Unlike Max in the children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, I hadn’t worn my wolf suit, or made mischief of one kind or another. I hadn’t been sent to my room before it transformed into an island of magical monsters only reachable after a year of sailing.
I wouldn’t want to spend that long on a boat, so I behaved(ish) and looked forward to being on Galápagos and spending my nights tucked up on dry land.
Many of the pieces of equipment used by technical divers look different to the equipment used by recreational divers. However, for most of the time, the basic principles are the same.
If anyone was to mention diving in Thailand to you, then you would most likely think of one of the west coast destinations. Hardly a thought would be given to the small island of Koh Tao, which lies off the east coast in the Gulf of Thailand. I live and dive here, so I find this lack of attention a little unfair.
Freediving is easy. All you have to do, according to freediver extraordinaire, Stig Åvall Severinsen, is “learn to hold your breath as long as you can”. Simple.
The ability of two bottlenosed dolphins Tursiops truncatus to understand imperative sentences expressed in artificial languages were studied. One dolphin (Phoenix) was tutored in an acoustic language whose words were computer-generated sounds presented through an underwater speaker. The second dolphin (Akeakamai) was tutored in a visually-based language whose words were gestures of a trainer's arms and hands.
Excerpts from Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 20, R860-R861, 23 October 2012
The whale lived among a group of dolphins and socialized with two female white whales. The whale was exposed to speech not only from humans at the surface -- it was present at times when divers used surface-to-diver communication equipment.
Research has revealed that bull sharks bite with almost 6,000N, a force that is greater than what is required to kill and eat prey. In a study published in the journal Zoology, Maria Habegger from Tampa’s University of South Florida, along with colleagues in the US and Germany, examined bite forces produced by 13 shark species and their close relatives, ranging from 1m-long ratfish to the great white shark.
The survey revealed coral “hotspots,” and found that a new coral habitat suitability model could help predict where corals are likely to occur.
The exploration, the first to look for corals and sponges in the area in decades, is helping researchers develop a computer model to determine where other coral hotspots might be found.
More than 70 deepwater canyons, ranging from 330 to 11,500 feet (100 to 3,500 m) deep, exist along the Northeast's continental shelf and slope. Few are well-studied, and many are likely home to as-yet-undiscovered life forms.
The deep-sea coral and sponge habitats observed in the canyons are not like those found in shallow-water tropical reefs or deep-sea coral habitats in other regions
Lionfish have no natural predators and are taking food and habitat from native fish that are important to the local ecology and economy. Lionfish are now found in waters from North Carolina south to Florida, the Caribbean, and all Gulf of Mexico states.
This new manual, Invasive Lionfish: A Guide to Control and Management includes the best available science and practices for controlling lionfish in marine protected areas, national parks, and other conservation areas.
False killer whales in the “Hawaiʻi Insular Stock” (animals found within 76 nautical miles of the main Hawaiian Islands) are being killed in Hawaiʻi-based longlines at nearly twice the sustainable rate, contributing to a 9 per cent decline in the population each year since 1989.
Currently, the Hawaii stock is estimated at 270 whales and the Northern Gulf of Mexico stock at 1040 whales.
Documentation of lung collapse and estimation of the depth at which collapse occurs has been difficult and only obtained in a few species.
Researchers led by Birgitte McDonald at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography netted a female adult California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), anaesthetised the animal and fitted it with loggers to record oxygen pressure in its main artery and the time and depths to which it dived.
There can’t be many dive sites that owe their existence to the direct intervention of the country’s president, but Tasi Tolu, on the outskirts of Timor Leste’s capital Dili, can claim that unique patronage.
