Category Archives: High Seas

Todays chart is best viewed full-screen. Explore the high resolution version by clicking here.

Sailors have been circumnavigating the high seas for centuries now, but what could be found beneath the sunlit surface of the ocean remained a mystery until far more recently. In fact, it wasnt until 1875, during the Challenger expedition, that humanity got its first concrete idea of how deep the ocean actually was.

Todays graphic, another fantastic piece by xkcd, is a unique and entertaining look at everything from Lake Superiors ice encrusted shoreline down to blackest, inhospitable trench (which today bears the name of the expedition that first discovered it).

The graphic is packed with detail, so well only highlight a few points of interest.

Deep in Siberia, abutting a mountainous stretch of the Mongolian border, is the one of the most remarkable bodies of water on Earth: Lake Baikal. There are a number of qualities that make Lake Baikal stand out.

Depth: Baikal, located in a massive continental rift, is the deepest lake in the world at 1,642m (5,387ft). That extreme depth holds a lot of fresh water. In fact, an estimated 22% of all the worlds fresh water can be found in the lake.

Age: Baikal (which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is estimated to be over 25 million years old, making it the most ancient lake on the planet.

Clarity: Interestingly, the water in the lake is exceptionally clear. In winter, visibility can extend over 30m (98ft) below the surface.

Biodiversity: The unique ecosystem of Lake Baikal provides a home for thousands of plant and animal species. In fact, upwards of 80% of those species are endemic, meaning they are unique to that region.

Since 1964, a hard-working research submersible named Alvin has been helping us better understand the deep ocean. Alvin explored the wreckage of RMS Titanic in 1986, and helped confirm the existence of black smokers (one of the weirdest ecosystems in the world).

Though most of the components of the vessel have been replaced and upgraded over the years, its still in use today. In 2020, Alvin received an $8 million upgrade, and is now capable of exploring 99% of the ocean floor.

We know more about the surface of Venus than the bottom of the ocean. The potential for discovery is huge. Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Professor of Microbiology, PSU

The deepest point in the ocean is the Mariana Trench, at 11,034 meters (36,201 feet).

This trench is located in the Pacific Ocean, near Guam and the trenchs namesake, the Mariana Islands. While the trench is the most extreme example of ocean depths, when compared to surface level distance, its depth is shorter than Manhattan.

Obviously, the context of surface distance is wildly different than vertical distance, but it serves as a reminder of how narrow the explorable band of the Earths surface is.

The ancient Greek word, byssos, roughly means unfathomable, bottomless gulf. While there is a bottom (the abyssopelagic zone comprises around 75% of the ocean floor), the enormous scale of this ecosystem is certainly unfathomable.

Objectively, the abyssal plain is not the prettiest part of the ocean. Its nearly featureless, and lacks the panache of, say, a coral reef, but there are still some very compelling reasons were eager to explore it. Resource companies are chiefly interested in polymetallic nodules, which are essentially rich manganese formations scattered about on the sea bottom.

Manganese is already essential in steel production, but demand is also getting a substantial lift from the fast-growing electric vehicle market. The first company to find an economical way to harvest nodules from the ocean floor could reap a significant windfall.

Demand for resources can force humans into some very inhospitable places, and in the case of Deepwater Horizon, we chased oil to a depth even surpassing the famed Marianas Trench.

Drilling that far below the surface is a complicated endeavor, and when the drill platform was put into service in 2001, it was hailed as an engineering marvel. To this day, Deepwater Horizon holds the record for the deepest offshore hole ever made.

After the rigs infamous explosion and subsequent spill in 2010, that depth record for drilling may stand the test of time.

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Mapped: Countries With the Highest Flood Risk - Visual Capitalist

Before and after: no expressions can be more commonplace, yet none, when you come to think about it, can be more perplexing. Imagine you are standing in a queue. There are people standing ahead of you; they arrived before you did, and are that much closer to the future towards which we are all shuffling. Then there are people behind you; they arrived after, and are that much further away. The former came early; the latter came late. Perhaps, if we were to enlarge the scale of our metaphor, we could imagine generations queuing up like this. There are people of your generation, lined up in a row. Ahead, in serried ranks, lie the generations of your forebears. Behind lie generations to come, preparing to make their way. Not all of these people, of course, may still, or yet, be alive. But even those who have passed, as we say, continue to cast their shadows over their followers, just as those who have yet to be born will emerge in the shadows of our own generation. But heres the puzzle. For we are just as likely to say, of ancestral generations, that they lived in times past, and of descendant generations, that they will be the denizens of times future. The generations ahead of us, whom we had followed, are now behind; those behind, who had followed us, are now ahead. Before and after, it seems, have switched places. What can account for this curious reversal of fortune?

The answer seems to lie in a certain switch of perspective. The first perspective, which sees ancestors ahead and descendants behind, is taken from a position in the queue. Like everyone else, you are shuffling along through life, measuring out your days in steps towards a future which, like a spatial horizon, nevertheless recedes as fast as you approach it. But now suppose that you turn around, through 180 degrees. The people who once went before you are now at your back, while you now find yourself face-to-face with those who were once following after. The future, which had formerly stretched away into the distance, along ancestral paths, now appears to be heading, on a collision course, straight towards you. Meanwhile the ancestors, upon whom you have now turned your back, recede ever further into the past. Their time is over. The very act of turning, then, stakes a claim for the present. There is no present in the ever-moving queue, only the futures past. The present is a hold-up, an attempt to arrest the passage of time. But no generation can hold its ground indefinitely. Eventually, the press becomes too great, and it is either pushed aside or forced to move on, to make way for the next generation that promptly does the same, turning its back on the one preceding only to face its own successor. The moment it turns, it takes the stand of a new present. History, then, reappears as a punctuated series of turning points, each a present moment.

