architectural historians to be Wren’s greatest work. It forms the centrepiece of a spectacular classical ensemble referred to by renowned critic Nikolaus Pevsner as “one of the finest baroque set-pieces in Europe”.

As well as Wren and Inigo Jones, some of the most influential figures in English architecture also left their mark here, including Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh. And to top it all, Greenwich is one of only four Unesco World Heritage Sites in London.

None of this, however, fazed architects Purcell Miller Tritton and CF Møller which have just completed a £35m extension to the National Maritime Museum: the Sammy Ofer Wing.

“Obviously we were conscious of the world class location and heritage,” explains PMT project architect Elizabeth Smith, “but we remained committed to our core concepts, which were to present the museum with a new facade onto Greenwich Park, to provide a clearer link between the main museum and the Royal Observatory, to deliver contemporary architecture that was sensitive to its historic surroundings and to provide up-to-date facilities that allow visitors to experience the full breadth of what the museum can offer.”

This has been achieved against the backdrop of a period of unprecedented notoriety and publicity for the south London borough. Greenwich Park is the controversial venue for the equestrian events during next year’s Olympic Games.

The Queen is set to elevate the borough to “royal” status next year as part of her Diamond Jubilee. And work is proceeding apace on Grimshaw Architects’ restoration of the Cutty Sark tea clipper, also set to re-open next year.

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Zoo provides coolest dive spot around

Allison Manning -

It's a dirty job, but those who scuba dive want to do it: scrub the artificial reef clean in the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Or feed the fish that surround them.

Some of the best scuba diving in central Ohio is just a chore away.

Nearly 60 experienced divers gladly pick up a toilet-bowl brush and scrub the artificial reef or feed the fish at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's Discovery Reef, all for the opportunity to swim with more than 70 species of fish, rays and sharks.

Dave Martin, 60, started diving at the zoo in 1998, first as a cleaner and now as one of the feeders. There's a simple reason he keeps coming back.

"If you're a scuba diver, being in the water is what it's all about, and diving in Discovery Reef is the best diving in central Ohio," said Martin, Sunbury's village administrator. "You can't go to the Caribbean every weekend to dive in clear water."

ew members of that original class are still diving. The scuba divers are a small contingent of the zoo's volunteers, but their job is so popular that the zoo gave up on adding people to a waiting list years ago, said curator Mike Brittsan. Like all other volunteers, divers are covered by the zoo's liability insurance.

Although it's one of the most in-demand jobs, it isn't always the most glamorous. Some pick up one of three weekly cleaning shifts, scrubbing the artificial reef with sponges and rough brushes to bring out the vibrant colors.

Others take part in daily feedings. The diver in the tank will wear an underwater communication mask, which allows talking to the visitors outside while hundreds of fish and a few sharks swim around and eat their lunch.

"When you're in there to feed, they follow you around," said Martin, whose favorite fish is the unicorn tang. "They're your best friend in the world."

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Shark Attack: Cookiecutter Shark Makes First Documented Attack on Human in Hawaii

Lee Dye - 

A small shark that's as nasty as it is fearless, attacking everything from Navy submarines to killer whales, has been blamed for its first clearly documented attack on a live human being.

A so-called cookiecutter shark, which was probably a little more than a foot long, took a chunk out of the leg of a distance swimmer who was trying to make a nighttime swim from the island of Hawaii to Maui.

The attack occurred 90 minutes after sunset March 16, 2009, but has just recently been documented by scientists in Hawaii and Florida.

Despite their reputation, sharks historically have not posed a widespread danger to people. Only two other cases involving attacks on humans by cookiecutter sharks have been widely accepted by experts, but both those attacks were on human cadavers, one a drowning victim and the other a suicide.

While this is the best evidence yet for attacks on live humans, there are several other cases that are highly suspicious.

So, are we in for another Jaws? Maybe not, because the cookiecutter shark, so named because it gouges horrific pockets of flesh from its prey, feeds at night in deep tropical waters where it is not likely to encounter humans.

But this case is so spooky that the director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History thinks people ought to at least be aware the nature of this predator.

"It's not as scary as 'Jaws,' but it's very different from any other kind of attack we have [in the file] because of the size of the shark and the modus operandi," George Burgess, director of the file, said in releasing the study.

