My officemate and a fellow researcher in Oxford's Ocean Research & Conservation Group, Dr Michelle Taylor, has found the first evidence of microplastic being ingested by deep sea animals. Read her paper at: 

This Thursday (Oct 6) I'll be speaking at Kings College London about ocean exploration. Everyone is welcome. At 6pm in the Pyramid Room, the talk part of their Intrepid Explorers series and will most likely precede some sort of pub outing. Thanks Rebecca Farnum, author of Defending the Deep - Guardians of the Sea (!), for inviting me! 

Last year I worked (in a minor way!) on the recently published book by friend and fellow Marshall Scholar Rebecca L. Farnum. She writes about the incredible story of the Kuwait Dive Team. Check out the book on Amazon here, and see synopsis below. I'm so excited to see this in print! 

Jan 14, 2015  I'm sitting on the bus to London working on my 10 min talk for TEDx Oxford this Sunday. Excited! I'll post the video once it's out. The focus is "Why we know more about the dark side of the moon than the depths of the ocean." I'll present the argument from my BSc. thesis,  which distills the reasons down to missiles and miscommunication. Then, after understanding the history, we'll look at future of ocean exploration as a venture jointly funded by private and government sectors. I'll tie in stories from expeditions too. Everyone loves stories. 

PS ... in London for talk by Richard Pyle, big time rebreather diver and mesophotic coral reef researcher. His videos are really cool. Just listen to him:  "Our average rate of species discovery is 12 new species per hour we spend at depth." (!!) 

... read full piece at TIME.com/4029379/cern-for-the-oceans/

Apparently it was talked about in Harvard's Environmental Science class this week!

 . . . the ocean! Pioneer explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau said, "The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." 

Today we celebrated under the sea in Aquarius what would have been Jacques' 104th birthday. In commemoration, we all wore red caps, like Jacques' team was known for. We also brought red cap-shaped cookies down to Aquarius, from our friends at Lucky 13 Bakery. 

We also collected sensors for Northeastern's environmental contamination study. The sensors are powerful although they look vaguely like plastic bags floating on lines  (image credit Mission 31/Billy Snook). They will detect even tiny pollutants, including PCBs, PAHs, and potentially dispersants from the BP oil spill.

Yikes!  We arrived back to base at 4:30pm, just when I was suppose to leave for a talk at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami. Cutting it close. I quickly changed and left just in time to make the event. Thank you Bob Howard from the MIT Club of South Florida for the ride!

On the drive to FIU, I really enjoyed Bob Howard's stories of MIT from the 1960s. He talked about working on punch-card computers, getting drafted for the war, and then working at the Pentagon. It's pretty crazy we ended up meeting in the Keys! 

There was an impressive turn out for the talk. I was happy to see many young people in the audience; including a group from FIRST robotics, which brought back fond memories because FIRST introduced me to robotics as a high school student. Also attending were MIT Club of South Florida members, FIU students, and visiting coral reef scholars. The talk went well, despite experiencing every speaker's nightmare. My laptop crashed just before my talk without saving the last version of the presentation I'd prepared oh-so-carefully yesterday. Even though in my mind the slides weren't quite right, no one in the audience seemed to notice and everything went well. It was a good reminder to be prepared for the unexpected because things in life don't always go as planned. 

After introducing Mission 31 and Skyping with Andy in Aquarius, I spoke more broadly about ocean exploration. The audience was enthusiastic and asked many excellent questions, including details about aquanaut training and life underwater in the habitat. Others asked about my background in ballet and how I got started in robotics, which was through FIRST robotics, and how this organization influenced my career path! Thanks to Bob Howard, Gary Chin, and Aileen Soto for organizing the fantastic event!