Last year I was in Boston with three other Oxford grad students presenting a new business model for SeaWorld that entertained with virtual and artificial reality instead of captive cetacean. Visitors could have the sensations of travelling with dolphins miles in the ocean, seeing whales breach right in front of them, and experiencing the ocean from the perspective of a stingray in the wild. Our presentation won the 2016 International Business Ethics Competition; see past blog post  "The Future of SeaWorld Won 2016 International Business Ethics Competition!"       

I'm so glad that National Geographic has done it! Hopefully this is a trend that catches on.

Attention teachers! On Tuesday October 17th, your classroom can join me and fellow ocean engineer Shah Selbe in a hangout! Register here. The hangout is organised by National Geographic Education. More helpful links: 
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View teacher's guide here: https://goo.gl/MDxnAZ

 "​Grace C. Young is fascinated by fundamental questions about realms both quantum and undersea."
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Each summer, the international research laboratory CERN, home to the Large Hadron Collider, welcomes dozens of students to work alongside seasoned scientists on cutting-edge particle physics research. Many of these students will pursue physics research in graduate school, but some find themselves applying the lessons they learned at CERN to new domains. 

In 2011, MIT undergraduate Grace Young was one of these CERN summer students. 
Like many young adults, Young didn’t know what career path she wanted to pursue. “I tried all the majors,” Young says. “Physics, engineering, architecture, math, computer science. Separately, I always loved both the ocean and building things; it wasn’t until I learned about ocean engineering that I knew I had found my calling.”

Today, Young is completing her PhD in ocean engineering at the University of Oxford and is chief scientist for the deep-sea submarine Pisces VI. She develops technology for ocean research and in 2014 lived underwater for 15 days. During a recent visit to CERN, Young spoke with Symmetry writer Sarah Charley about the journey that led her from fundamental physics back to her first love, the ocean.

As a junior in high school you competed in Intel’s International Science Fair and won a trip to CERN. What was your project?

GY: A classmate and I worked in a quantum physics lab at University of Maryland. We designed and built several devices, called particle traps, that had potential applications for quantum computing. We soldered wires onto the mirror inside a flashlight to create a bowl-shaped electric field and then applied alternating current to repeatedly flip the field, which made tiny charged particles hover in mid-air. 

We were really jumping into the deep end on quantum physics; it was kind of amazing that it worked! Winning a trip to CERN was a dream come true. It was a transformative experience that had a huge impact on my career path.
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You then came back to CERN as a freshman at MIT. What is it about CERN and particle physics that made you want to return? 

GY: My peek inside CERN the previous year sparked an interest that drove me to apply for the Openlab internship [a technology development collaboration between CERN scientists and members of companies or research institutes]. 

​Although I learned a lot from my assignment, my interest and affinity for CERN derives from the community of researchers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines from all over the world. It was CERN's high-powered global community of scientists congregated in one beautiful place to solve big problems that was a magnet for me.

​You say you’ve always loved the ocean. What is it about the ocean that inspires you?

GY: I’ve loved being by the water since I was born. I find it very humbling, standing on the shore and having the waves breaking at my feet. 

​This huge body of water differentiates our planet from other rocks in space, yet so little is known about it. The more time I spent on or in the water, either sailing or diving, the more I began taking a deeper interest in marine life and the essential role the ocean plays in sustaining life as we know it on Earth.

What does an ocean engineer actually do?

GY: One big reason that we’ve only explored 5 percent of the ocean is because the deep sea is so forbidding for humans. We simply don't have the biology to see or communicate underwater, much less exist for more than a few minutes just below surface.

But all this is changing with better underwater imaging, sensors and robotic technologies. As an ocean engineer, I design and build things such as robotic submersibles, which can monitor the health of fisheries in marine sanctuaries, track endangered species and create 3-D maps of underwater ice shelves. These tools, combined with data collected during field research, enable me and my colleagues to explore the ocean and monitor the human impact on its fragile ecosystems.

I also design new eco-seawalls and artificial coral reefs to protect coastlines from rising sea levels and storm surges while reviving essential marine ecosystems.

​What questions are you hoping to answer during your career as an ocean engineer and researcher?

GY: How does the ocean support so much biodiversity? More than 70 percent of our planet is covered by water, producing more than half the oxygen we breathe, storing more carbon dioxide than all terrestrial plant life and feeding billions of humans. And yet 95 percent of our ocean remains unexplored and essentially unknown. 

The problem we are facing today is that we are destroying so many of the ocean’s ecosystems before we even know they exist. We can learn a lot about how to stay alive and thrive by studying the oceanic habitats, leading to unforeseeable discoveries and scientific advancements.

What are some of your big goals with this work?

GY: We face big existential ocean-related problems, and I'd like to help develop solutions for them. Overfishing, acidification, pollution and warming temperatures are destroying the ocean’s ecosystems and affecting humans by diminishing a vital food supply, shifting weather patterns and accelerating sea-level rise. Quite simply, if we don't know or understand the problems, we can't fix them.

