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.
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.
White syndrome' is a name given to a number of diseases exhibiting similar symptoms, such as such as white pox, white band and white plague disease. The causes of white syndrome are in many cases unknown. White syndrome has increased in abundance 20-fold in the last five years, with increases on inner, mid-shelf and outer-shelf reefs along the length of the Great Barrier Reef. It also had a major impact on Caribbean reefs. In areas of the Great Barrier Reef surveyed, white syndrome, along with skeletal eroding band, was the most common disease.
Investigating deep waters off Bahamas, US-based researchers recorded the glow of tiny bioluminescent species using a submersible vehicle.
Descending to sites between 600 and 1000m down, the scientists observed flashes of bioluminescence where plankton collided with boulders and corals.
The team also studied how crustaceans react to this light, and found previously unknown sensitivities to blue and ultra violet wavelengths.
The PhD study bt Dr. Susan Theiss showed that the wobbegong visual system contains only a single class of cone photoreceptor. Cone photoreceptors are the retinal cells that are used for vision under bright light conditions, whereas as rod photoreceptors are used in dim light.
These previous studies looked at opsins, which are light-sensitive proteins found in the photoreceptor cells of the retina. Rod opsins are used in low light and produce a black and white image, while cone opsins are used in bright light, and often to see colours.
South Georgia is the most well-known of the Falkland Islands, also called Islas Malvinas. It lies nearly at the end of the world in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. To find this place on the map, draw an equilateral triangle with one vertex on Cape Horn and another on the Antarctic Peninsula. The third vertex in the east is our destination.
It’s an unsettled kind of morning on Chedabucto Bay of Canada’s east coast. The sun is shining—it’s really quite pleasant—but there’s a brisk wind blowing from the southwest. What that translates into here in the waters between Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia is heavy seas. We’re pounding through four to six foot swells in a 25-foot rigid hull inflatable boat.
Long after the jet lag and the first day back to work, you slip into your favorite dive T-shirt eager to keep the essence of your most recent underwater experience pulsing through your mind and body. Proudly wearing large print logos across your chest is a way of celebrating your passion for diving and sharing it with the rest of the world.