To join the queue is to observe a tradition. The proper meaning of tradition is not to live in the past but to follow those who have gone before you into the future. You may be retracing old ways, but every tracing is an original movement to be followed in its turn. It is the same with storytelling, in which every tale picks up the threads of previous narrations and pulls them through, in a looping movement, into current life. Strictly speaking, then, to turn your back on tradition is not to relinquish what is already past. It is rather to deny the promise that tradition offers for the future. In other words, the pastness of tradition is not given a priori, but is produced in the very act of turning that stakes a claim to the present. This same turnaround, moreover, creates a future which, from the perspective of those still following traditional ways, is nothing if not backward-looking, sacrificing the possibility of ceaseless beginning for the finality of predetermined ends. We see this in education when the teacher, instead of inviting her students to follow in a gesture of companionship, turns to face them in a posture of instruction. We see it in architecture and design, which aspires not to resume the ever-unfinished work of predecessors but to cast the future as a project for the next generation to complete or discard. And we see it in a science that proceeds not by following the ways things are going but through cycles of conjecture and refutation.

Such is the way of modernity. It is a way that measures time by the clock. Why, after all, does the clock tick? Its revolving movement, driven by the vital force of the spring, which wants always to unwind, or the weight of the pendulum as it gravitates to earth, is periodically stopped on the cog of an escapement wheel by a ratchet, only to be released again. The tick we hear is the sound of the ratchets engagement with the cog. And the measured time of the clock lies not in the unwinding of the spring but in the series of stoppages, each marked by a tick. So, likewise, do generations mark time by converting its onward movement into a punctuated series of escapements. With life as with time, the flow becomes a stutter. When life escapes, the entire series shifts by one notch. The foregoing generation, far from moving on into the future, vanishes into the oblivion of the past; while the generation to come, freed from the discipline of instruction, design, and conjecture to which it had once been subjected, pivots to take its place in the present, inflicting its own discipline on its successor. Thats why there is such a compulsion to replace the old with the new: it proves that time is passing and that history is being made. Nothing catches the modern imagination more than the idea of step change. Thus does every present generation, having turned its back to the past, take its place as a gatekeeper to the future.

This future, in the eyes of the present, figures less as a path to be followed than as a problem to be solved. Had it already been solved by preceding generations, now consigned to the past, there would be nothing for the present to do. They would have only to fall into line with a project mapped out for them in advance. Such compliance would amount to the renunciation of any future they could call their own. The presents ownership of the future, therefore, depends on the assumption that the past got it wrong. This is the default assumption of the modern age: that the road from the past is paved with mistakes. We always know better than they did. Yet the inevitable implication is that our present solutions will, in due course, turn out to be equally misguided. And while the generation that proposes these solutionsthat is, our generationwill pass, the effects of their imposition can linger, as have the impositions of generations preceding ours, leaving long-lasting scars not just on hearts and minds but on the world around us. Every generation, then, is fated to live among the ruins of outmoded futures. And although the predicament of coming generations will be no different, in principle, from ours, and ours no different from that of our predecessors, todays present is perhaps without precedent in the sheer scale of ruination it is bound to confront. Never before have solutions for the future, inflicted by our immediate antecedents, wreaked such destruction on the conditions of earthly life.

Can there be any respite from the cataclysmic chain of ultimate solutions that generation after generation has inflicted on the planet, all in the name of progress? So long as we seek to shape a future perceived as coming towards us, by projecting our designs onto a world our successors are about to enter, the answer can only be no. We would be fated to the endless stuttering of the escapement mechanism. Stuttering, after all, is not a sign that progress is faltering; it is rather the way progress works, by serial replacement. Why else, along with the clock, are its iconic instruments the bulldozer and the crane? The bulldozer clears the ground of the traces of past interventions, leaving none to pick up and follow; the crane lifts new ones into place from above. If any traces remain of what has gone before, they are to be preserved as heritage. Preserving the footsteps of predecessors ensures, in effect, that we cannot ourselves walk in them. It is as though with every step, far from picking up ancestral trails and carrying them on, we roll out a new layer over the old, marked up with its own inscriptions. With each new layer, those already laid, if not obliterated, sink further into the past, never to come up again. Thats why the other side of progress theory is antiquarianism. A land of sedimented pasts can be excavated with impunity, since it can have no bearing upon a future for which it serves only as an inert substrate.

This is not, however, the only side-effect of the layer-by-layer theory of progress. Etymologically, the Latin verb generare, meaning to beget, has bequeathed the concepts not only of generation but also of race. But only since we have come to think of generations of humanity supplanting one another like layers in a stack, each of progressively superior stock, has the idea of race been freighted with the toxic connotations it has today. It was not always thus. Originally, race meant lineage, house, or kindredpeople who could trace descent from a common ancestor, along a line of begetting and being begotten. Here, each generation issues from the one before, and into the one after, prolonging the former and anticipating the latter in a linear flow of vitality not unlike that of a running river from its headwaters to the sea. Like the river, the lineage flows downward. But generations, in their modern incarnation, stack upward, as each is slated to supplant it predecessor. Here, the life of each generation is expended in the present it has claimed as its own. No wonder the idea of indefinitely extending the life-span is so popular among those who consider themselves the smartest and most successful humans ever! Such an idea is only thinkable within a paradigm of human evolution that attributes advance to a ratchet mechanism which notches up superior variations while consigning the inferior to extinction. The concept of race, in its modern incarnation, is a specific pathology of this paradigm of human generational history, writ large.

