What Did Scientists Learn from Deepwater Horizon?
says. “Understanding what these environments look like in their natural state is really critical to understanding the impact of oil spill conditions.”Additional authors of the review are chemist Ryan P. Rodgers (Florida State University), and microbiologists J. Cameron Thrash (University of Southern California, Los Angeles), David L. Valentine (University of California Santa Barbara), and Helen K. White (Haverford College)
Students Face Off in Underwater Competition
; Prairie View A&M University; Project Radian; San Diego City College; San Diego State University; University of Arizona; University of California Riverside; University of Central Florida; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Florida; University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; University of Southern California; and Utah State University.International teams included: Brazil’s Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; Canada’s McGill University, University of British Columbia and University of Victoria; China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University; India’s Indian Institute
New Virus Found in the Ocean
supported by the National Science Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ocean Ventures Fund, “opens new avenues for furthering our understanding of the roles of viruses in the ocean,” said Jed Fuhrman, the McCulloch-Crosby Chair of Marine Biology at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in this work. “In a practical sense, it also shows how we need to alter some commonly used methods in order to capture these kinds of viruses for various studies,” Fuhrman told the MIT News Office, “I’d say it is an important advance
Obituary: Stewart B. Nelson
multifaceted career was principally spent in service to his country in his position as aide to the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy and in this capacity he was the Senior Advisor to the to the Oceanographer, a Rear Admiral Flag position. Dr. Nelson who later earned a Ph.D, from the University of Southern California, was a pivotal figure in the modern era of the Naval Oceanographic Office. His positions in marine nongovernmental organizations such as the Marine Technology Society and as president of the American Oceanic Organization established him as a key figure in the Washington, D.C. ocean
Climate Change Could Alter Key Ocean Bacteria
because it converts atmospheric nitrogen gas into biologically usable forms of nitrogen that other organisms, such as phytoplankton, can use. An abundant supply of nitrogen is important to support a wide variety of marine life, from algae to whales. A team led by researchers at the University of Southern California found that trichodesmium generates more nitrogen and reproduces faster when exposed to the high levels of carbon dioxide that are expected to exist in the world's oceans in the year 2100 due to climate change, according to the university. But even though this evolutionary adaptation
How Do Desert Storms Affect Ocean Phytoplankton?
to make the prediction: If there’s more dust, will the ocean take up more carbon? That’s a big-picture question that we can’t totally answer with this, but we have one piece on the way to answering that.” Seth John, an associate research professor at the University of Southern California, says that unlike major nutrients like nitrate and phosphate, which phytoplankton can access via upwelling of seawater from the deep ocean, supplies of iron come mostly from the surface ocean. “The short residence time of iron in the surface ocean means that there must
Oceanology International China Keynote Address Confirmed
Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development (ASNR&D) and later as Deputy Director of Navy Laboratories. During his 24-year naval career he served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. In 1975 he retired as a captain to accept a professorship of ocean engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). There he became founding Director of the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies (IMCS) with rank of dean. He left USC after eight years to form IMI, his present consulting practice. Since its founding, IMI has completed nearly 100 projects in 20 countries. Dr. Walsh is author
Autonomous Robot Maps Ship Hulls for Mines
needs to follow to view an entire ship. “Over a minute or two of computation, we’re able to make tremendous improvements to the length of this path, and do so while keeping every single point in view,” Englot says. Gaurav Sukhatme, a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California who was not involved in this work, sees the group’s work as an integrated approach to multiple problems, including “the extraordinary amount of data the vehicle has to intelligently process, and the safety considerations when operating near a hull that is being imaged or
February 2024
