PJH Studios

Tag: ocean

  • Ocean carbon removal

    It feels like science fiction. Sinking carbon into the ocean to combat climate change. But that one on the key idea is to address the problem.

    Researchers are looking into a wide range of approaches to removing carbon from the atmosphere. Some are straightforwardly technical, like direct air capture in giant facilities can use massive fans and specialized membranes to trap carbon dioxide. Other approaches lean on nature, like growing trees and trapping carbon in their biomass underground. 

    Oceans cover the majority of our planet, and in fact they already suck up roughly 30% of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions through a whole host of routes. 

  • Marine ranching

    Artificial reefs to develop fishing populations isn’t a new thing. China, however, is scaling the concept to a degree where they have developed “marine ranches” that provide fishing stock for large populations.

  • Maybe the whales are communicating with us

    If the movie Arrival suggests anything, it’s that communication with other species will have a different language. Whales may be communicating with humans.

    Researchers at the SETI Institute and UC Davis have documented a striking new behavior in humpback whales. These whales, some weighing over 30 tons, are seen producing nearly perfect rings of bubbles that spiral to the surface. These aren’t random puffs. The whales often blow them during close encounters with humans and they seem to be watching what we do next.

  • Swallowed by a whale

    Off the coast of Chile, a kayaker was swallowed (briefly) by a whale,

    “My guess is that the whale was just as surprised as the kayaker,” Dr. Jooke Robbins, director of the Humpback Whale Studies Program at the Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, wrote in an email.

    Humpback whales feed by quickly lunging through a school of fish with their mouths wide open, then straining the water out through their baleen, the fringed plates they have inside their mouths instead of teeth.