Such a perverse conclusion is not inevitable. There is an alternative, which is to think differently about time and generations. It is to respect the wisdom of ancestors rather than working tirelessly to refute it. What if we were to cease pivoting on the present, and to look for guidance instead to those who have gone before? We and they would then be facing in the same direction, rather than back-to-back. In overlapping our lives with theirs, we could work together with them, not against them, to find a path forward. The alternative, in short, is to reclaim the way of tradition. Critically, this is not a recipe for conservatism. People who continue to follow their ancestors are not backward. All too often, the belief that they are stuck in the past, left behind by history, has been adduced to justify the colonization of their lands. It is a belief that comes, as we have seen, from putting tradition behind us. To join with tradition, facing frontward, promises otherwise, to open a future that, far from converging on any projected end, is indefinitely renewable. This is what it means to say of the future that it is sustainable. A sustainable world affords the possibility for life to carry on, forever. This is not to substitute long-term for short-term solutions. Only in the rearward view of a pivotal present can time appear as a nested series of scales. Genuine sustainability cannot be balanced on any scale, for every moment contains within itself the promise of eternity.

The progressive view of the present generation, as one that casts its projects retrospectively upon an imagined future, while relegating its forerunners to a discarded past, is easy to state but hard to dislodge. While in human history it is more the exception than the rule, it is so deeply embedded in the modern constitution that shifting it will require a wholesale reorientation of our approaches to education, design, and science. In education, the responsibility of the teacher would no longer be to articulate a new world, and to regulate students access to it, but rather to introduce them to an old world, allowing them to renew their lives in the very course of following its ways. This is not about the transmission of knowledge, from one generation to the next, but about the growth of wisdom in intergenerational collaboration. In design, it would mean a way of working best described as composition, by comparison with musical works. The designer-composer may be avant-garde, in the forefront, not however because their work is innovative, unlike anything that has gone before, but for precisely the opposite reason, because it is hyper-responsive to the voices of fellow creatures, and answers to their calls. In science, it would mean a procedure not of conjecture and refutation, as required by the logic of positivism, but of opening up to things, as they open to us, by joining with them and following their lead. Science, then would not educate us about the world; it would be the way the world has of educating us.

We cannot leap-frog our way into the future, or jump the queue. There is something illusory about the conceit that we can plan the future from the standpoint of the present, whether in terms of the educational curriculum, the designs of architecture, or the predictions of science. This is because the direction of projection is contrary to the flow of life. It amounts to a hold-up, which can only be broken by shelving the project and installing another in its place. Projection, in this regard, is the precise opposite of storytelling, in which the story and the life of which it tells are oriented in the same direction. To live the story is not to pivot on the present but, at every moment, to follow the thread of the futures past. It means acknowledging that we are ever behind where we will be, and where others have already been. A sustainable future lies before us, if only we are prepared to keep our eyes on the way ahead, and learn from the lore of those who have gone before. We are like mariners on the high seas. The mariner knows fore from aft, bow from stern, and ploughs a course through the ocean guided by currents, winds, the sun and moon, stars and seabirds. What sensible mariner would place his aft in the future and his bow in the past? Yet this is what we do, whenever we project futures for ourselves. Its no wonder, then, that we have lost our way.

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The Turn of the Present and the Futures Past - Architecture - E-Flux

ATHENS, Greece (CelebrityAccess) Grammy-nominated guitar legend Joe Bonamassa is teaming up with concert cruise specialists Sixthman to announce the third installment of Bonamassas high seas blues extravangza, Keeping the Blues Alive At Sea Mediterranean III.

The cruise is scheduled to sail from August 17-22, 2023, traveling from Athens, Greece to Dubrovnik, Croatia and Santorini, Greece aboard the luxurious Norwegian Jade.

The five night floating music festival will feature two unique sets from Bonamassa along with numerous live performances and collaborations from a cast of guests that include Blackberry Smoke, Christone Kingfish Ingram, Jimmy Vivino, Kirk Fletcher, plus many more to be announced.

Fans will also have access to numerous activities and programming designed for blues enthusiasts, including wine tastings, raffles, opportunities to interact with Bonamassa and other artists with additional experiences to be announced in the coming weeks.

Fans will also be able to go ashore during stopovers at Dubrovnik, Croatia and Santorini, Greece.

Keeping the Blues Alive At Sea Mediterranean III will once again benefit the Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation dedicated to providing students and teachers the resources and tools needed to further music education. Founded by Bonamassa in 2011, KTBA provides financial support for programs such as Fueling Musicians Program, an emergency relief plan for touring musicians affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. KTBA also works to promote and sustain music education and blues music by funding scholarships and providing music education resources to schools in need. KTBA awarded over $1M since its foundation, positively impacting more than 70,000 students all across America.

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Joe Bonamassa And Sixthman Announce Keeping The Blues Alive At Sea Mediterranean III - CelebrityAccess - CelebrityAccess ENCORE

The State Funeral for Queen Elizabeth II was a deeply moving farewell to a Monarch with a heartfelt life of service, duty and dedication. The Queens seven decades on the throne were selflessly lived for the sake of the British people and the Commonwealth of Nations, with its 56 member countries, stretching from Australia to South Africa. India, with a population of over 1.3 billion, is a proud member of the Commonwealth, with a close association with the British Monarchy and the British people.

