 |
 | Search |  | |
| The Helm | |  |
| |
|
| |
 HOME |
|
|
| |
 FEATURES |
| |
|
| |
 QUICK WEATHER |
| |
|
| |
 SPONSORS |
| |
| |  | | |
| FL Fishing Clubs Org | | |
| Reef Programs | | |
| Support Our Sponsors | | |
| Support Our Sponsors | | |
| Symantec | | |
| Visit Us Again | | |
| |
 |
Medicine from Red Tide??
|
|
|
Medicine from Red Tide??
WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - Biochemists at UNCW's Center for Marine Science believe they've discovered a way to turn toxic red tide into a potential medicine.
The medicine could help people suffering from respiratory diseases like Asthma and Cystic Fibrosis.
The project is called "From Harm to Charm."
You often can't see red tide, but when it's airborne you can feel the effects as toxins sneak into your eyes and lungs.
The coast of North Carolina doesn't usually have red tide, but there are exceptions.
"In fact, one year a couple of decades ago now I believe, the oyster festival in North Carolina was actually shut down because of a bloom of the Florida red tide," said Dr. Daniel Baden, a biochemist at UNCW.
Around that same time, Dr. Baden began looking more closely at the potent toxins of red tide.
"All of them have this very strange, what's called a poly-ether structure, almost looks like a strung out chicken wire," said Dr. Baden.
The "chicken wire" holds the key to something remarkable. Baden's team started to break down the toxin and chemically alter it, and that's when the tide began to turn.
"We found a derivative, a modified toxin that was not any longer toxic, and in fact, it became anti-toxic. It was the anti toxin. So that's the 'changing the harm into charm," said Baden.
The initial discovery is just the beginning. This step could put the Center for Marine Science on the map, as they work to move the project out of the lab and into the hands of people who need it.
People suffering from Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Cystic Fibrosis have new hope, thanks to this new discovery in Wilmington.
Right now, Steven Fontana is getting the word out to drug companies so they can begin clinical trials on humans.
"Oh, it's awesome. Anytime you have the opportunity to work on something that can have a real life clinical benefit and affect human lives, it's always exciting," said Fontana.
In the meantime, the UNCW scientists believe they've just scratched the surface of the possibilities that lie beneath the waves.
The whole project is possible because of a program called, "Marbionic." It's an economic development program associated with UNCW and supported by the state.
The project funds the development of different products that come from the sea.
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
 | Please Support Our Sponsors |  | |
|
MISSION COMPLETED
|
|
|
MISSION COMPLETED:
Aquarius Coral Restoration/Resilience Experiments (ACRRE)
Principal Investigator: Dr. Margaret Miller, NOAA Fisheries
Mission Date: June, 2008
Coral rescue and transplantation have been commonly undertaken in cases where they have been damaged or dislodged by human activities or natural events. However, very little is known about the underlying biological reasons why one coral may survive and grow beautifully when transplanted to a reef while another may sicken and/or die. These variations in performance between different source corals are particularly important to understand in the current context of rapid environmental changes in reef environments and our continuing observations of rapid coral loss.
The Aquarius Coral Restoration/Resilience Experiments (ACRREs) are aimed to increase our understanding of why and how some corals may perform much better as transplants than others. Coral fragments from different sources, including healthy wild colonies from nearby reefs, rescued corals from far-away reefs, and corals that have been cultured in aquaria or field nurseries will be transplanted together to a single location, a “common garden”, at the Aquarius Reef Base. Each transplant will be evaluated in many different ways to understand how their genetic or physiological status may determine their ability to thrive in their new home. We hope to continue this experiment over a long time frame so that the resilience of the transplants can be examined during natural disturbances such as warm water bleaching or disease outbreak events that happen episodically.
The results of this study will help scientists and reef managers to plan, permit, and execute coral rescue and transplantation/restoration project more effectively. We will learn what sources of corals can be most successful in enhancing depleted reef populations both in the short term by transplantation, and in the longer term by understanding better what genetic or other biological conditions of the coral aid in their resilience to the changing reef environment.
