One oyster filters 50 gallons of water per day - TED video

Kate Orff: Reviving New York's rivers -- with oysters!

TEDtalksDirector | January 31, 2011 | Architect Kate Orff sees the oyster as an agent of urban change. Bundled into beds and sunk into city rivers, oysters slurp up pollution and make legendarily dirty waters clean -- thus driving even more innovation in "oyster-tecture." Orff shares her vision for an urban landscape that links nature and humanity for mutual benefit.

Endangered Seahorses - BBC video

BBC Worldwide: Philippe Cousteau and the team come face-to-face with one of the Indian Ocean's most mysterious creatures, the Seahorse. As the team race against time to identify one of the ocean's most cryptic animals, they make a remarkable discovery.

A Deadly Migration through Monterey Bay - NationalGeographic

A Deadly Migration through Monterey Bay. NationalGeographic — April 01, 2010 — Every spring, a series of epic battles are fought in the waters off America's west coast. It's the season when killer whales hunt their largest prey - gray whales that are migrating up the coast.

What is an island?

"Although “island” tends to conjure images of small bodies of land surrounded by water, such as Bermuda, or the Falkland Islands, this is not the only kind of island out there. Lakes are islands of water surrounded by land. Caves are islands of darkness surrounded by light. Oases are islands of fertility surrounded by sand. In short, an island is any self-contained patch of habitat within some larger sea. Looked at this way, the garden outside my window is an island of parkland in an ocean of bricks and concrete."

References:
Divide and Diminish. NYTimes.

Vampire Squid Turns Itself "Inside Out" - National Geographic Video

The vampire squid can turn itself "inside out" to avoid predators. This new video was released by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute to emphasize the need to protect species like this in the deep oceans from the effects of human activities.

The Suez Canal - 100 Wonders of the World

This series of blog posts is based on the book 100 Wonders of the World by Michael Hoffman and Alexander Krings.

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From Wikipedia:

The Suez Canal is a man-made sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

Opened in November 1869, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa. The northern terminus is Port Said and the southern terminus is Port Tawfik at the city of Suez.

The canal is 192 km (119 mi) long. It consists of the northern access channel of 19.5 km/12.1 mi, the canal itself of 162.25 km/100.82 mi and of the southern access channel of 8.5 km/5.3 mi.

It is single-lane and contains no locks; seawater flows freely through the canal. The canal is owned and maintained by Egypt.

Construction by Suez Canal Company

In 1854 and 1856 Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from Sa'id Pasha, the viceroy of Egypt, to create a company to construct a canal open to ships of all nations. The company was to operate the canal for 99 years from its opening.

The excavation took some 10 years using forced labour of Egyptian workers. Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that altogether more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed and that thousands of laborers died on the project.

The British government had opposed the project of the canal from the outset to its completion. The British Empire was the major global naval force and officially condemned the forced work and sent armed bedouins to start a revolt among workers.

The canal opened to shipping on 17 November, 1869. The final cost was more than double the original estimate.

The canal had an immediate and dramatic effect on world trade. Combined with the American transcontinental railroad completed six months earlier, it allowed the entire world to be circled in record time.

It played an important role in increasing European colonisation of Africa. External debts forced Said Pasha's successor, Isma'il Pasha, to sell his country's share in the canal for £4,000,000 to the United Kingdom in 1875, but French shareholders still held the majority.

Capacity

Suezmax is a naval architecture term for the largest ships capable of transiting the Suez Canal fully loaded, and is almost exclusively used in reference to tankers. Improvements are planned to increase draft to 22 m (72 ft) by 2010, allowing passage of fully laden supertankers.

By 1955 approximately two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through the canal. About 7.5% of world sea trade is carried via the canal today. In 2008, a total of 21,415 vessels passed through the canal and the receipts from the canal totaled $5.381 billion - one of Egypt's most important source of capital. Average cost per-ship is roughly $250,000.00

References:

Suez Canal. Wikipedia.

Colonialism and the 'scramble for Africa' - CNN.com http://goo.gl/pRwJ

TED Talks: "How I fell in love with a fish"

Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. With impeccable research and deadpan humor, he chronicles his pursuit of a sustainable fish he could love, and the foodie's honeymoon he's enjoyed since discovering an outrageously delicious fish raised using a revolutionary farming method in Spain.

When Sea Levels Attack: What does a meter sea level rise actually mean?

In this diagram, the authors tried to sum up all the current research on sea level rises. What will happen, when it will happen, and where the sea water is coming from. In an effort to make the information easier to relate to, they have also thrown in which key cities around the world will be most affected by the rises.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/22/information-beautiful-sea-level-rise-climate-change

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/feb/22/information-beautiful-sea-level-rise-climate-change#zoomed-picture

Extreme Sailing - BBC

Extreme Sailing - How Earth Made Us - Series 1 Episode 3 Preview - BBC Two. Professor Iain Stewart continues his epic exploration of how the planet has shaped human history.

Video: "Time to go in the sea"

Time to Go in the SEA! from allan wilson on Vimeo.

Link via @sandnsurf