The declinists who have claimed that Britain in the Brexit era is isolated and sinking into irrelevance could not be more wrong. The immaculate service in Westminster Abbey and the procession that followed was a powerful reminder of the greatness of the British nation, its central role at the heart of Western civilization, and the Christian foundations that underpin it. A truly global event, it was watched by hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people across the world.

In many respects, Great Britain this week has been the very heart of the free world. Several hundred foreign leaders attended the state funeral, including the President of the United States and the Emperor of Japan, with practically every head of state from Europe in attendance as well (excluding of course, Vladimir Putin, who was rightly not invited), pointing to the huge respect for Queen Elizabeth's lifetime of service, and the role that the British monarchy has played in underpinning a sense of both Britain and the West. The Monarchy is a fundamentally benign institution that embodies the values of respect, service and continuity that all in the free world cherish.

In the events of the last few days the world has witnessed the very best of the United Kingdom, with the British people uniting as one to mourn a greatly cherished sovereign at the end of the second Elizabethan era, and preparing for a new King, Charles III. They have demonstrated to the world that Great Britain and its Royal Family remain robust, resilient, and vital.

Across the Atlantic in the United States, where the Queen was hugely popular, there has been overwhelming public focus on the recent events in the UK, with wall-to-wall coverage on all US news networks. Even Royal-sceptic CNN and MSNBC have devoted a huge amount of airtime to the death of the Queen, and the new King. At the Presidents instruction, the Stars and Stripes have been flying at half-mast (half-staff) on the US Capitol and across America in honour of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Special Relationship is real, and really does matter to the American people. Ignore the nasty, malevolent attacks on the Queen, the British Monarchy, and Great Britain, from the New York Times, The Washington Post and the liberal elite US media. The sneering assaults from the hate-filled woke Left are tedious, unpleasant and out of touch. Much of its is based on a staggering ignorance of British history, and a refusal to acknowledge the immensely positive role that Britain has played in modern history, from the stamping out of slavery on the high seas to the defeat of Nazi Germany fighting alongside their US allies.

The vast majority of Americans love the Queen, the Royal Family, and the British people. They do not share the contempt demonstrated by sections of the East and West Coast chattering classes. They recognise that America has no closer friend than the United Kingdom, with the Monarchy playing a key role in advancing the partnership between two great nations.

The woke elites reject the Wests traditions, culture, and the very idea of a Royal heritage. They wish to tear down our institutions, our history, and destroy the idea of the US and UK leading the world. Unsurprisingly, the British Monarchy is now their top target.

They will not succeed, however. The Monarchy is strong, robust and vital to Britain's future. It will remain at the heart of the British nation for centuries to come. The Queen has left a powerful legacy, and her life of service will continue to inspire the British people and the free world for generations to come.

Nile Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation in Washington

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The UK is the beating heart of the free world - The Telegraph

After nearly two weeks of recent United Nations negotiations in New York City, countries from around the world failed to finalize an ambitious treaty that would create enormous marine protected areas and enforce stricter rules for industry on the high seasthe two thirds of the ocean beyond any countrys exclusive ocean territory. The deal faltered in the final hours, mainly over an issue that has long dogged international ocean talks: how to share profits from commercializing the high seas genetic resources.

Ocean organisms, both plants and animals, form the basis of numerous successful drugs, including remdesivir, the first treatment approved for COVID, and Halaven, a blockbuster anticancer drug derived from a Japanese sea sponge that has annual sales of more than $300 million. Genetic material from high seas organisms and the digital data from sequencing their genomes could be used to develop new products potentially worth billions of dollars. But who owns these resources, which theoretically belong to the entire world, and who gets to profit from their use? The details of where U.N. negotiators got stuck on those questions provide great insight into whether there is any hope of protecting and managing the high seas.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), nations have the right to extract and profit from fisheries in international waters. But they must share the profits from minerals taken from the international seabedwhich UNLOS designates as the common heritage of all people. There is, however, no binding agreement on sharing marine genetic resources discovered either in international waters or the seabed. Negotiators from 168 nations at the U.N. talks sought to resolve that dilemma in a proposed high seas treaty. That effort has been seen as a big contributor to a global initiative to protect 30 percent of the Earths oceans by 2030, called 30 by 30. Many scientists say this target is necessary to maintain a healthy ocean, stem the loss of marine biodiversity and prevent a further collapse of fisheries worldwide. A lot of countries have committed to 30 by 30, but without a high seas treaty, the math doesnt work, says Lance Morgan, president of the nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute.

Since the 1950s researchers have discovered almost 34,000 marine compounds with commercial potential for a wide variety of uses. An antifreeze protein from a cold-water fish has improved the texture of ice cream, and an enzyme extracted from a microbe along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is being used to develop a biofuel. So far companies have successfully developed more than a dozen drugs from marine organisms found within national waters. These include remdesivir and Halaven, as noted, as well as azidothymidine (AZT), the first approved treatment for HIV, and Yondelis, a drug used to treat ovarian cancer. Scientists in countries with advanced research programs are now looking to the unexplored genomes of high-seas organisms for new leads for the marine biotechnology industry, which is projected to be worth $6.4 billion by 2025.

Negotiators looked for some guidance for a high seas agreement from the Nagoya Protocol, which is part of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. The protocol regulates the use of genetic resources found on land and in coastal waters. It allows the commercialization of biodiversity by nations or companies while mandating that these resources rightful ownerssuch as Indigenous peoplesbe compensated. The Nagoya Protocol has so far resulted in one successful deal, reached in 2019, for South Africas rooibos tea industry to pay an annual levy of 1.5 percent of the price of the raw product into a trust for local Khoi and San communities. In July the rooibos industry paid the fund approximately $715,000.

