Oceans of Opportunity

Author: oceanopportunity

sink or swim

A recent article in the New York Times discussed the importance of knowing how to swim, especially for children, citing that the second leading cause of death for 1 to 19 year olds. With history revealing that modern ‘civilization’ has largely taken root in coastal areas to afford improved commerce and access to various aquatic resources,…

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Making Headlines | Nat Geo Explorers Symposium

Lombardi invited to speak at National Geographic Society’s 2013 Explorers Symposium. His forward presentation of the unique path to make diving a priority vehicle with high intellectual merit as its own field of study stirs controversy among science colleagues.

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another city lost, and found

Erin Burnett, you nailed it – ‘if we keep looking, we’ll always find something’. That’s why we do what we do, and is at the root of our species’ engineering. A recent (10 years ago) archaeological discovery unveiled the lost Egyptian city of Heracleion, with results just now going public. This is the perfect illustration of…

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another birthday

Another birthday. It is certainly funny how time passes, and of how our perception of time passing changes through various stages of life. Some birthdays are highly anticipated with excitement (turning 18 or 21 for example), and others can be a blow to morale (40, 70, etc). In the end, it seems as though celebrating a birthday…

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bumps, bruises, & the bends

Working dives are hard. There’s no way around it. Most often, the tasks we carry out are not with surgical precision – they are with a crowbar. Working divers are they themselves tools of the trade. Much like an ROV that is sent on a  dive equipped to carry out a task, the diver is…

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human ocean exploration – why bother?

Those of us who work and play out there on the edge – be it physically or intellectually – fully appreciate the challenge in self-motivation. There is often no ‘competiton’ per se to drive us along. Our mission comes from within, and we must do all we can to challenge ourselves and make progress. When…

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the lion’s mane

Just as the excitement of milder, but stll very clear, New England waters kickstarts the spring diving season (yes, finally wet suit time!), we’re faced with yet another hazard – lion’s mane jellyfish. Over a decade ago, I believe in 1999 or 2000, Rhode Island waters were heavily infested with these jellies. They were here by…

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humans’ place in frontier exploration

I received an e-invite a few days ago to participate in an online event that suggested participants will be “exploring the ocean without leaving the shore“. Of course this peaked my interests, so I followed some web links around and arrived at the statement, “Just imagine Neil Armstrong never leaving his desk in Houston yet…

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Hand in Hand | the Exosuit and Accessible Ocean Space

This is a special series on a ‘New Life’ by National Geographic Explorer Michael Lombardi as he chronicles his journey through ‘Depth, Time, & Space‘ using the new Exosuit Atmospheric Diving System (ADS). Content syndicated from National Geographic’s Explorers Journal: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/30/hand-in-hand-the-exosuit-and-accessible-ocean-space/#.UYBs3VlMDxk.blogger The journey we’re all on indeed has mysterious ways of revealing itself; all the…

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