It is to be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Pacific Science.

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Black Sea Used to Be Freshwater Lake, Experienced Deluge - Scientists

Novinite -

The Black Sea used to be a freshwater lake turned into a salt-water sea, Columbia University Professor William Ryan announced in Bulgaria.

Ryan participated in a scientific expedition headed by Prof. Petko Dimitrov, the director of the Underwater Archaeology unit of the Oceanology Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which started to explore the ancient coastline of the Black Sea on June 27, 2011.

The 18-member team of scientists sailed 80 miles along the Bulgarian coast to Turkey in the Akademik ship of the Oceanology Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Scientists.

According to Ryan, the expedition has found evidence that in the past the Black Sea experienced a sudden influx of salted water, a cataclysm that he described as an "environmental catastrophe", as cited by BTA, and that changed tremendously the environment of the Black Sea.

Samples that the scientists extracted from the Black Sea bottom indicate that layers of sand sealed with slime. A total of 27 drillings were made during the expedition, which funded by Bulgarian Scientific Research Fund.

The scientists who took part in the expedition believe that there was an abrupt change in the fauna of the Black Sea basin. Ryan pointed out that after the last Ice Age, the water from glaciers flew into the Black Sea, the Caspian and the Aral Sea.

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Gray Whales Adapted to Survive Past Climate Changes

Remy Melina - 

Gray whales managed to survive many cycles of global cooling and warming over the past few million years by changing their migratory habits and broadening their feeding styles, according to a new study.

The oldest gray whale fossils date back 2.5 million years, and since then, the Earth has gone through more than 40 major cycles of warming and cooling. The California, or eastern, gray whale is one of two surviving populations of gray whale and can be traced back about 150,000 to 200,000 years.

Gray whales appear to have "a lot more evolutionary plasticity than anyone imagined," said study author and evolutionary biologist David Lindberg of the University of California, Berkeley.

After studying California gray whales' responses to climate change over the past 120,000 years, the researchers suggest that gray whales survived previous climate changes by broadening their feeding styles.

Gray whales were once thought to feed only by suctioning seafloor sediment and filtering out worms and amphipods, but some gray whales now eat herring and krill as well, just like their baleen whale relatives such as the humpback.

The migration habits of gray whales proved to be flexible as well, with one group preferring to stop migrating altogether and remain off Vancouver Island in Canada year-round.

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Mekong dam plans threatening the natural order

Milton Osborne -

Unlike the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze, dams on the Mekong River seldom attract Australian attention. Yet a planned dam at Xayaburi on the Mekong in Laos has become central to a debate about the river's future, while the dams China has already built on its section of the river are a subject of long-standing controversy.

Matters have not yet reached the point captured in Mark Twain's quip that "whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over," but disagreements among the six countries through which the Mekong flows - China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - have become sharp and could become sharper.

With the exception of Burma, each state has its own view of how the Mekong can be exploited.

Since the 1980s, China has brought four hydro-electric dams on its section of the Mekong into commission, is currently building another and has plans to construct at least three more by 2030. One of the operational dams at Xiaowan is the second-biggest constructed in China and it, with the other completed dams, will soon be able to alter the flow of the Mekong, reducing floods downstream in the wet seasons and preventing the river from falling too sharply in the dry.

These seem desirable developments, but this is misleading. Floods play a positive role, particularly in spreading sediment over the downstream agricultural areas, most notably in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Altering the Mekong's flow will negatively affect fish catches since fish spawning is linked to existing pattern of flood and retreat.

Though it may be some years before the full effects of China's dams are apparent, there is no doubt many will be negative. But dams below China would, if built, have an almost immediate and dangerous effect in a region that is home to 60 million people in the Lower Mekong Basin.

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Oceans 'dying very quickly:' sailor

Chris Morris - 

Derek Hatfield has always known about the loneliness of the long-distance sailor, but he's never felt as alone as he does these days when racing over the vast, empty expanses of our dying oceans.

Hatfield recently completed his second successful race around the world, sprinting to a third place finish in the grueling VELUX 5 Oceans competition, a solo round-the-world ocean race that is held every four years.

But the last eight months have been an eye-opener for the New Brunswick-born sailor when it comes to the state of the world's oceans.