No such law exists for the high seas. Agreeing on one has been tricky, partly because marine genetic resources in international waters are, arguably, owned by no oneor everyone. Historically, U.N. members such as the U.K., the European Union, the U.S. and Japan, which have the technology, money and ability to scour the deep sea for new products, have argued for the right to patent and solely profit from marine genetic resources.

Developing nations, including a group of African countries, have argued that profits, data and other benefits derived from marine genetic resources should be shared among all nations. This is a whole new enterprise, a grand venture that developing countries have often felt left out of, says Kristina Gjerde, a senior high-seas policy adviser for the nonprofit International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Part of this is that they want to be respected, and part is that they want to participate in the research and also in the profits.

Prospects for securing the high seas treaty seemed to improve during the second week of negotiations, when developed countries agreed in principlefor the first time in 20 years of talksto share monetary benefits from the commercialization of marine genetic resources. This was a big conciliation, says Marcel Jaspars, a marine biotechnologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and an independent adviser to the negotiations.

But negotiators ended up rejecting several proposed money-sharing systems. One proposal was a royalty-based program whereby a percentage of the sales value derived from marine genetic resources would be paid by companies into a fund. Among other things, the money would be used to train scientists, transfer technologies and achieve conservation goals such as establishing marine protected areas. Developed nations saw this as too financially punitive and burdensome because it required a track and trace system to monitor how their relevant industries (such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics) access and profit from ocean genomes. One criticism of the Nagoya Protocol is that it is too heavy-handed: by requiring scientists to obtain permits to access and collect biological samples, it has hampered foreign scientists from doing basic research in certain nations such as Colombia and Sri Lanka. Negotiators are now wary of implementing a similar law for the high seas.

Another proposed option would require all U.N. member nations to make up-front payments into a fund. Governments would contribute at a level appropriate to the scale of their respective countries marine biotechnology industry. But developing nations saw initial figures proposed in New York as grossly insufficient, according to Henry Novion, an independent consultant who was part of the Brazilian delegation. According to Jaspars, a pot of roughly $100 million annually, accrued from national contributions, would be a reasonable offering. A recent IUCN briefing proposed a one-off fund of $500 million to kick-start high-seas ocean conservation, bolstered by future revenue streams such as royalties or user fees for data.

Complicating matters is the fact that genetic resources include not just physical specimens but gene sequence data uploaded to repositories such as GenBank. These data can then be downloaded and synthesized into compounds in a lab that can be used to develop a new product. Increasingly, this digital sequence information, or DSI, is all a company needs to create and mass-produce a product. For example, kahalalide Fa compound that was isolated from a sea slug and that is being tested against cancers and psoriasisis created synthetically from DSI. When the Spanish company PharmaMar licensed it to Medimetriks, the U.S. firm testing it for psoriasis, all Medimetriks needed was the sequence data (basically, computer code). Over time, the focus has moved from collecting a zebra fish or a starfish to collecting a tiny little sample of that thing to collecting just the genetic sequence data. At this point, you may not even need the zebra fish, says Robert Blasiak, an ocean governance researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Center.

Developing products from DSI has huge advantages: the approach requires no harvesting of ocean animals, plants or microorganisms, and its commercial potential is virtually limitless because a gene sequence can be sold online multiple times. DSI is now the most valuable source for commercialization of marine genetic resources, Gjerde says.

DSI is currently unregulated, even within the Nagoya Protocol, which only addresses physical samples. U.N. member states are wary of including DSI in any monetary sharing plan for the high seas because it is virtually impossible to trace the origin of such information once it has been synthesized into a compound that is incorporated into a product. Tracking gets especially complex when a product is designed using genes from different organisms.

For example, researchers at the German chemical conglomerate BASF have decoded the genetic sequence responsible for producing omega-3 fatty acids in a marine microbe, and they have spliced the sequence into a rapeseed plant to make it produce omega-3-enriched canola oil for human consumption.

Although the Nagoya Protocol doesnt include DSI, four nationsBrazil, India, Malawi and South Africado officially regulate it. The Brazilian system focuses on companies compliance, rewarding them for reporting the use of genetic resources with an ethical biotrading certification. In exchange, companies pay 1 percent of their revenue into a fund.

In theory, a similar system could work for the high seas, perhaps administered by nations as a tax on marine products. In the Brazilian system, Novion says, it doesnt matter whether you got a sample from Kew Gardens [a botanical garden in England] or you downloaded it from a server. Its the same.

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Who Owns the Ocean's Genes? Tension on the High Seas - Scientific American

Families of the deadly Seacor Power disaster are still desperate for closure after the horrific incident of the Seacor Power capsizing in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2021There were 19 people on the Seacor Power ship when it capsized after venturing out into stormy conditions on April 13, 2021. Several people were able to escape, however, six people died and seven remain missing. Attorney Paul Sterbcow represents many of the men's families who were on board when the lift boat capsized last April.The conclusion of lawsuits typically bring some level of closure, and so until and unless we get to that point, these families dont have the closure that they need. It causes them to relive this every day while the litigation is pending it as if it never ends, Sterbcow said.Eleven lawsuits have already been settled, including lawsuits for eight people who died and three who survived. Sterbcow is not saying how much money was awarded for those cases. He said there are still eight pending suits for non-crew members on board. Sterbcow said five died and three survived of the non-crew members. Sterbcow said those who were not crew members and were contracted could fall under the Death on the High Seas Act.The disparity is glaring, Sterbcow said. "Let's say you have a younger worker who was never married or has no children and only supports himself or herself when the vessel capsized under the death on the High Seas Act. Given there is no one that can claim loss of economic support, and there are no minor children, the only thing that is left in that claim is funeral and burial expenses." Sterbcow couldn't say which cases fall under the death on the High Seas Act. Seacor Marine declined to comment.

