As the captain of a royal research ship, I break ice to get to British stations in the Antarctic. It’s great fun - but getting stuck is always a risk
I have been working for the British Antarctic Survey since I was 19. I started icebreaking on my first trip to the Antarctic and got hooked. Now I am the captain of the royal research ship Sir David Attenborough and I find icebreaking addictive.
It’s unique in a maritime career to have the ability, even as a junior officer, to do quite intricate ship handling and manoeuvring at all stages. Ships break the ice continually, 24/7 – so the whole bridge team gets to do it.
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I’m obsessed with icebreaking: I was trained not to hit anything – now I drive my ship into ice 24/7
01/23/2025 - 05:00
01/23/2025 - 00:00
Exclusive: Treasury analysis shows ticket prices expected to go up across board with no plans for frequent flyers to shoulder more of the cost
Rachel Reeves’s bid to expand Heathrow airport could add £40 to the cost of an airline ticket, according to the Treasury’s own analysis.
The chancellor’s proposal to minimise the carbon emissions of a bigger Heathrow include the use of sustainable aviation fuels, which experts say are expensive and unlikely to reach the scale needed for aviation expansion.
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01/23/2025 - 00:00
A decade ago, up to 1,000 of the apex predators lived in one South African bay. Now they have gone, fleeing from killer whales. But the gap they have left creates problems for other species
The first carcass of a great white, a small female, washed up in South Africa on 9 February 2017. The 2.6-metre-long body had no hook or net marks, ruling out human involvement. Whatever had killed her had vanished. So too had all the other great white sharks in Gansbaai on the Western Cape, Dr Alison Towner noticed.
“We had several sharks acoustically tagged, and later realised three had moved as far as Plettenberg Bay and Algoa Bay, more than 500km [300 miles] east,” says the Rhodes University marine biologist.
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01/19/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00101-6
Offshore wind energy: assessing trace element inputs and the risks for co-location of aquaculture
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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