The Cayman Islands is making big waves in its efforts to eradicate the invasive lionfish species that preys in its pristine waters with innovative culling techniques and overpopulation management practices.
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Sci-fi fantasy could become a reality for divers who dream of living beneath the surface of the ocean if these forward-thinking projects ever come to fruition.
OCEAN SPIRAL
Billed as “a new interface between humankind and the deep sea,” Ocean Spiral is a wild future-city concept by Japanese engineering corporation Shimizu Corp. designed to solve present-day environmental challenges including shrinking food production, growing energy demand, decreasing freshwater reserves, increasing CO2 emissions and dwindling natural resources.
At the surface, a population up to 5,000 will inhabit the Blue Garden, a floating sphere measuring 1,640 feet in diameter that houses residences, businesses, a hotel, research facilities and other infrastructure in a 75-floor central tower with 360-degree views. Plunging more than 2 miles deep, the Infra Spiral will contain a factory producing power from carbon dioxide using micro-organisms; generators that create energy from seawater through thermal conversion; aquaculture farms to grow food; and a desalinization plant to create fresh water.
At the bottom, the Earth Factory will store CO2 emissions and house a submarine port. Total cost for the self-sustaining city, if built, is estimated at $26 billion, and construction could take five years.
CITY OF MÉRIENS
From the mind of French architect Jacques Rougerie, who also envisioned the Sea Orbiter oceangoing skyscraper, this “universal city” is designed to house an international community of 7,000 scientists, teachers, students and other ocean lovers for extended periods. Measuring almost 3,000 feet long and 1,600 feet wide, the floating structure would offer living quarters, laboratories and classrooms, along with recreation areas and lounge spaces. It’s designed to be self-sustaining and autonomous, running on renewable energy drawn from the surrounding marine environment and leaving behind no waste.
The mantalike design is inspired by the creator’s love for the ocean. “Another type of imagination is awakened in me as soon as I am underwater,” Rougerie told radio station France Inter in 2014.
SUB-BIOSPHERE 2
When Earth becomes uninhabitable due to “a runaway green-house effect, it might be safe living underneath the sea in the long term,” says British designer and futurist Phil Pauley. To preserve all forms of life, the Sub-Biosphere 2 would act as a global seed bank and house 100 people, “the minimum number required to rebuild our species,” Pauley says. In his design, eight biomes recreating Earth’s climatic zones would be arranged around a larger central biome housing integrated life-support systems that link each outer zone to exchange water and air in a manner meant to mimic our planet’s weather. Inside the complex, which measures more than 1,100 feet wide and can be raised or lowered to avoid foul weather or natural disasters, the human inhabitants would interact with each biome to grow hydroponic crops, raise animals, perform research and sustain life as we know it.
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With the need for good PR rather than the desire for improved animal wellbeing as the motivation behind the new orca shows, it is difficult to believe that the orcas’ situation will significantly improve.
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Since dehydration can increase the risk of decompression sickness, it’s important that divers fully understand the science behind why this urge to pee happens when they submerge.
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Eliza Muirhead
The SnotBot is on a mission to silently hover over whales while collecting their snot for research.
There’s a new drone in town, and it’s nothing to sneeze at. OK — maybe that’s exactly what it is. Dubbed the SnotBot, this data-collecting drone was created by Ocean Alliance and Olin College of Engineering and is designed to catch the spray emitted from whales’ blowholes.
The mucus-rich “blow” provides scientists with a wealth of information, such as hormone levels (which can indicate if an animal is stressed or pregnant), evidence of infections (from bacteria, viruses or even environmental toxins) and tissue samples that can be used for DNA analysis.
Ocean Alliance is running a Kickstarter to fund SnotBot, with a little help from former Star Trek actor Sir Patrick Stewart, who has given his support to the new technology.
“I’m asking you to support my good friend Capt. Iain Kerr at Ocean Alliance in their quest for better, more effective, less invasive, innovative research that will give us answers to some of the mysteries about the ocean and particularly whales,” Stewart says in the video.
Traditionally the “snot” was obtained by leaning over the railing of a boat with a 10-foot pole while chasing down the whales. This approach to data collection is invasive and can put undue stress on the animals, which could influence the information retrieved. The SnotBot is designed to study these marine mammals without disturbing them.
“Imagine if everything your doctor knew about your health came from chasing you around a room with a large needle while blowing an air horn,” the SnotBot team says on its Kickstarter page.
SnotBot will hover quietly above the whales and passively collect snot, using spongelike pads as the whales go about their business undisturbed — no chasing, prodding or other stress-inducing activities required.
Research projects of this nature require certain permissions, so Ocean Alliance is seeking approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service for its expeditions later this year.
SnotBots will be used to gather data on whales in three locations: Patagonia, the Sea of Cortez and Frederick Sound, Alaska. Researchers hope to collect snot from previously studied individuals in order to compare the SnotBot’s data to older data collected via traditional methods.
WHALE, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? S’NOT WHAT YOU THINK
Banned in 1986, commercial whaling took a serious toll on whale populations through the years. Although few countries still engage in the activity, its lasting damage has already been done — leaving most whale populations reduced in size by 90 percent or more.
The result of this dramatic loss is that dwindling whale populations were left vulnerable to an ever-increasing throng of anthropogenic threats. Whale fatalities via boat collisions, ingesting plastic pollution, exposure to environmental toxins and entanglement in fishing gear are impacts that a prewhaling population could have shrugged off, but now they can put an entire species as risk.
Ocean Alliance is working to gather new data to better understand how these stressors are affecting whales and what we can do to help them — and SnotBot might help reach that goal.
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