Families of the deadly Seacor Power disaster are still desperate for closure after the horrific incident of the Seacor Power capsizing in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2021

There were 19 people on the Seacor Power ship when it capsized after venturing out into stormy conditions on April 13, 2021. Several people were able to escape, however, six people died and seven remain missing.

Attorney Paul Sterbcow represents many of the men's families who were on board when the lift boat capsized last April.

The conclusion of lawsuits typically bring some level of closure, and so until and unless we get to that point, these families dont have the closure that they need. It causes them to relive this every day while the litigation is pending it as if it never ends, Sterbcow said.

Eleven lawsuits have already been settled, including lawsuits for eight people who died and three who survived.

Sterbcow is not saying how much money was awarded for those cases. He said there are still eight pending suits for non-crew members on board. Sterbcow said five died and three survived of the non-crew members.

Sterbcow said those who were not crew members and were contracted could fall under the Death on the High Seas Act.

The disparity is glaring, Sterbcow said. "Let's say you have a younger worker who was never married or has no children and only supports himself or herself when the vessel capsized under the death on the High Seas Act. Given there is no one that can claim loss of economic support, and there are no minor children, the only thing that is left in that claim is funeral and burial expenses."

Sterbcow couldn't say which cases fall under the death on the High Seas Act.

Seacor Marine declined to comment.

More here:

'Gone through Hell': Families of workers on board Seacor wait for justice - WDSU New Orleans

Have you ever wondered what exactly happened to Nickelodeon cruises onboard Norwegian Cruise Line?

Cruise lines are constantly evolving to offer the absolute best onboard experiences possible. While some onboard offerings are smash-hits, others dont always stand the test of time.

NorwegianCruise Line partnered with Nickelodeon from 2010 to 2015 to bring to life some of the network's biggest characters onboard its cruise ships. What could make a cruise better than getting to meet Patrick Star and Dora the Explorer in real life?!

As someone who stayed at the Nickelodeon Hotel back in 2009, I have fond memories of seeing my favorite TV cartoons (i.e. Spongebob) come to life while staying at this themed hotel in Orlando, Florida. My sister and I could only dream of what an entire cruise themed with Nickelodeon would be like!

Partnerships are common with cruise lines to enhance their onboard experience with unparalleled experiences, especially youth programs.

For example, Royal Caribbean had a partnership with Dreamworks that gave kids the opportunity to meet Shrek and other characters. Similarly, Carnival Cruise Line joined efforts with Dr. Seuss to offer a Green Eggs and Ham themed breakfast for kids that included character meet and greets.

However, most cruise lines cant compete with Disney Cruise Line when it comes to character meet and greets and its slew of Disney-themed-everything onboard. There's a touch of Disney magic in every aspect of a Disney cruise that you can't find on competing cruise lines.

There's no denying that cruising is an excellent vacation choice for many families. In fact, cruise lines are very intentional about how they can cater to kids by offering family-friendly experiences that simply cant be replicated on land.

For families wanting to have an action-packed onboard experience, the Nickelodeon cruises truly offered an unforgettable cruise vacation for families and kids alike.

Back in 2010, it was announced that Norwegian Cruise Line would partner with Nickelodeon to offer themed programming and activities onboard select cruise ships year-round. These Nickelodeon-themed experiences would include character greetings, themed breakfasts called Pajama Jam Breakfast, poolside parties, and Nickelodeon-themed arts and crafts.

The first ship in Norwegians fleet to feature the new Nickelodeon-themed experiences was Norwegian Breakaway. As the newest ship in Norwegian's fleet at the time, it was the perfect opportunity for the partnership to make its debut.

In addition to interactive games and character meet and greets, kids could splash around with Spongebob and Sandy while enjoying Norwegian's Kid Aqua Park onboard. Families could also enjoy Dancing with Dora and themed-programming throughout their cruise. Families could also attend special themed breakfasts, in which Spongebob and his entourage would sing and dance in the dining room throughout the meal.

One fan favorite on the Nickelodeon cruises was having the opportunity to get slimed on stage during Slime Time Live. During this interactive game show, the famous Nickelodeon green slime was dumped on participants during high-paced races that took place onboard.

In 2014, Norwegian Cruise Line announced that its newest ship, Norwegian Getaway, would also debut with the Nickelodeon partnership experiences. Norwegian Getaway would include new interactive Nickelodeon experiences and family-friendly shows that would star Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, Diego and more.

At this time, Norwegian Getaway was the fifth ship in the cruise lines fleet to offer Nickelodeon experiences year-round on its sailings.

Each year, Norwegian Cruise Line also offered all-access Nickelodeon themed cruises that included non-stop, daily activities with all of Nickelodeons most popular characters.Cruisers could be immersed in all-things Nickelodeon everyday of their cruise vacation. For Nickelodeon lovers, these cruises were the ultimate family vacation!

The first all-access cruises departed in 2011 onboard Norwegian Jewel from New York City and Norwegian Epic, which departed from Barcelona.

These cruises also featured meet and greets with some of Nickelodeons biggest stars at the time, including appearances of cast members from shows like iCarly and True Jackson VP. This Nickelodeon-packed cruise also featured the real voice of Spongebob Squarepants and special viewings of never-before-seen episodes of iCarly, Victorious and True Jackson VP.

