Wednesday, December 16, 2009

New Underwater Explorers Go Where Scientists Can't



From Popular Mechanics:

Last week, an unmanned robot completed a 3300-mile trek across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. The 134-pound robot, a glider named the Scarlet Knight, spent months at sea, gathering data on ocean temperature and salinity between the water's surface down to 600 feet below. The Scarlet Knight is just one of many new technologies scientists are turning to in order to research oceans, rivers and lakes—areas that are impractical, and in some cases impossible, for researchers to access themselves. By employing everything from robots to, yes, tadpoles, scientists hope to learn more about how climate change and pollution are affecting the earth's water. Here is some of the newest tech aiding scientists.

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