Credit Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013 Northeast U.S. Canyons Expedition
A view of the Deep Discoverer remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the Seirios camera sled in Heezen Canyon, shows just how “up close and personal” the ROV can get to rock outcrops and associated biology.
Credit Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013 Northeast U.S. Canyons Expedition
Deep-sea coral provides a habitat for many other animals. In this image, a pycnogonid or sea spider may be feeding on an anemone while both of them are living on a Paramuricea coral.
Credit Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013 Northeast U.S. Canyons Expedition
A colony with bright color and full branches with many extended polyps would be considered healthy or in good condition. The red lasers (red dots in the photo) are 10 centimeters apart and are used for scale and age estimates.
Credit Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013 Northeast U.S. Canyons Expedition
chemosynthetic mussels of varying sizes were present at New England Seep Site 1. The red lasers (red dots in photo) shown in the photo are 10 centimeters apart and were used throughout the dive to provide scale.
Living Lab: Marine robotics and remote oceanography
We have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of the bottom of the ocean. That’s due entirely to unmanned exploration. The Mars rovers – Curiosity, Spirit, Opportunity – have captured the public’s attention and imagination in recent years.
Here on Earth, remotely operated and autonomous underwater robots are workhorses of oceanography, giving scientists access to deep sea volcanoes and the undersides of polar ice shelves. But they seldom make headlines or become household names like their human-occupied cousins – Alvin, or James Cameron’s submersible Deep Sea Challenger.
Dr. Hanumant Singh of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says he’s okay with that. In fact, he’d like to see the underwater robots he works with become more like commodities than celebrities – nameless machines that are inexpensive enough that scientists can push the envelope and not worry if one robot breaks or fails to return from a mission.
But taking humans out of underwater vehicles doesn’t mean taking them out of the equation. Indeed, Singh and Andy Bowen, Director of the National Deep Submergence Facility at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, emphasize that robots are excellent tools for gathering information but remain pretty inept at the act of making a discovery or translating data into knowledge. Those are functions still reserved for the human brain.
Traditionally, a small number of such human brains would reside in a darkened trailer aboard a research ship bobbing on the surface above whatever patch of seafloor said robot is exploring. But over the past three years, Dr. Tim Shank, a deep-sea biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has been participating in so-called telepresence cruises. He and dozens of other scientists – not to mention school classrooms and members of the public – watch streaming video from a remotely operated vehicle, and communicate with the operators and each other via conference call and internet, all in real-time. It’s like having forty scientists on a research cruise together – a logistically and financially impossible feat.
Shank says the benefits of the telepresence model have exceeded all expectations, generating more discoveries, collaborations, and proposals for further research than anyone imagined.
My family friend Kathy has voted Liberal all her life. This weekend, over Sunday lunch, she asked me “how are we letting him get away with this?”
She was talking about Tony Abbott’s views on women. And on refugees. And on same sex couples, and “on, well, equality and compassion – full stop.”
Kathy’s right. If we don’t stand up for our progressive values, no one else will. If we don’t hold Tony Abbott to account for his views, they’ll go unchallenged right through to election day — when, according to today’s polls, he will become our next Prime Minister. Click here to see our latest ad, featuring his views and spoken by GetUp members:
Every week Tony Abbott makes another comment that reveals very concerning social views. Commentators blow them off as “gaffes”, but this isn’t about gaffes. It’s about values.
It’s about our national character if our Prime Minister labels refugees who seek our help as “illegal”, even as they exercise their legal, human right to flee danger.
It’s about the message we send to young gay and lesbian Australians, if our Prime Minister talks about their equality as a “passing fashion,” and what that does to their self-esteem.
It’s about our values if a Prime Minister talks to “the housewives of Australia as they’re doing their ironing,” says his colleagues are “not just a pretty face” and have “sex appeal” and calls on his opponent to “make an honest woman of herself”.
