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Passion for ocean: 14-year-old Dutch girl sets off on solo sail around the world under the Sea Shepherd flag
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Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Founder and President, Captain Paul Watson, along with Laurens de Groot, had a unique conversation around midnight on August 3, 2010 while driving north on Highway 405 from San Clemente to Los Angeles, California. It was early morning in the small Dutch harbor of Den Ostse in the Netherlands when Captain Watson called Laura Dekker—a 14-year-old sailor from the Netherlands—just as she was setting out with her 38-foot sailing yacht Guppy to begin her quest to be the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe solo.
Dekker was born on her parent’s sailing yacht off the coast of New Zealand. She has already crossed the North Sea solo at the age of thirteen. Two months ago, Dekker met with Sea Shepherd Netherlands Director Geert Vons and Laurens de Groot in the Sea Shepherd Amsterdam office. She asked if she could fly the Sea Shepherd flag and promote the efforts of Sea Shepherd during her voyage.
Vons, de Groot, and everyone else within Sea Shepherd Netherlands and Sea Shepherd International were immediately enthusiastic. read more »
Nature runs away from human pollution into deep sea to sustain its mysterious miracles - unidentified marine life.
Spectacular deep-sea species: newly discovered purple octopus and species of vase sponge was one of the bottom dwellers.
Australia's dragonfish uses many fangs to hook hard-to-find prey in the cold, dark depths.
Top left: Gulf of Mexico's Venus flytrap anemone acts much like its terrestrial namesake, stinging its prey with an array of tentacles. Bottom right: an unidentified sea pen discovered on Atlantic coast off Newfoundland.
Top: unrecognizable sponge species found on volcanic mounds off Newfoundland. Bottom: recently identified species of bivalve mollusk was also discovered in survey of Newfoundland depths.
Phronima sedentaria sets up house by attacking and then hollowing out a transparent jellyfish-like animal called a salpa. Inset: Found in China, the spider conch a mollusk, one of the most common groups of species in the new Census of Marine Life inventory.
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Plastiki, 20x60ft boat from 12,500 plastic bottles, sails 130 days & 8,000 nautical miles across Pacific Ocean, reaches Sydney
Epic Voyage
The Plastiki and crew have reached the end of their epic voyage which has taken them through the Pacific Ocean on an 8,000 nautical mile adventure lasting over 130 days. On Jul 26, 2010, 'plastiki' reached its final destination, sailing its way into Sydney Harbour, bringing with it a warning on pollution & on plastic waste in the oceans.
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The Plastiki is a distinctive, one-of-a-kind 60-foot (20m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products.The craft was built using cradle to cradle design philosophies and features many renewable energy systems, including solar panels, wind and trailing propeller turbines, and bicycle generators.
On March 20, 2010, the sailing vessel set off from San Francisco, California with a six-man crew, including David de Rothschild, to sail across the Pacific Ocean. The expedition projected landfall in Sydney, Australia and included plans to visit several sites en route of ecological importance or which were susceptible to environmental issues caused by global warming, for instance the current sea level rise, ocean acidification and marine pollution. read more »
Zephyr, unmanned plane doubled 30-hour record set in 2001 - significance: solar powered, hand-launched, non-stop 82-hour flight
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Bertrand Piccard - "The pioneer is not always the one who succeeds, but the one who is not scared to fail." 'Zephyr is the world's first and only truly persistent aeroplane,' said Neville Salkeld, MD of QinetiQ's UK Technology Solutions Group. This amazing aircraft, launched by hand, can provide low-cost, non-stop surveillance over persistent surveillance and communications capability measured in terms of weeks, if not months. Not only is Zephyr game-changing technology, it is also significantly more cost effective to manufacture and deploy than traditional aircraft and satellites.'
British solar-powered unmanned drone finally lands after flying non-stop for two weeks: It has more than doubled the unofficial record of more than 82 hours already held by Zephyr and has smashed the official record of more than 30 hours set in 2001 read more »
Hawaii first to ban shark fin soup. Yao Ming: "Endangered species are our friends", stop shark fin soup, stop shark killing
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World's First Ban on Shark Fin Makes Hawaii Global Leader in Shark Conservation
HONOLULU, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- On the eve of the State of Hawaii becoming the first jurisdiction to ban sales of shark fin soup, local and international conservation groups praised the ground-breaking move as a first step to halting the decimation of global shark stocks.
Fins from up to 70 million sharks a year are used for shark fin soup often with the bodies of the animal dumped overboard dead or alive. In a recent study the world's top shark scientists (IUCN Shark Specialist Group) reported that of 64 species of open ocean sharks and rays 32% are "threatened with extinction," primarily due to overfishing. In addition, 24% were "near threatened," while another 25% could not be assessed due to lack of data. Yet only 3 species have any kind of international protection and the UN CITES convention recently declined to take any action due to opposition led by Japan. read more »
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land... - Franklin D. Roosevelt
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Solar powered 1st nonstop 26hr night flight, longest distance, highest altitude: Swiss Solar Impulse marks Solar Aviation Era
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Aviation News [July 8, 2010] Swiss Plane Completes First Solar-Powered Overnight Flight
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA, a Swiss solar-powered plane, completed the first non-stop night flight on solar energy after flying 26 hours and 9 minutes. It was the longest solar flight at the highest altitude in aviation history, Solar Impulse announced on Thursday.
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA has a huge wingspan, equal to the Airbus A340’s 63.4 meters. It includes approximately 12,000 photovoltaic cells, most of them on the wing and around 880 on the horizontal stabilizer.
The plane took off on Wednesday morning from the Payerne airbase with André Borscherg, CEO and co-founder of the Solar Impulse project, at the controls. The HB-SIA flew at an altitude of 8,500 meters until 11:00 p.m., when the sun rays stop being enough to supply the solar cells. read more »
Michael Jackson's Earth Song: "The crying Earth, the weeping shores".. 2010 Oil gush.. opened but unable to heal Earth's crust?
Michael Jackson, King of Pop (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)
(click on above image to see HOME - the documentary on Youtube)
"Earth Song"
(written & composed by Michael Jackson, released on November 27, 1995)
Lyric excerpts:
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What about sunrise
What about rain
What about all the things
That you said we were to gain...
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we've shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
The crying Earth the weeping shores?
Aaaaaaaaaah Aaaaaaaaaah
What have we done to the world
Look what we've done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son...
What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice read more »
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