Streaking across the open waters in a sleek, 60-foot yacht that affords him a unique, close-up view of marine life, he has been troubled by what he is not seeing.

"You don't see the fish, you don't see the turtles, you don't see the birds," Hatfield said in an interview from Nova Scotia, where he now lives.

"Along the coast you will see the odd humpback whale but it is getting more and more rare. Last year I did a transatlantic race and I didn't see one whale in the whole 15 days of racing across the North Atlantic. Not one whale! . . . The oceans are dying and they're dying very quickly."

He especially misses the company of dolphins.

Hatfield, who has been making long sea voyages since the early 1990s, says he always used to stop what he was doing when dolphins showed up to race beside the bow of the boat or follow behind.

"It is much lonelier without them," he says.

"They're such an intelligent animal and such great company, especially when you're out there by yourself. Now it's a rare sight."

Around the world, even here in New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy, people who live, work and play on the water are reporting significant changes in marine ecosystems.

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Dorset coast scuba diving accidents are highest in country

BBC News - 

The Dorset coastline saw more scuba diving accidents than anywhere else in the country, it has emerged.

Portland Coastguard dealt with 41 separate diving incidents in 2010, three times the national average. The incidents included three deaths.

The coastguard said the Dorset coastline is one of the most popular diving locations in UK waters.

Inadequate training, such as people not learning to dive in unclear waters, was also highlighted by the coastguard.

Visibility off the coast of Dorset can be 3m, compared to 30m in the Red Sea.

Cindy Rodaway, dive liaison officer for Portland Coastguard, said: "Divers now tend to do their courses abroad when they're on holiday, then come straight back to the UK, from warm, clear waters, then jumping into cold, murky water and doing a 20m dive off a boat.
Decompression sickness

"Then they get panicky, their buoyancy isn't controlled and they have a rapid ascent."

Rapid ascent is the biggest risk to a scuba diver.

The pressure underwater changes the way gases are ingested into the bloodstream, so divers have to re-surface very gradually from the deep to avoid getting Decompression Sickness - otherwise known as the Bends.

It can be lethal - but Alan Clarke, from Dibden Purlieu, is one diver who survived it.

An underlying heart condition stopped Mr Clarke's body decompressing correctly during an ascent.

He said: "I lost total feeling in my left hand and then all of a sudden the feeling came back, the room swam and I had completely double vision."

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Goa beaches unfit for bathing, say scientists

The Peninsula - 

Scientists warned yesterday that water off the famed beaches of the Indian holiday state of Goa was unfit for bathing and fishing due to high levels of bacteria from untreated sewage.

The National Institute of Oceanography, which is based in the former Portuguese colony, said the level of faecal coliform bacteria off the coast of Goa and in its rivers was higher than the international benchmark.

“For safe bathing and international standards it should be 100 CFU (colony forming units) per 100 millilitres but now it has touched 190” in some areas, said NIO scientist Dr N Ramaiah.

Ramaiah said coastal waters tested by the scientists were generally above the limit, but the problem was most acute in the basins of Goa’s two main rivers, the Mandovi and Zuari.

A colony forming unit is used in microbiology to measure the number of viable bacteria. Faecal coliform bacteria can be a product of human or animal waste but also storm water run-off or plant material.

Tourism officials expressed alarm at the findings, given the state’s dependence on foreign visitors. Around 400,000 overseas tourists flock to Goa each year, with its long, sandy beaches a major draw.

“If there is such a phenomenon then it is a matter of concern,” said state tourism director Swapnil Naik, who had yet to see the NIO report.

The findings come after a six-year assessment of water quality off the Konkan coast in western India, where the tiny state of Goa is found.

Scientists compared levels of faecal coliform bacteria in Goa’s water with overall Indian levels and those from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

“Almost all the sewage released in the rivers is untreated. Even one gram of stools contains millions and millions of coliform bacteria. So when it is present in water naturally the count goes up,” said Ramaiah.

The chairman of the Goa State Pollution Control Board, Simon de Souza, said the direct discharge of untreated sewage into the state’s rivers or ocean was rare.

“But there are so many residential areas along the water bodies whose sewage might have been flowing into them,” he said.

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Call a friend to catch a fish: mobiles mean money for Indian fishermen

RT -

Mobile phones are increasingly sophisticated these days, but there is one use you might not have considered – catching fish.