Prime Ministers reflect our national values, and have the power to change them radically. Does what Tony Abbott says matter? Well, in 17 days he wants to be speaking for all of us. Click here to watch the new ad featuring GetUp members:
Together last election, we raised over $300,000 to put a similar version of this ad on air. It was called “the most effective ad of the election.” Let’s chip in again, and take this updated ad even further.
Let’s not let Tony Abbott’s views on social values, and issues affecting women go unexamined and unchallenged. We’ve had too many people like Kathy asking “how are we letting him get away with this?” And too many men like me wondering what we can do, because we’re fed up with people thinking Tony Abbott speaks for Australian men. Whatever your story, let’s make sure he knows that he doesn’t speak for us.
Let’s speak up,
Sam for the GetUp team.
GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you’d like to contribute to help fund GetUp’s work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Authorised by Sam
Modec currently developing hybrid renewable energy system
Modec, a Japanese engineering firm, is currently developing a new system that harnesses the power of ocean and wind currents in order to generate electricity. The firm is currently developing a small-scale prototype of this system in order to demonstrate its capabilities and how it can be used to produce energy and send this power back to the mainland. The system is designed to generate electrical power offshore and will take advantage of the strong wind and ocean currents that can be found at sea.
System to produce power from the wind and waves
The renewable energy system is to be equipped with vertical-axis wind turbine that will, of course, be located above the water. Below the water’s surface, the system will make use of a vertical-axis wave-powered generator. Ocean currents will cause the generator’s turbines to spin, thereby generating electrical power. This electricity will then be sent back to the mainland to be funneled into an existing energy grid. The system is meant to generate up to 1.5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 500 average homes.
Utility-scale system planned for the near future
While the prototype system is relatively small, the final form of the renewable energy system will be relatively large. The system’s wind turbine may be its largest component, as Modec expects that the turbine itself will account for 80% of the system’s energy potential. The system will be tethered to the mainland by cables that will also transmit the electricity it generates from the sea to the land.
Renewable energy may help protect Japan against major disasters
Modec’s Takuju Nakamura is responsible for the design of the renewable energy system. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Nakamura saw that Japan’s energy infrastructure was not suited for withstanding the impact of major natural disasters. As such, Nakamura has been working to find ways to solve this problem. Renewable energy may be an appropriate solution as clean technologies, such as fuel cells, were able to help keep Japan powered in the weeks following the disaster.
I was recently interviewed by a reporter from a major news organisation about my research on the psychology of nostalgia. The reporter was asking me questions such as, “Isn’t it unhealthy to live in the past?” and, “Does nostalgia keep people from looking forward, planning for the future, and embracing…
A trip down memory lane could do you more good than you might think. Alex Bowyer
I was recently interviewed by a reporter from a major news organisation about my research on the psychology of nostalgia.
The reporter was asking me questions such as, “Isn’t it unhealthy to live in the past?” and, “Does nostalgia keep people from looking forward, planning for the future, and embracing new opportunities?”
Turns out this reporter had spoken to some economists who were pushing the idea that nostalgia is a barrier to living in the present and investing in the future.
I wasn’t terribly surprised that the starting point of our conversation was about how nostalgia might be problematic. After all, this has been the view of this emotion for hundreds of years.
A sad history
When the term nostalgia was coined in the late 18th century, it was employed to describe what was believed to be a cerebral disease unique to Swiss mercenaries fighting wars far from home.
Nostalgia was a source of suffering, causing symptoms such as irregular heartbeats, anxiety, insomnia, and disordered eating.
Eventually, nostalgia evolved from being considered a medical condition to being viewed as a mental disorder similar to depression. And this was the case until the later part of the 20th century.
The problem with this view of nostalgia as unhealthy is that it is empirically unsubstantiated. Past scholars and practitioners did not systematically explore the experience of nostalgia and the effect it had on people.
