Gallery: Satellite view of Bahamas Ocean sands
April 30, 2009
Though you would be forgiven for thinking this picture a work of abstract art, it is actually a photograph of the Bahamas Ocean Sands captured by the Earth-orbiting Landsat 7 satellite.
Ocean currents in the Bahamas made the sand-and-seaweed sculpture in much the same way that winds create sand dunes in the Sahara.
NASA’s Earth Observatory has announced the ten most popular pictures of our home planet from its Image of the Day catalog, the culmination of a user-voted contest marking the tenth anniversary of the observatory’s Web site.
From “The best pictures of Earth: Reader pics of NASA Shots” Gallery, NationalGeographic.com
For full gallery, click HERE
Baby blue whale video
April 13, 2009
A baby blue whale filmed off Costa Rica may be the first to have been photographed underwater and adds to evidence that a blue whale hot spot in the Pacific Ocean is a birthing ground for the endangered species.
During a January 2008 expedition to the “Dome” (a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away) the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface.
“Oh, tell me that one of them is a small blow, please,” Bruce Mate, of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says in the documentary.
One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat and surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers’ protective reputations.
A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed to identify the whale as a baby blue.
From National Geographic. Full article and video HERE
Maldives first carbon neutral country?
March 24, 2009
The pioneering new president of the Indian Ocean nation announces plans for his country – under grave threat from climate change – to go carbon-neutral in a decade
The president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, will today unveil a plan to make his country carbon-neutral within a decade. The announcement comes only days after scientists issued stark new warnings that rising seas caused by climate change could engulf the Maldives and other low-lying nations this century.
The president will formally announce the scheme – and make a plea for other countries to follow the Maldives’ lead – this evening, following the world premiere of The Age of Stupid, a major new climate change film in which a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055 looks at old footage from 2008 and asks why people didn’t stop climate change when they had the chance.
From The Guardian: Read full article here
Loggerhead turtles current-riding 20,000km round-trip
March 16, 2009
A marine biologist has helped fill in the so-called lost years of Australia’s loggerhead turtles by discovering they are using ocean currents to undertake a 20,000-kilometre, round trip across the Pacific Ocean.
Dr Michelle Boyle, of the School of Marine and Tropical Ecology at James Cook University, Queensland, and colleagues used genetic testing to track the migratory behaviour of the Australian-born loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), which hatches in rookeries on the Queensland coast.
Boyle says it appears the endangered turtles use the ocean currents that make up the South Pacific gyre to travel across the southern Pacific Ocean to the waters off Peru and Chile.
In scenes reminiscent of the animated movie Finding Nemo, they then pick up the East Australian Current (EAC), which they “ride” down the coast of eastern Australia.
From ABC Science, Full Article HERE
38cm baby Whale Shark rescued in Philippines
March 12, 2009
A 38cm-long whale shark, the size of a forearm, was rescued and released last week by activists in the waters off Pilar in eastern Philippines. The World Wide Fund for Nature called it “arguably the smallest living whale shark in recorded history.” The group said the tiny whale shark was tied to a small rope on a beach and said the discovery is the first indication that the Philippines coastline may be their birthing ground. In this photo, biologist Embet holds the baby whale shark.
Click HERE for ABC News Baby Animals photograph library.
