Black holes in the ocean

According to researchers from the University of Miami and ETH Zurich, some of the world's largest oceans eddies are mathematically equivalent to the black holes in outer space.  However, these eddies are surrounded by such strong water paths that anything that goes in there will not escape.  Our climate is impacted by some of these huge eddies that can be up to 150km in diameter that rotate and drift across the ocean.

The number of eddies is currently reported to be on the rise in the Southern Ocean.   This will  transport salt and warm water up north.  Interestingly, this could moderate the negative impact of melting ice in a warming climate.  But scientists have not been able to quantify the impact so far, because the specific boundaries of these swirling water bodies have yet to be detected.

George Haller who is an oceanography professor at the University of Miami, has come up with a solution to this problem.  In a paper him and his co-workers published, they came up with a new mathematical technique to find water-transporting eddies with coherent boundaries.  The challenge will be finding such eddies to target coherent water islands in a turbulent ocean.

The overall movement and rotation of the fluid motion seems to be quizzical to people looking on the inside and out of an eddy.  Haller and a co-worker Beron-Vera were able to retain order in this mess by isolating coherent water islands from a order of satellite observations.  Haller and Beron-Vera were surprised to discover that such coherent eddies turned out to be mathematically equivalent to black holes.


website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130923114111.htm
picture: http://images.sciencedaily.com/2013/09/130923114111-large.jpg

Dead Zone

Dead zones are low-oxygen areas throughout the world's oceans.  These incidences have been studied by oceanographers since the 1970's.  They have been increasing ever since the oceanographers started studying them.  The dead zones are caused by eutrophication, which is excessive amounts of nutrients in different bodies of water.

This is usually due to the runoff from the land, which causes a voluminous growth of plant life.  All these plants need to go through photosynthesis, so they take the air all the fish breathe which causes more death of the animal life in oceans, lakes, and rivers.

Another problem with the low-oxygen levels is the decrease in the fish reproductive organ productivity.  It causes problems with the decreased reproductive organs, low egg counts, and lack of spawning.

website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/d/dead_zone_(ecology).htm
picture: http://new.coolclassroom.org/files/discoveries/3/dead-zones_fish.jpg

Ocean acidification

Ocean acidification is the name of the continual decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans.  The pH levels measure how clean the oceans are.  This is caused by the increase of human activity.  In other words, its due to our increase in pollution.  

Between 1751 and 2004 surface ocean pH levels are estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14.  The land activity by humans has the combustion of fossil fuels have led to a new flow of CO2 into the atmosphere.  Some has gone up in the air been taken up by terrestrial plants, staying in the atmosphere, but some of it has also been going in the oceans causing it to be polluted.  This also leads to the decrease in the pH levels.



Website:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/o/ocean_acidification.htm
Picture:   www.co2science.org

Dolphins can be alert for 15 days straight!

Dolphins are very alert creatures.  They only sleep with one half of their brain, which makes them stay fully alert for long periods of time.  According to a research done by PLOS ONE, this trait makes dolphins stay alert for 15 days straight! 

Brian Branstetter from the National Marine Mammal Foundation and colleagues discovered that all dolphins can use their echolocation with pin point accuracy consistently for 15 days, locating different targets and monitoring their location.  Branstetter's researchers studied 2 dolphins; one male and one female.  Both were capable of this completing this task for 5 straight days.  The female in particular, accomplished additional tasks for a 15 day period.  But seeing how far they could go was not studied unfortunately.

The trait of sleeping with half of the brain (also called unihemispheric sleep) at a time is said to have evolved in dolphins so that they can surface for air even though they're half asleep.  This new research suggests that staying vigilant may also have played a key role in the evolution of the unique sleeping behavior dolphins possess. "These majestic beasts are true unwavering sentinels of the sea. The demands of ocean life on air breathing dolphins have led to incredible capabilities, one of which is the ability to continuously, perhaps indefinitely, maintain vigilant behavior through echolocation"" says Branstetter." (Science Daily.com)

Website:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121017181244.htm

 Picture:  http://www.follybeach.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Dolphin-face-1.jpg