Nostalgia activates positive states such as increased self-esteem, and feelings of social connectedness. emdot/Flickr
They observed that nostalgia was accompanied by symptoms indicative of ill health (anxiety, for instance, and sadness) and assumed that they were the cause. They didn’t entertain the possibility that the relationship went the other way: nostalgia is a response to distress, not the trigger.
So, nostalgia had a bad rep.
During my interview, I asked the reporter what kind of data these economists had to support the view that nostalgia is harmful. Silence. And then the distant sound of crickets.
A new page
Nostalgia has now received a great deal of attention in the field of empirical psychology and dozens of published studies paint a much more positive picture of this emotion than past scholars did (and some present-day economists evidently).
Many of these studies were conducted by my colleagues and I, and after about ten years of laboratory research, a number of questions about nostalgia can now be answered with data.
Does nostalgia lead to poor mental health? That is, is nostalgia bad for you? No. Studies in which nostalgia is experimentally manipulated indicate that engaging in nostalgic thoughts does not lead to negative emotional states.
Instead, nostalgia activates a number of positive states. Specifically, nostalgia increases positive mood, self-esteem, feelings of social connectedness, and perceptions of meaning in life.
To date, no research has reliably observed any negative psychological consequences of nostalgia.
OK, but why is nostalgia good for people? To answer this question, we need to consider the content of nostalgic memories.
Studies indicate that nostalgic memories are focused on personally treasured life experiences. When people engage in nostalgia, they bring to mind past experiences that they find meaningful.
Nostalgic memories tend to prominently feature the self, but are also very social in nature. People are nostalgic about time spent with close others.
Finally, nostalgic memories are happy memories or at least memories that have happy endings. So nostalgia is good for people because nostalgic reflection allows them to revisit cherished experiences from the past shared with friends and family.
And these experiences make people feel meaningful, valued, loved and happy.
What makes people nostalgic?
Nostalgia has a wide range of triggers. Familiar smells, music, and connecting with old friends on Facebook can activate nostalgia.
Many things can trigger nostalgia, such as music. avern/Flickr
But research shows the experiences that most commonly trigger nostalgia could be described as psychological threats. Loneliness, for instance, is a prominent trigger of nostalgia.
Other psychological threats that have been documented to generate nostalgia include negative moods and feelings of meaninglessness. So past physicians and therapists might have been correct in detecting a relationship between negative emotional states and nostalgia.
But they were wrong about the direction of the relationship. Nostalgia doesn’t trigger distress, distress triggers nostalgia. And, as current research demonstrates, nostalgia promotes good psychological health.
Indeed, nostalgia appears to be the tool people use to counter or cope with negative psychological states.
Is it good?
Nostalgia helps people cope with psychological vulnerabilities. A recent series of studies, for instance, indicates that loneliness leads to nostalgia, which, in turn, increases feelings of social support.
A consequence of being lonely is the feeling that you have no one to turn to for support. And perceived social support is important for mental and physical health.
Nostalgic memories typically involve close relationships and remind people that they have others who care about them. So when people are lonely, they recruit nostalgia to bolster feelings of social support.
Other studies indicate that nostalgia similarly helps people cope with feelings of meaninglessness.
A number of scholars in labs around the world are now studying nostalgia. And a similar picture is emerging across these different labs.
Nostalgia is a healthy emotion that promotes well-being and helps people cope with vulnerabilities and insecurities. Nostalgia is not about living in the past, it is utilising the past to help with struggles in the present.
Nostalgia doesn’t keep people from looking ahead and planning for the future – it helps give them the strength to move forward.
Superstorm task force says as coasts rebuild, they should prep for rising seas, future floods
(Mike Groll, File/ Associated Press ) – FILE – In this Oct. 31, 2012 file photo, a view from the air shows the destroyed homes left in the wake of Superstorm Sandy in Seaside Heights, N.J. New Jersey got the brunt of Sandy, which made landfall in the state and killed six people. A presidential task force charged with developing a strategy for rebuilding coastal areas damaged by Sandy will issue a report on Monday, Aug. 19, 2013, recommending 69 measures that might help insure that coastal areas aren’t as vulnerable to future storms in an age of rising sea levels.