­Indian trawler crews used to rely on luck for a good catch. But it is a different kind of net-work that is funding their fortunes – India's fishermen find mobiles are where the money is.

Mohan Kumar revs up his engine for a day of fishing off the coast of Kerala – the southernmost state in India.

“I studied in school until the 7th grade but then I had to leave school because we were not economically well off, so I had to help my dad with fishing,” says Mohan Kumar, a fisherman from Kerala.

Kumar is one of thousands of fishermen in the state who wake up at one o’clock to earn a living. For decades, fishermen like Kumar, relied on luck and prayer in order to find a good catch, but all that has changed since the introduction of the mobile phone in the state more than ten years ago.

“If the fish are not available where we go fishing, the fishermen in other parts of the sea call us and tell us where we might be able to find a good catch. Then we can go to that particular place,” explains another Kerala fisherman, Purushotaman.

In addition, because of the new ease of communication, Kumar is able to find out how much demand is at his local market and the prices the buyers are offering in order to determine where best to sell his fish. Today he is making double the amount of money he was making before he started using a mobile phone. He now owns his own boat and says he is able to send his three daughters to college.

India has the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world and the most growth is happening in rural areas. What may be seen as a convenience in the West is being utilized by Indian fisherman, revolutionizing their business and turning them into entrepreneurs and businessmen in their communities.

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Divers who risk their lives for ‘women’s vanity’

Melanie Gosling -

They are a rare breed, diamond divers, working alone in a high-risk job that sees two of them die on the West Coast every year.

“Mostly falling rocks. The diver excavates underwater, and he works totally alone. Four pulls on the line means he wants to come up, but if he’s under a rock, there’s no way to pull.”

George “One Time” Moyses, 59, drags on his cigarette in the little shack on the beach outside Port Nolloth.

“The sea is a treasure trove, but we get so little time to get it. You need a day with less than one-metre swell and visibility of at least a metre. You depend on the weather, like a fisherman. If I don’t get diamonds, I don’t get money. Winter times the divers are poor. And what you bring up, you give 50 percent to the company.”

Moyses has been a diamond diver for 30 years. It’s a life that’s getting increasingly harder. All the “easy” diamonds have gone, and in the last 15 years, the number of “sea days”, with calm water and good visibility, has dropped drastically, possibly because of climate change. And divers also don’t keep all they take out. Although they take the risks and bear the costs, they have to give up to half of the price of the diamonds to one of four big companies that own all the marine diamond rights: De Beers, Alexcor, Namaquagroen and Transhex.

Moyses, one of about 60 diamond divers on the West Coast, is one of the more colourful. His tiny front yard, cordoned off with old ropes from boats, is a crazy collection of flotsam and jetsam. Some have been transformed into art, like a “great white” carved out of a huge piece of foam. Old buoys, fishing nets and shells strung together dangle from the stoep. Painted signs on driftwood say “Baywatch Diamond Diver”, “Anti-stress therapy anytime”, and on the dustbin, “Bin Laden”.

“Ja, it’s a good place. Belonged to the head of the copper mine at Okiep in the 1920s. They used to travel here by oxwagon. It’s all I need, as long as there’s no tsunami.”

It took him a while to find his niche. Born in Senekal in the Free State, he went to university because it was expected of him, but left because he knew it was not for him. Then came his compulsory army call-up and afterwards he tried the hotel school in Johannesburg.

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Ocean experts fear mass extinctions: As public debates man's role, study adds fuel to fire

Bo Petersen -

Sally Robinson sees it getting worse. More of the coral has lost color every time she dives the Freddy Day shipwreck.

"We've been seeing it for six years," said Robinson, of Charleston Scuba. Coral whitening, or bleaching, occurs when the algae that feed the coral die. It's deadly not only to the coral but to swarms of young fish and marine life that depend on it -- one of every four species in the ocean.

The shipwreck 18 miles out from Charleston is the farthest north that coral bleaching has been found, and it was unheard of here before Robinson came across it in 2005. Bleaching has already wiped out half or more of the living coral in the Florida keys.

