Great White sharks looking for Love

An area of concentrated activity between Hawaii and the Baja Peninsula, known as the “White Shark Cafe” is revealed in this map by 47 great whites equipped with satellite tags.

Satellite tagging by TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators - www.topp.org) reveals a previously unknown behavior of white sharks travelling long distances each winter to concentrate in the Pacific for up to six months. During these months, both males and females make frequent, repetitive dives to depths of 300 meters, which researchers theorize may be significant in either feeding or mating habits and reproduction.

“There is something going on there but as yet we don’t know,” said marine biologist Professor Ron O’Dor. “Maybe it’s just a good place to pick up girl sharks.”

The Census of Marine Life is a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The world’s first comprehensive Census of Marine Life - past, present, and future - will be released in 2010.

Census of Marine Life Project Map

Creating Nitrogen from water, the natural way

Researchers have split water into hydrogen and oxygen by replicating how plants use photosynthesis to make carbohydrates.

The team of Australian and US researchers says their findings could lead to a cheap and easy way of making hydrogen, which many experts believe is the green fuel of the future.

Although scientists have been able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for years, current techniques use expensive chemicals as the catalyst which prohibits any move to a commercial product.

This latest research is different in its approach to other water splitting research because it copies nature by using similar processes and chemicals to those used in plants.

The team plans to further that connection by using chlorophyll-like molecules to harvest light rather than an electric current.

From ABC Science

Video: The Goblin Shark bite, its just plain strange…

The goblin shark is a deep-sea shark with a most unorthodox shaped head. It has a long, trowel-shaped, beak-like snout, much longer than other sharks. Some other distinguishing characteristics of the shark are the color of its body, which is mostly pink, and its long, protrusible jaws, which basically means it look like an Alien…

Goblin sharks are found in the deep ocean, far below where the sun’s light can reach at depths greater than 200 m. They can be found throughout the world, from Australia in the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic Ocean.They are best known from the waters around Japan, where the species was first discovered.

Goblin sharks feed on a variety of organisms that live in deep waters. Among some of their known meals are deep-sea squid, crabs and deep-sea fishes and occassionally they’ll have a go at diver’s arm, mmmhh!

Cheers for the tip Limbic

Original YouTube Vid

Photos: The Amazing Sunfish in Bali

The sunfish is the largest and most fertile bony fish in the world. It is also the wierdest looking fish you’re ever likely to see.

Some sharks (such as the whale shark and great white) can grow larger, but these are cartilaginous fish, rather than bony fish. Sunfish can produce massive numbers of eggs: one female caught off Florida was carrying 300 million eggs. This makes the cane toad look quite modest, producing a mere 60,000 eggs per clutch.

Sunfish tend to lie on their side close to the surface of the ocean, appearing to bask in the warmth of the sun, say researchers at the Large Pelagic Research Lab at the University of New Hampshire. They may be ‘thermally recharging’ after diving to depths where their bodies have been significantly cooled by the deep water.

From ABC Australia: Read more

Whale fin study directly improves wind turbine energy efficiency

Researchers are working to translate the natural innovations in Dolphin & Whale evolution into manmade technologies on land, air and sea.

Frank Fish of West Chester University in Pennsylvania began to study the humpback whale fin after he noticed bumps along the front edge of the flipper. “It just didn’t make sense,” Fish said. One of the cardinal lessons of fluid mechanics is that the leading edge of a fin or wing needs to be smooth to create the flow that provides lifting force.

Through modeling and wind tunnel studies done by colleagues, Fish determined that the bumps on the whales’ fins do indeed serve an important purpose. Among its advantages is it overcomes what’s known as “stall” — the angle at which a wing no longer experiences lift, but only drag, so it loses its ability to act as an airfoil.

Putting bumps across the leading edge of a wind turbine would mean that the blades can be oriented at a higher angle to capture more of the wind without worrying about stall — which can damage the turbines.

Fish has teamed up with Stephen Dewar to form the Toronto-based company WhalePower to commercialize this approach. They are also targeting industrial fans. “We can move more air and ventilate more area with fewer blades,” Fish added. The whale-inspired fans also use 20 percent less power and operate with one-fifth the noise of a standard fan, Dewar said.

From Discovery Channel: Read more

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