While we all wish we could cruise with Dora the Explorer and Spongebob Squarepants, Norwegian Cruise Line unfortunately discontinued its partnership with Nickelodeon back in 2015.

To the dismay of cruising families everywhere, the cruise lines partnership with Nickelodeon's parent company, Viacom, expired in 2015 and has yet to return to the high seas.

With the launch of Norwegian Escape in November 2015, the cruise line announced at the time that the Nickelodeon experience wouldnt be included on its newest ship. In addition, Nickelodeon entertainment would be phased out on the remaining five ships in Norwegian Cruise Lines fleet that were still offering the themed experiences.

Although Norwegian Cruise Line has never commented on the reason for the partnership ending, the Nickelodeon brand as a whole was definitely undergoing changes at this time.

In 2016, it was announced that the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando, Florida would also be closing. The network would begin a new venture by partnering with a new company, Karisma Hotel and Resorts, to build more modern resorts in the Caribbean.

Just a few weeks before the announcement was made by Norwegian about the end of its partnership, Nickelodeon had started construction on a new all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana.Norwegian stated the partnership was successful and improved overall guest satisfaction by 20% for its youth programming.

Although it was the end of an era for Nickelodeon cruises, there's no doubt that future partnerships will be formed to continue offering incredible youth programming for families.

View post:

What happened to Nickelodeon cruises? | Cruise.Blog - Cruise Blog

FANTASTIC images of the world's finest superyachts have revealed the wild lifestyle of the ultra-rich on the high seas.

The world's wealthiest seafarers own some of the most impressive vessels on the ocean.

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Pictures from inside the 361ft-long Stella del Sud show a gorgeous cinema, three flowing swimming pools and a helipad.

The Italian studio behind the breath-taking designs, Gabriele Teruzzi, says the superyacht is a "glistening diamond" with Art Deco features.

A jewel-shaped window appears on the outside of the boat, using the same piece of glass across all levels.

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The Streets ofMonacois a luxury yacht inspired by the lavish city that will feature everything you'd expect from a visit to theFrenchcity-state, including casinos and swimming pools.

Designed byYacht Island Design, the superyacht is centered around its replica of the famous Grand Prix circuit which will be a functioning go-kart track where guests can race against each other.

Additionally, the yacht includes a helicopter pad, tennis court, spa, gym, manicure and hair salon, sauna and steam rooms, private massage suites, cinema and library.

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Billionaire and Tottenham Spurs owner Joe Lewis spends most of the year on his boat.

"Aviva is more than an office; it is also my home for much of the year. So for me, it is relaxing working from home, wherever Aviva may be in the world," Lewis said.

Powered by an eco-friendly drive system, it can reach a top speed of 20 knots.

The unique hull design that comes together with an electric propulsions system means that less fuel is used.

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Football great Tom Brady is estimated to be worth around $250million, withsupermodel wife Gisele Bundchen adding a further $400m to the family coffers.

And the pair certainly know how to live it up in style, venturing onto the high seas with their state-of-the-art superyacht.

Decked out with a sophisticated cooling system, automatic roof and electronically-adjustable floor, the boat also features three luxurious bedrooms that wouldn't look out of place at a five-star hotel.

And with room for nine people to sleep - including two crew - the whole family can join the fun, especially as the boat can cruise for almost 400 miles.

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Jeff Bezos is the second richest person in the world and his stunning seacruiser certainly reflects that wealth.

The superyacht is more than 400 feet long and cost nearly $500million to build.

Bezos stirred up trouble when he requested that a historic bridge in the Netherlands be dismantled so that his yacht could pass through.

Residentsthreatened to pelt the luxury vessel with eggsif the city went through with his request.

Read more:

Inside crazy superyachts of the future as stunning photos reveal top deck race track and waterfall pools... - The US Sun

Bloody bedlam breaks out on the high seas in writer-director Kim Hongsuns gnarly action-horror that pits cops versus cons aboard a cargo ship with a sinister secret in its hold in Project Wolf Hunting, from Well Go USA, who brought you Train To Busan.

When efforts to extradite notorious convicts from the Philippines to South Korea are stymied by a deadly airport bombing, the Korean authorities commandeer the cargo freighter, Frontier Wolf, for their next transfer. As a rogues gallery of lowlifes, including a callous heir to a criminal empire (Seo In-guk), board the titanic vessel, they are escorted by two dozen hardened detectives and the vigilant oversight of a hot-headed Coast Guard captain (Sung Dong-il). Despite the heavy security, a plot to seize control of the ship percolates among the prisoners and soon boils over, but what neither cop nor crook appears to be privy to is that they are not the freighters only cargo.

What starts as a high-seas hijacking suddenly ricochets into a kind of brutal slasher as a sinister shape (Choi Guyhwa) emerges from the bowels of the ship, indiscriminately hunting its passengers all of whom, judging by the unending geysers of blood that erupt from their wounds, seem to have tremendously high blood pressure.

Project Wolf Hunting barrels along like its Con Air by way of a Capcom survival-horror video game. Writer-director Kim Hongsun judiciously juggles an enormous cast of characters, so sharply sketched and vividly performed that youre thrillingly never quite sure who will survive by the end of each escalating episode of bloody bedlam. What you can expect, however: frenzied firefights, gory martial arts, and decades-old conspiracies, complete with shadowy syndicates and secret experiments, all erupting upon the screen with a rousing, volcanic velocity.

The film is set to make its World Premiere at TIFFs Midnight Madness on September 9, 2022, followed by screenings on the 16th and 17th. A home release should soon be announced.