Have you found any unexpected overlaps between the research at CERN and the research on a submarine?

GY: Vision isn’t a good way to see the underwater world. The ocean is pitch black in most of its volume, and the creatures don’t rely on vision. They feel currents with their skin, use sound and can read the chemicals in the water to smell food. It would make sense for humans to use sensors that do that same thing. 

Physicists faced this same challenge and found other ways to characterize subatomic particles and the celestial bodies without relying on vision. Ocean sciences are moving in this same direction.

What do you think ocean researchers and particle physicists can learn from each other?

​GY: I think we already know it: That is, we can only solve big problems by working together. I'm convinced that only by working together across disciplines, ethnicities and nationalities can we survive as a species. 

Of course, the physical sciences are integral to everything related to ocean engineering, but it's really CERN's problem-solving methodology that's most inspiring and applicable. CERN was created to solve big problems by combining the best of human learning irrespective of nationality, ethnicity or discipline. Our Pisces VI deep sea submarine team is multidisciplinary, multinational and—just like CERN—it's focused on exploring the unknown that's essential to life as we know it.

The 2016 International Business Ethics Competition was last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I competed with a team from Oxford. Our presentation, "The Future of SeaWorld," earned us the top prize in our division.
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Professional videos and photos of presentations will be available shortly. Meanwhile, here is a copy of our PowerPoint and a brief summary of our vision for the parks is below. ​

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

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

Brushing my teeth,
​fish in the viewport!

Here's a sneak peak of the kind of footage we are capturing. This clip shows a yellow-headed jawfish popping out of it's den, and then spiting out a mouthful of sand. In real time, this happens in the blink of an eye, but today we filmed it at the high speed of 2,000 frames per second, so you can see details of the fish's movement. We've also filmed sail fish, crabs dancing (what are they doing?!), sergeant major, coral cups feeding, Christmas tree worms, and bubbles. Incredible! 

This was a great Google hangout today about coral reef health in the Caribbean Basin hosted by Northeastern University's Urban Coastal Sustainability Initiative. Fabien, Liz and i were conducting research outside and "dropped by" to say hello in the Aquarius viewport. "You never know who's going to swim-by the viewport when you're in Aquarius," said Mark Patterson.

Yesterday I ventured with Matt and Brian to the Content Keys, where we met with two guides who took us on an adventure through the Florida mangroves. Mangroves are trees that grow partially submerged in the ocean. It felt like we were filming a Discovery Channel special (like this one on mangroves). 

We were there because we wanted to learn more about the grouper from an expert, our guide Don, who formerly hunted the fish but now tries to protect them. Matt and I will attempt to film the grouper's unique feeding strike during our saturation on Mission 31. 

Mangroves are amazing plants. They thrive in the salt water either by filtering out the salt at their roots or secreting excess salt through their leaves. They form forests in the middle of the ocean that harbor juvenile fish, filter water, and serve as attachment points for other water-filtering marine organisms. In addition, animals, such as pelicans and other costal birds, find shelter in the branches. There are even stories of monkeys living in the Florida mangroves! 

We snorkeled in the mangroves for several hours. Swimming under their branches, it was an alien world, like a scene from Avatar. We saw grouper, many snapper, some horse shoe crabs, and tiny crabs. The sounds were like nothing I've heard before. I could hear branches creaking and snapping, the rush of the current, and some popping noises from fish. Matt and Brian used the fancy RED camera to film the experience in incredible quality. The RED camera has more than 5 times the number of pixels of the very best HD camera. You'll have to wait to see their footage -- it'll be worth the wait! 

The past few days I've also been helping prepare science research, so everything is ready for our saturation on June 17th. The Northeastern surface team, who has a fantastic blog here, started shipping their gear last week, and it's slowly arriving at base. One of the things I was most excited to receive was the plankton traps from graduate student Amanda Dwyer. On our first day in Aquarius, fellow aquanaut Liz and I will deploy a dozen of the traps over different regions of the coral reef. All traps are small, so they are minimally invasive. They will collect zooplankton that rise into the net. Each day and night we'll then collect samples from the net, and Amanda will analyze the results. She'll be able to tell the health of the reef from the samples, and learn more about the zooplankton's nocturnal behavior. Plankton are an incredible resource on earth; they provide at least half of the oxygen we breath! I'm excited to help learn more about their important role in our ecosystem. 

The tools for other research, including for the sponges DNA, coral-stress, and sponge metabolism studies, arrive this week as well. More on that to come! Other exciting news is that the underwater housing for the Edgertronic camera is on it's way here, thanks to the Sexton Corporation, who has amazingly designed, created, and tested a modular system for using the Edgertronic underwater. 