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, August 19, 8:59 PM
NEW YORK — A presidential task force charged with developing a strategy for rebuilding areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy has issued a report recommending 69 policy initiatives, most focused on a simple warning: Plan for future storms in an age of climate change and rising sea levels.The report released Monday by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force says coastal communities should assume floods are going to happen more frequently and realize that spending more now on protective measures could save money later. It calls for development of a more advanced electrical grid less likely to be crippled in a crisis, and the creation of better planning tools and standards for communities rebuilding storm-damaged areas.
“Decision makers at all levels must recognize that climate change and the resulting increase in risks from extreme weather have eliminated the option of simply building back to outdated standards and expecting better outcomes after the next extreme event,” the report says.Some of the group’s key recommendations are already being implemented, including the creation of new flood-protection standards for major infrastructure projects built with federal money and the promotion of a sea-level modeling tool that will help builders and engineers predict where flooding might be an issue in the future.
The task force also endorsed an ongoing competition, called “Rebuild by Design,” in which 10 teams of architects and engineers from around the world are exploring ways to address vulnerabilities in coastal areas.
President Barack Obama created the task force in December. Its chairman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, said in a statement that the group focused on finding ways to cut red tape in the delivery of disaster aid and “piloting innovative strategies that can serve as a model for communities across the nation as they prepare for the impacts of climate change.”
In its report, the task force didn’t delve deeply into what types of infrastructure might be best suited to protect the shoreline. It endorsed a greater use of natural barriers like wetlands and sand dunes, but said better tools were needed to help planners evaluate what works and quantify the long-term cost benefits of those types of green projects. It also said those projects should be planned regionally if they are to have their greatest effect.
It said the government should find ways to encourage the private-sector development of fuel distribution and telecommunications systems less likely to be crippled by extended power outages. After Sandy, drivers in New York and New Jersey had problems finding gas stations that still had fuel because of a series of problems that rippled through the distribution system. Mobile phone networks were snuffed out in some areas because of equipment that lacked adequate battery power, or other backup electrical supplies.
A large section of the report dealt with how federal authorities should respond once a storm has struck.
Among the recommendations:
— Federal agencies should streamline their review processes for reconstruction projects related to Sandy. It said that if standard government permitting timelines are applied, some rebuilding projects might have to undergo redundant reviews by multiple agencies and could be held up as long as four years. Some of those reviews will be consolidated to save time and money, the task force said.
— The Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, which gave $3.8 billion in low-interest loans to storm victims, performed better than it did during Hurricane Katrina but should be tweaked further. Training programs for loan officers should be improved. Eligibility for some loans should be loosened slightly. Approvals should happen faster for people who meet credit requirements. A separate application track should be established for small businesses, which often need money fast to survive but wind up languishing in long queues behind huge numbers of homeowners.
— Federal mortgage policies should be revised so homeowners can get insurance checks faster. After Sandy, many homeowners complained that mortgage banks delayed delivering their insurance payments because of bureaucratic issues.
On one vital issue related to insurance, the task force had no easy solution.
It noted that because of reforms to the financially distressed National Flood Insurance Program that began before the storm, many thousands of people who live in low-lying areas will likely see huge premium increases if they don’t lift their homes up on pilings. The task force said that for many homeowners, both options will be unaffordable. It recommended further study of that dilemma.
The WGM project has been launched in early 2008 in collaboration with Commission for the Geological Map of the World (CGMW) and UNESCO. It aims to the diffusion of digital global gravity anomaly maps (free air and Bouguer) for educative and research purposes.
