Word: coasted
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...oysters aged 12 and 18 months being raised in France's Atlantic cultivation beds had died. The reason, officials at the French Institute for Research Into Use of the Sea (Ifremer) say, is Oyster Herpes Virus type 1 (OsHV-1). That virus, has proliferated along France's Atlantic coast due to a mild winter and abundant rains that allowed ocean water to remain warm, scientists believe. Those same conditions have also created an abundance of plankton - a cornucopia of nutrition that the shellfish have gorged...
...make matters worse, the same climatic changes that caused the abundance of herpes and plankton on the Atlantic coast - and which contributed to an explosion of jellyfish in Mediterranean waters have also caused a proliferation of Vibrio splendidus bacterium. The effects of that bacteria left younger oysters both more vulnerable to herpes infection, and less capable of battling the virus as it killed them. Scientists fear that as waters heat up thanks to global warming oysters may regularly face such conditions in the future, disrupting France's annual oyster production of 120,000 tons - the largest in Europe and fourth...
...bodysurfing. His favorite spot is a place called Sandy's Beach on the windward side of the island. Much of Oahu outside of Waikiki is for locals - in fact, the island has permitted the construction of only four hotels outside of Waikiki - and the eastern coast, where Sandy's is found, is no exception. Known as "breakneck beach" for its 5- to 10-ft. waves that crash into the sand vertically, Sandy's often leaves unwary bodysurfers with painful memories. (Note to first-timers: Hawaiians, like surfers, measure waves from the top of a person's back to the crest...
...base at Kangerlussuaq, puddles of blue glacial melt begin to appear - vast, unblinking eyes that reflect the sky back up. Then the whiteness is suddenly ruptured and the ice wrinkles and thins, revealing slashes of rock beneath the 2.9 million cubic km of ice. By the time the coast comes into sight, the ice sheet ends abruptly, leaving bare brown dirt and rock. Finally, as we descend to Kangerlussuaq, the green in Greenland is visible...
...Kangerlussuaq, which sits just off the rocky northwest coast of Greenland, is also home to one of the largest glaciers in the world, one that is melting speedily, pouring freshwater and the occasional iceberg into Baffin Bay. After getting properly outfitted for our trip to NEEM the next day - our weather forecast is in the teens, but temperatures really can be polar even during the summer - we take a car trip out to the vanishing edge of the glacier, some 30 km outside town. It's the waning hours of the afternoon, though it's hard to tell; time loses...