If it were only the coral, that would be bad enough. But in a part of the Atlantic considered relatively healthy and rich in sea life, the coral is only the tip of it. The water is getting more fished, more dumped in, warmer and more acidic. Along the heavily developed Grand Strand coast, hypoxic "dead zones" are showing up, spots where there's just not enough oxygen left in the water for fish to breathe.

Trophy fish and prize catches like bluefin tuna have gotten scarce. The long, laden strings of fish catches are historic photos; the catch is now smaller in size and fewer. Jellyfish seem profuse. Invasive tropical species like lionfish are moving in.

"I can remember when Charleston Harbor got to 82 degrees and we all gasped," Robinson said. "Last year it got to 89 degrees. Yesterday it was 86 degrees. There's a lot of things out there that leave people scratching their heads, anecdotal things."

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Deep-sea mud in the Pacific Ocean as a potential resource for rare-earth elements

Nature Geoscience -

World demand for rare-earth elements and the metal yttrium—which are crucial for novel electronic equipment and green-energy technologies—is increasing rapidly.

Several types of seafloor sediment harbour high concentrations of these elements. However, seafloor sediments have not been regarded as a rare-earth element and yttrium resource, because data on the spatial distribution of these deposits are insufficient.

Here, we report measurements of the elemental composition of over 2,000 seafloor sediments, sampled at depth intervals of around one metre, at 78 sites that cover a large part of the Pacific Ocean.

We show that deep-sea mud contains high concentrations of rare-earth elements and yttrium at numerous sites throughout the eastern South and central North Pacific.

We estimate that an area of just one square kilometre, surrounding one of the sampling sites, could provide one-fifth of the current annual world consumption of these elements.

Uptake of rare-earth elements and yttrium by mineral phases such as hydrothermal iron-oxyhydroxides and phillipsite seems to be responsible for their high concentration.

We show that rare-earth elements and yttrium are readily recovered from the mud by simple acid leaching, and suggest that deep-sea mud constitutes a highly promising huge resource for these elements.

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Project to map UK seabed areas

Hydro International -

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA, UK) and six partner organizations launched the Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland Hydrographic Survey (INIS Hydro) project at the Belfast Harbor Commissioners Office on Monday 4th July 2011.

INIS Hydro, which receives GBP3.2 million from the European Union's INTERREG IVA Programme, will produce a standardized hydrographic survey specification and accurate high-resolution bathymetric datasets for seven important seabed areas to the east of Ireland/Northern Ireland and off the west coast of Scotland.

A total of 1400 km2 will be surveyed by the partner organization's research vessels fitted with multi-beam sonar technology.

High-quality bathymetric information is essential for producing accurate navigational charts and for the effective management and conservation of the marine environment. Despite recent technological advances in high-resolution seabed mapping, some 'current' nautical charts still include data from the mid-19th century when depth was measured by lowering lead lines to the seabed at wide intervals.

INIS Hydro will survey the Firth of Lorn and the SW Islay Renewable area in Scotland, Dundalk Bay (shallow and deep) in the Republic of Ireland, and Carlingford Lough and Approaches, Dundrum Bay and parts of the Mourn Coast in Northern Ireland. These areas were selected for their environmental significance, suitability for offshore renewable development, and in all cases to update nautical charts.

The project will thus improve safety at sea and provide supportive data to enable effective marine conservation and management, eg relating to fisheries, marine protected areas and marine renewable energy development.

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Small Tsunami in English Channel

Hydro International -

A network of coastal tidal and wave monitoring stations maintained by Southampton, UK-based EMU Limited recorded the progress of the waves caused by a minor tsunami in the last week of June 2011 along the south coast.

A massive underwater landslide in the Atlantic 200 miles off the Cornish coast is believed to be the cause of a small tsunami along the south coast, creating waves of between 0.5 and 0.8 metres and resulted in abnormal tidal records at the Channel Coastal Observatory and Plymouth Coastal Observatory shore stations.

EMU Limited's principal MetOcean scientist, Mr Robin Newman, initially thought there was a malfunction with the oceanographic instruments, installed for the Southeast and Southwest Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes, due to the unusual

"There was a significant amount of variation in the observed data against what would be expected so I checked at multiple sites and they were all consistent with some sort of movement from east to west," Mr Newman said. "We subsequently realized we had recorded what appears to be a minor tsunami."

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