The WGM project is a gravity mapping project undertaken under the aegis of the Commission for the Geological Map of the World (CGMW) to complement a set of global geological and geophysical digital maps published and updated by CGMW, such as the World Digital Magnetic Anomaly Map (WDMAM), released in 2007. This new global digital map aims to provide a high-resolution picture of the gravity anomalies of the world based on the available information on the Earth gravity field.
The WGM project is conducted by the Bureau Gravimetrique International (BGI), a center of the International Gravity Field Service (IGFS) of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) with the support of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The gravity data compilation will include the available measurements issued from land, marine and airborne surveys and archived in our global database, as well as new available gravity datasets collected from recent surveys or available in other global or regional databases. Major contributions to WGM include the official EGM08 global model, recently released by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA, USA), as well as the new global ocean gravity field derived from satellite altimetry (DNSC08 computed at the Danish National Space Center and Sandwell and Smith models computed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography).
As other geophysical maps published by CGMW, the WGM aims to be regularly updated according to the incoming gravity dataset.
Institutions who are interested to contribute to WGM are invited to contact us
Update (June 2012) : Publication of new global gravity anomaly maps (CCGM-BGI-CNES-IRD Eds.)
World Gravity Map (WGM) denotes a set of 3 global anomaly maps of the Earth’s gravity field realized by the Bureau Gravimétrique International (BGI), a service of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG). These new products, realized for the Commission for the Geological Map of the World (CGMW), UNESCO, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) and International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), represent the first gravity anomaly maps computed in spherical geometry, that take into account a realistic Earth model. The gravity anomaly maps presented here (Bouguer, isostatic and surface free-air) are derived from available Earth gravity models (EGM2008, DTU10) and include high resolution terrain corrections that consider the contribution of most surface masses (atmosphere, land, oceans, inland seas, lakes, ice caps and ice shelves). New theoretical developments have been performed to achieve accurate computations at global scale using spherical harmonic approach (Balmino, G., Vales, N., Bonvalot, S. and Briais, A., 2011. Spherical harmonic modeling to ultra-high degree of Bouguer and isostatic anomalies. Journal of Geodesy. DOI 10.1007/s00190-011-0533-4).
Such gravity anomaly, which point out the density heterogeneities in the Earth’s interior (crust, mantle…), are used in a large variety of applications: physics of the Earth, structural geology, geodesy (shape of the Earth, geoid), exploration of natural resources (oil or mining prospecting), etc. Soon available in a digital form, these maps will be regularly updated and distributed for research and education purposes.
This project, led by Bureau Gravimétrique International (BGI), has benefited from the collaboration of various research institutes from different countries (France, Germany, Australia, Denmark, USA).
Reference :
Bonvalot, S., Balmino, G., Briais, A., M. Kuhn, Peyrefitte, A., Vales, Biancale, R., Gabalda, G., Moreaux, G., Reinquin, F. Sarrailh, M. World Gravity Map, 1:50000000 map, Eds. : BGI-CGMW-CNES-IRD, Paris, 2012.
Ordering :
CGMW, 77 rue Claude Bernard, 75005 Paris, France. ccgm@club-internet.fr ; www.ccgm.org
IRD Editions, 44 Bd de Dunquerke, 13572 Marseille cedex 02, France. editions@ird.fr ; www.editions.ird.fr
Contact :
BGI, Obs. Midi-Pyrénées, 14 av. Ed. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France. bgi@cnes.fr ; bgi.obs-mip.fr
Update (Feb. 2010) : CGMW General Assembly, Paris, Fev. 2010
It has been proposed during the last CGMW General Assembly held in UNESCO Paris (Feb. 15, 2010) to provide a first release of WGM Free Air and Bouguer anomaly maps fully based on the official Earth Gravitational Model EGM08.
EGM08 is currently the best available global gravity model mixing surface and satellite data over land and sea areas (best WGM candidate).
This version 1.0 of WGM is expected to be released during year 2010.
Science & Environment
Science & Environment
Utility-scale system planned for the near future
Follow Us!