To View More, Click HERE.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Please Support Our Sponsors | | |
|
Aquarius Undersea Laboratory Wraps Up 2005 Mission Year with U.S. Navy Diving Pr
|
|
 |
Posted by Dawg on Thursday, January 05, 2006 @ 03:21:03 EST (238 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
|
 |
|
|
Aquarius Undersea Laboratory Wraps Up 2005 Mission Year with U.S. Navy Diving Projects
The 2005 hurricane season will be remembered throughout the south for the damage and disruption inflicted upon millions, but it’s fair to say that the Aquarius underwater laboratory staff saw the wrath of the storms from a unique perspective  underwater. Aquarius survived the storms and ends the 2005 field season with a partnership project to help train US Navy saturation divers and develop new tools for scientific diving. Aquarius is owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and operated by the NOAA Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (NURC/UNCW). The habitat is located in sixty feet of water, 8 miles south of mission control in Key Largo. It is currently the only underwater laboratory operating in the world’s oceans.
It’s hard to imagine the underwater forces generated by 30 foot waves in 60 feet of water  thousands of tons of water are tossed as easily as a baby splashes water in a bathtub. Docks were battered, homes flooded, the 500 foot wreck of the Spiegel Grove was lifted from its sideways resting position to full upright status, and meters of sediments were moved around on the reef exposing coral skeletons buried for thousands of years. Aquarius also suffered damage but was repaired quickly to complete the 2005 mission year. Upon reaching Aquarius after the storms, Aquarius Manager, Jim Buckley, noted, "she had the look of a winning prize fighter who took a few licks but came out on top."
Hurricane Rita did more damage than Katrina or Wilma. "As Hurricane Rita passed south of the Keys as a Category I Storm, its wave heights reached nearly 30 feet off Key Largo. This type of surge has been known to tear shipwrecks in two and scatter them hundreds of feet across the bottom of the ocean," said Craig Cooper, Operations Director for Aquarius. He added, "The surge and constant wind–driven currents from the east–southeast shifted Aquarius approximately ten feet, broke a pin to one of the legs, and threatened to tip the habitat over. Additionally, hold down anchors were pried from the seafloor, and exterior deck frames, battery pods, and other structures were damaged or torn loose." A tiger team of U.S. Navy Seabee divers from Underwater Construction Teams (UCT) 1 and 2, divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage (MDSU 2), and NURC/UNCW divers collaborated in the many tasks associated with stabilizing and restoring the underwater habitat in record time. Their efforts paid off  Aquarius survived Hurricane Wilma without any damage, despite a direct hit on the Florida Keys. LT CDR Tim Liberatore, UCT 2 Commanding Officer stated that "the UCTs are perfectly suited for this type of work, stabilizing the Aquarius was a great opportunity to do real world engineering on an underwater structure."
Aquarius is a national asset that supports scientists, researchers, and astronauts in their efforts to better understand the oceans, coastal resources, and the ability to conduct work operations in a difficult, remote, and potentially dangerous environment. Science projects conducted from Aquarius are contributing knowledge and discoveries that help managers better understand and conserve coral reef resources in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Important results include studies related to nutrients and pollution, monitoring deep reef conditions, coral feeding biology, dynamics of seaweed populations, and in the most recent mission this past November, acoustic fish tracking studies of black grouper and other species.
The goals of the December Navy projects are to furnish United States Navy Diving saturation school graduates an opportunity to work with Aquarius in a setting that simulates saturation diving procedures related to the Navy’s use of a "flyaway saturation system." Two back–to–back five day missions will each include five Navy divers with one NURC/UNCW habitat technician, NURC Diving Safety Officer (DSO) Roger Garcia, a former Navy diver himself. Excursions from the habitat will involve typical "surface supplied" umbilical diving with "hard hat" helmets, with the wet porch serving as an analog to a saturation diving bell. Tasks will benefit NOAA’s habitat program and include inspections of the habitat exterior structures and baseplate, further installation of baseplate stabilization/hurricane seabed anchors, and general maintenance prior to the off–mission season.
