October 2012 - Page 3 of 3 - Mission Blue

Monthly Archives: October 2012

There’s No Such Thing As a Jellyfish

By Michael Keller
There’s a wide world of seemingly alien, gelatinous animals living in the world’s oceans, and not one of them is a jellyfish. Ease into the workweek with this short trip through the diversity of Scyphozoa, Anthozoans, Cubozoans and their ilk with this video, which got an honorable mention at last year’s International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. The video was made by Steven Haddock, Susan Von Thun, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and jellywatch.org.

Before your mind floats too far into the ocean deep, take a look at these two Cnidarian-inspired creations.

You’re looking at an artificial “jellyfish” created by Caltech and Harvard bioengineers, who put a layer of rat heart cells on a silicone form. When the creation is hit with an external electrical field, it contracts and swims like its namesake.…

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The State of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: The Smithsonian’s Chair of Marine Science Discusses

A new study finds that over the past 27 years, half of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef coral has died. In a recent PBS NewsHour, Gwen Ifill talks to Dr. Nancy Knowlton, a coral reef biologist and chair of Marine Science at the Smithsonian Institution, about ecological and economical consequences of the collapse, as well as measures to help mediate the decline.
Watch and learn more about the state of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.…

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Mission Blue Asks: What is the Largest Animal on Earth?

Mission Blue hits the streets of New York City to ask people in Times Square, what is the largest animal on Earth? Watch below to see what happened!

This is the first video in a new online video series titled, “Mission Blue Asks.” This one and a half minute video premiered last week at the 2012 BLUE Ocean Film Festival in Monterey, CA.
Please watch and share!…

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Marine Ecologist Receives MacArthur Genius Award

Marine Ecologist Nancy Rabalais was announced as one of the 2012 MacArthur Foundation Fellows. The Fellowship is a $500,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more.
Dr. Rabalis is the director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and carries out research documenting the environmental and economic consequences of hypoxic zones in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Rabalis’s work is critical to the creation of strategies for restoring the degraded waters of the Gulf and the Mississippi River basin.

The MacArthur Fellowship is an annual grant program, which recognizes a broad spectrum of high-achieving individuals in fields such as science, medicine, literature, art, journalism, music, economics, filmmaking, mathematics and entrepreneurship. Each of the 23 fellows is bestowed $500,000 without conditions over five years to pursue their insights and ideas for the benefit of the world.…

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