Word: deep-sea
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Sometime this fall, if all goes well, a revolutionary new undersea vessel will be lowered gently into the waters of Monterey Bay for its maiden voyage. Named Deep Flight I, the 14-ft.-long, 2,900-lb. vehicle is shaped like a chubby, winged torpedo but flies like an underwater bird. Compared with the hard-to-maneuver submersibles that now haul deep-sea explorers sluggishly around the oceans, Deep Flight is an aquatic F-16 fighter. It can perform barrel rolls, race a fast-moving pod of whales or leap vertically right out of the sea. With a touch...
...nearly three-quarters of the planet's surface--336 million cu. mi. of water that reaches an average depth of 2.3 miles. The sea's intricate food webs support more life by weight and a greater diversity of animals than any other ecosystem, from sulfur-eating bacteria clustered around deep-sea vents to fish that light up like New York City's Times Square billboards to lure their prey. Somewhere below there even lurks the last certified sea monster left from pre-scientific times: the 64-ft.-long giant squid...
...swirling ocean currents influence much of the world's weather patterns; figuring out how they operate could save trillions of dollars in weather-related disasters. The oceans also have vast reserves of commercially valuable minerals, including nickel, iron, manganese, copper and cobalt. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are already analyzing deep-sea bacteria, fish and marine plants looking for substances that they might someday turn into miracle drugs. Says Bruce Robison, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California: "I can guarantee you that the discoveries beneficial to mankind will far outweigh those of the space program over...
...these reasons the modern age of deep-sea exploration had to wait for two key technological developments: engineer Otis Barton's 1930 invention of the bathysphere--essentially a deep-diving tethered steel ball--and the invention of scuba (short for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus") by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan in 1943. Swimmers had been trying to figure out how to get oxygen underwater for thousands of years. Sponge divers in ancient Greece breathed from air-filled kettles; bulky-helmeted diving suits linked by hose to the surface first appeared in the 1800s. But it wasn't until...
...weeks since three harbor ferries were hijacked by Cubans hoping to reach Florida. Police and civilian militia patrolled the docks, and all around the bay shipping companies had taken on armed guards to keep their vessels from being stolen. At Hemingway Marina, which plays host to the annual Hemingway deep-sea fishing tournament, the tourist boats were under guard by police...