During each Aquarius mission, anyone with Internet access can watch live web cameras, read expedition journals from the aquanauts, view project summaries and pictures, and much more at the NURC/UNCW Aquarius web site: www.uncw.edu/aquarius
For more information, contact Otto Rutten, Associate Director or Craig Cooper, Operations Director, NURC/UNCW at (305) 451–0233.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Please Support Our Sponsors | | |
|
Aquarius Undersea Laboratory Wraps Up 2005 Mission Year with U.S. Navy Diving Pr
|
|
|
Posted by Dawg on Thursday, December 15, 2005 @ 04:04:04 EST (232 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
|
|
|
|
Aquarius Undersea Laboratory Wraps Up 2005 Mission Year with U.S. Navy Diving Projects
The 2005 hurricane season will be remembered throughout the south for the damage and disruption inflicted upon millions, but it’s fair to say that the Aquarius underwater laboratory staff saw the wrath of the storms from a unique perspective  underwater. Aquarius survived the storms and ends the 2005 field season with a partnership project to help train US Navy saturation divers and develop new tools for scientific diving. Aquarius is owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and operated by the NOAA Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (NURC/UNCW). The habitat is located in sixty feet of water, 8 miles south of mission control in Key Largo. It is currently the only underwater laboratory operating in the world’s oceans.
It’s hard to imagine the underwater forces generated by 30 foot waves in 60 feet of water  thousands of tons of water are tossed as easily as a baby splashes water in a bathtub. Docks were battered, homes flooded, the 500 foot wreck of the Spiegel Grove was lifted from its sideways resting position to full upright status, and meters of sediments were moved around on the reef exposing coral skeletons buried for thousands of years. Aquarius also suffered damage but was repaired quickly to complete the 2005 mission year. Upon reaching Aquarius after the storms, Aquarius Manager, Jim Buckley, noted, "she had the look of a winning prize fighter who took a few licks but came out on top."
Hurricane Rita did more damage than Katrina or Wilma. "As Hurricane Rita passed south of the Keys as a Category I Storm, its wave heights reached nearly 30 feet off Key Largo. This type of surge has been known to tear shipwrecks in two and scatter them hundreds of feet across the bottom of the ocean," said Craig Cooper, Operations Director for Aquarius. He added, "The surge and constant wind–driven currents from the east–southeast shifted Aquarius approximately ten feet, broke a pin to one of the legs, and threatened to tip the habitat over. Additionally, hold down anchors were pried from the seafloor, and exterior deck frames, battery pods, and other structures were damaged or torn loose." A tiger team of U.S. Navy Seabee divers from Underwater Construction Teams (UCT) 1 and 2, divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage (MDSU 2), and NURC/UNCW divers collaborated in the many tasks associated with stabilizing and restoring the underwater habitat in record time. Their efforts paid off  Aquarius survived Hurricane Wilma without any damage, despite a direct hit on the Florida Keys. LT CDR Tim Liberatore, UCT 2 Commanding Officer stated that "the UCTs are perfectly suited for this type of work, stabilizing the Aquarius was a great opportunity to do real world engineering on an underwater structure."
Aquarius is a national asset that supports scientists, researchers, and astronauts in their efforts to better understand the oceans, coastal resources, and the ability to conduct work operations in a difficult, remote, and potentially dangerous environment. Science projects conducted from Aquarius are contributing knowledge and discoveries that help managers better understand and conserve coral reef resources in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Important results include studies related to nutrients and pollution, monitoring deep reef conditions, coral feeding biology, dynamics of seaweed populations, and in the most recent mission this past November, acoustic fish tracking studies of black grouper and other species.
The goals of the December Navy projects are to furnish United States Navy Diving saturation school graduates an opportunity to work with Aquarius in a setting that simulates saturation diving procedures related to the Navy’s use of a "flyaway saturation system." Two back–to–back five day missions will each include five Navy divers with one NURC/UNCW habitat technician, NURC Diving Safety Officer (DSO) Roger Garcia, a former Navy diver himself. Excursions from the habitat will involve typical "surface supplied" umbilical diving with "hard hat" helmets, with the wet porch serving as an analog to a saturation diving bell. Tasks will benefit NOAA’s habitat program and include inspections of the habitat exterior structures and baseplate, further installation of baseplate stabilization/hurricane seabed anchors, and general maintenance prior to the off–mission season.