See the rest here:

'Project Wolf Hunting' Sailing Towards Its World Premiere At TIFF - HorrorFuel.com: Reviews, Ratings and Where to Watch the Best Horror Movies &...

The Banshees of Inisherin

Starring Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Pat Shortt, Gary Lydon, David Pearse and Sheila Flitton. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. 114 minutes. STC

The good folk of Inisherin, an island off the coast of Ireland, generally keep their collars buttoned to the top and their tweed garments well layered.

Its to ward off the perpetual chill of a place that is blessed with scenery but not reliably good weather.

The one chill islanders dont have to bother with involves social relations. Everybody gets along with everybody else and, even if they dont, they still talk civilly to one another. How could they not, with statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary smiling at them beatifically at seemingly every turn?

Until the day comes when dairyman Pdraic (Colin Farrell), a man so carefree he often doesnt know what month it is, calls upon his lifelong friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson), a fiddle player and aspiring composer.

Its time for their daily afternoon pint of Guinness down at the pub.

But on this day, Colm is having none of it and apparently never again any of it: I dont like you anymore, he flatly declares to an astonished and hurt Pdraic.

Therein turns the tale of The Banshees of Inisherin, a film by Oscar-winning writer/director Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) that you could call a comedy if you have an extremely dark sense of humour and a keen appreciation of fatalism, as the Irish certainly do.

Whatever you choose to call it, the film is often very funny. Its a f---in good yarn, to use a word that rhymes with pecking, an adjective oft heard in Inisherin.

The movie arrives at the Toronto International Film Festival with garlands of Best Actor (Farrell) and Best Screenplay from the Venice International Film Festival. Judging from the gales of laughter at the screening I attended, it stands a good chance of nabbing the TIFF audience award this weekend.

McDonagh often employs absurd extremes to tell his stories recall the accusatory billboards of his previous film and heres the strangest one yet: Colm tells Pdraic that if he doesnt leave him be, he will respond by chopping off one of his own fingers or thumbs, all 10 digits if need be. Its all the more terrible a deed for a fiddler player to threaten.

And for what mad reason? Colm has decided that he can no longer abide Pdraics endless nattering, which includes a two-hour dissertation on his wee horses anal excretions. In a word, Colm finds Pdraic dull and, as he nears his retirement years, he wants to spend the rest of his days thinking and composing, not engaging in small talk. The year is 1923, which makes it almost a century ahead of our modern phenomenon of ghosting a friend.

Pdraic certainly can talk hes kissed the Blarney Stone, as the Irish would say but everyone agrees its unfair to single him out as being dull.

Youre all f---ing boring! Pdraics sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) tells Colm and she would know. Shes contemplating leaving the island because theres no man there shed happily marry. This especially includes the local fool Dominic (Barry Keoghan), who has the habit of saying what people are only thinking.

Its seems obvious that Colm is suffering from a serious case of depression hes confessed feelings of despair to his local priest but theres apparently no therapist available to help him. Theres also no doubting the seriousness of his finger-chopping threat, which you know wont stop there if youre familiar with how far McDonagh takes things, especially when he pairs Farrell and Gleeson, as he previously did for In Bruges.

I should mention that Inisherin is a fictional place and the movie is a fairy tale, albeit a very grim one, lit more like dire Irish drama than green-and-sunny shamrock comedy.

Reality intrudes with the sound of gunfire across the water on the mainland, where a sectarian civil war ensues, something that has long shattered the peace of the Emerald Isle. Indeed, if theres any message to the film, its the caution that small hurts and insults left unsettled can lead to bigger and more dangerous battles, as those guns across the water attest.

And what of the banshees of the title, a reference to the female spirits of Irish folklore who wail to portend a family death? Its explained in due course, along with the observation that if Inisherin in fact has any banshees, they sit and observe, amused. And so do we.

TIFF 22 Hot Takes

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: Mirthful menace as Rian Johnson obeys sequel law for Knives Out 2: more of everything, including fresh schemers, a fab sidekick and exotic location (Greek island). Daniel Craigs sleuth Benoit Blanc still delights, but hes now more Austin Powers than 007.

Triangle of Sadness: Ruben stlunds Cannes 2022 Palme dOr winner gets off to a roaring start on dry land, skewering fashion, models and dating. Then it takes to the high seas on a luxury ship of fools and the jokes get scattered Gilligan, ahoy! Still funny, though.

Broker: The tragedy of child trafficking is played for cheap road trip epiphanies in Hirokazu Kore-edas latest, a sad comedown from Like Father Like Son and Palme-winning Shoplifters. Even an actor as simpatico as Song Kang-ho (Parasite) cant pull this off.

Emily: Actor turned writer/director Frances OConnor starred in a Mansfield Park adaptation; she knows literary drama. Now she what-ifs the birth of Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights, with Emma Mackey giving a smashing title performance that exceeds the films limits.

Holy Spider: Zar Amir-Ebrahimi rocks in this fact-based Ali Abbasi thriller about a serial killer preying on prostitutes in Iran. Ebrahimi plays a journalist who risks her life for the truth, knowing many people consider the killer to be Gods avenger.

The End of Sex: Bundling their daughters off to winter camp (its Canada, eh?), Josh (Jonas Chernick) and Emma (Emily Hampshire) seek to restart the love flame with some kinky fun. Life intrudes. Sean Garritys laugher isnt orgasmic, but its still enjoyable and thats the point.

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The dark and funny The Banshees of Inisherin could nab TIFF Peoples Choice Award - Toronto Star