Tag archives for rays
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Following news earlier this month that 100 million sharks are killed each year by fishermen—an astounding 274,000 every day—global governments agreed this week to offer the ocean predators new protection. At the annual meeting for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Bangkok this week, a coalition of global governments voted to protect five…
Posted by A Google search for anything today should immediately alert you to the fact that the software giant is celebrating the 115th anniversary of the discovery of x-rays. The penetrating radiation—a very high-energy form of light—was first documented by German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895. His famed x-ray picture of his wife’s hand made the…
NASA announced today that they’ve officially decided to postpone the final two space shuttle launches, pushing Discovery’s launch to November and the [supposed] last-ever shuttle launch featuring Endeavour to February 2011. For followers of the intrepid space agency, news of the delay—or any delay, really—will surely come as no surprise. Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off…
NASA may have to bust out an Enigma Machine to figure out what’s going on with the Voyager 2 probe, the second most distant human-made object in space. Yesterday mission managers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena announced that the craft recently started sending back science data in a format no one on Earth…
Posted by Maldives has created three new marine protected areas, including important feeding grounds for manta rays and whale sharks. Photo by Thomas P. Peschak/Save Our Seas Foundation The Indian Ocean archipelago country is famous as a destination for tourists seeking exotic island getaways. But it is also one of the planet’s most important hotspots for many…
As luck would have it, the weather just did not feel like playing nice with me today. I was super excited to see the rain clear up over Washington, D.C., this morning, and I got a couple nice peeks of tonight’s biggest full moon of the year as I was walking home. By the time…
Whew! Egypt = amazing. I can’t even begin to describe the wonder and awe of standing inside a pyramid or walking the Avenue of the Sphinxes or sailing in a felucca on the Nile. It really is something everyone should do at some point in their lives. The best part is that it seems I…
Photograph of the newly discovered Australian reticulate swell shark Cephaloscyllium hiscosellum courtesy CSIRO Marine biologist Sylvia Earle is fond of saying that a teaspoon of ocean water brims with life. She once told me that the sea is full of animals yet to be discovered. That we know less about the ocean floor than we do about…