During each Aquarius mission, anyone with Internet access can watch live web cameras, read expedition journals from the aquanauts, view project summaries and pictures, and much more at the NURC/UNCW Aquarius web site: www.uncw.edu/aquarius
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Please Support Our Sponsors | | |
|
Lionfish adopt home away from home in Atlantic
|
|
|
Posted by Dawg on Monday, October 31, 2005 @ 03:18:10 EST (291 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0)
|
|
|
|
Lionfish adopt home away from home in Atlantic
By Gareth McGrath
Staff Writer
gareth.mcgrath@starnewsonline.com
FORT FISHER | When officials with the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher needed some lionfish for the facility?s new ?Exotic Aquatics? exhibit, they didn?t have far to go.
But catching specimens just 35 miles off Bald Head Island is a major problem because the poisonous but stunningly beautiful fish isn?t supposed to be found off North Carolina ? or anywhere in the Atlantic.
?We were amazed how many we saw,? said aquarium curator Hap Fatzinger, who was one of the divers on the collection mission this summer. ?We were hoping for two or three.
?But we got eight and could have gotten plenty more if we needed them from the number we saw down there. They?re much more prevalent than we first thought.?
Native to the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans thousands of miles away, the lionfish has become a marine version of the fire ant or kudzu ? an invasive species at the top of the food chain that appears to have quickly found a home away from home.
From a handful of sightings in 2000, the lionfish population off the North Carolina coast has exploded. The invasive species? ability to colonize offshore in hard-bottom and reef areas has been stunningly swift and successful.
Paula Whitfield, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Beaufort who has been tracking the lionfish ?invasion? since it started, said she found the predators lurking at 26 of her 27 dive sites this summer.
Prolific breeders, opportunistic feeders, readily adaptable and pretty hardy, lionfish are seemingly built to succeed.
?You could almost call it the perfect invader,? said Ms. Whitfield only half jokingly.
But while scientists know the lionfish are there and appear to have successfully adapted to the Atlantic?s temperate waters, what isn?t know is the impact they?re having on the offshore ecosystem.
In its native waters the lionfish is an apex predator, a role filled locally by snapper and grouper. Stomach examinations of lionfish plucked from the Atlantic show the uninvited guest also is feeding on the same small and juvenile fish as its fellow predators.
Whether the native and invasive species will learn to coexist isn?t known.
Ms. Whitfield admits that?s just one of many questions that researchers are still grappling with.
?There are still a lot of unanswered questions, what we don?t know about their life history,? she said, ticking off their maturity rates, gender ratios and range as examples.
But progress is being made on one front.
David Freshwater, a researcher at the University of North Carolina Wilmington?s Center for Marine Science, has been studying the genetic makeup of lionfish captured in the Western Atlantic.
?The evidence so far points to most of them coming from Indonesia,? Dr. Freshwater said.
He said the testing also shows that at least three females helped spawn the invasion.
Officials don?t know how lionfish made it halfway around the world, although one theory has 1992?s Hurricane Andrew washing some specimens into the Atlantic from a damaged Miami aquarium.
While loath to call the invader a permanent addition to the Mid-Atlantic marine environment, scientists admit that it appears that it will be all but impossible to evict them.
?If not permanently established, they are well on their way,? Dr. Freshwater said.
But there are some natural factors that appear to be limiting the animal?s march under the Atlantic.
Ms. Whitfield said lionfish to date have only been found in areas of warmer water, where water temperatures don?t fall below the low 60s, near the Gulf Stream.
They also have only been found in depths ranging from about 120 to 260 feet.
Both factors hamper their chance of interacting with most people, which also limits the potential damage from their hypodermic-like spines that can deal a painful ? but rarely deadly ? sting.
But there are some worrisome trends as well.
Ms. Whitfield said she?s now getting phone calls about lionfish sightings off the Bahamas, where the warm waters of the Caribbean would allow them to colonize a much larger area than they can further north.
?We still have a lot more to learn about them to see and understand where their impact would be felt the most,? she said.
Back at the N.C. Aquarium, officials plan to display the lionfish in an exhibit showcasing a hard-bottom habitat found offshore.
It will be located across from a tank displaying fish and coral from a Pacific Ocean reef, the lionfish?s native habitat.
Gareth McGrath: 343-2384
gareth.mcgrath@starnewsonline.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Please Support Our Sponsors | | |
|
|