Today Mission 31 team members Matt and Brian returned from the Amazon, where they were shooting a continuing project with Fabien Cousteau's sister Celine. You can see photos, showing how the Amazon has changed during the lifetimes of three Cousteau generations, in the ebook Return from the Amazon available in the iTunes Store. Matt and Brian told us the Amazon was scorching hot, over 105 degrees F. The 80-degree weather here in sunny Florida must now feel like a cool spring day! The intrepid explorers also shared stories of the bugs and difficulty in traveling around the Amazon. What an experience! I can't wait to hear more over dinner. 

Meanwhile, I continue preparing Mission 31 science research from topside. Today we sent out plankton nets for a research project designed by Northeastern graduate student Amanda Dwyer. I'm also counting down till  saturation -- 7 more days! 

             

I forgot to tell this story. On Spalshdown Day, the Mission 31 production team smartly deployed quadcopters to capture aerial footage of the excitement. Well, there was some problem with one of the copters (never really understood what happened), and it fell into the ocean. Luckily, one of the Navy divers, Carter, without missing a beat, dove in and rescued the copter on a breath-hold dive to 10m. Amazing! Sometimes robots need the Navy to rescue them too. 

When you think marine mammals, do you think polar bears? I didn't until I learned more. Polar bears are the only bear considered a marine mammal. Their scientific name, Ursus maritimus, translates to "maritime bear." Born in snow dens, they spend most of their time on the frozen sea, which they use as a platform for hunting seals. Mission 31 will study climate change effects on some tropical creatures. Although the Florida Keys have no polar bears, ocean health and climate change research impacts all sea life, from zooplankton (microscopic animals) to polar bears (up to 1,200 lbs). Want to know more? 20 Interesting Facts about Polar Bears.

Specifically, Mission 31 experiments will study climate change effects on zooplankton and coral reefs, marine life found in the Keys.  An overview of all M31 science research is at blog post 5/24/14.  Polar Bears International, the world's leading conservation group for polar bears, will celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8 in honor of all ocean life, large and small, even the ones that don't first come to mind!   

This evening at mission headquarters, we met with a representative from Nokia, one of our sponsors. She showed us some cool features of our new phones, including its professional-quality camera and image editing capabilities. We also finally got to meet Mission31's publicist, Amy Summers, who visited today. It's so nice to meet the face behind so many emails! 

Today was fun (...even though we were reviewing some serious emergency situations). We started in the classroom reviewing drills we'd do in the water, including how to use the marine VHF radios and safety sausages (brightly-colored, inflatable buoy columns) we'll always have with us underwater. We all got a little competitive during the emergency drills, which kept everyone's attention piqued. 

In the first drill, we practiced navigating with a compass. To make sure we weren't cheating, the instructors put towels over our heads (Mission 31 monogrammed towels, of course), so we had to "blindly" rely on only our compass heading to get where we wanted to go. I'm sure this looked ridiculous to anyone who passed by, but we're all now great at navigating! 

Our research will help answer: How do corals respond internally to daily fluctuations in external temperature, light, pH, and dissolved oxygen? The topside team will insert Unisense electrodes into three coral polyps per colony underwater to measure the gastrovascular system (the gut) of the corals. Data collected 24/7 over two weeks, creating the first long-term data set from wild corals. In addition to the data from the electrodes, Liz and I will measure corals' photosynthetic performance with a PAM fluorometer.

We'll record unique predatory behavior of the goliath grouper using a state-of-the-art high-speed Edgertronic camera. The results could validate the unproven theory that Goliath Groupers use the sound of a collapsing cavitation bubble formed in their head as a weapon to stun their prey. It'll help answer: What is happening during a grouper's feeding strike, and does the grouper use sound as a weapon?

Every day we'll collect small samples of zooplankton with nets to quantify their presence on the reef. The data will help scientists answer: How are plankton communities changing with climate change? In addition, the ratio of alive to "zoombie" (recently dead, but not broken down or consumed yet) zooplankton in our samples will give insight into the populations and lifespans of these creatures, which are necessary for coral reefs to be resilient against coral bleaching events. 

Sponges are prodigious filter feeders. They filter water equal to their entire body volume in less than a minute and remove more than 99% of the particles they inhale, most of which are bacteria. Part of the reason visibility is so good on a coral reef is becuase of the filtering by sponges. We are looking to answer the following research questions: How do barrel sponges filter material and how can we model their behavior? Does their behavior fluctuate over the course of a day in a predictable pattern (circadian rhythm)? Are neighboring sponges pumping at the same rate or is every sponge different? We'll answer these questions using sensors that measure fluctuations in temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, and flow over the seafloor and in the water coming out of the sponges. From these measurements, the Northeastern researchers can study how sponges' metabolism and feeding rate respond to changes in the environment. We'll also collect DNA from 14 different sponges for the Ocean Genome Legacy Project.     

We'll deploy and recover sensors that absorb and measure environmental contaminants, including PCBs, PAHs, and potentially dispersants from the BP oil spill. They will help us answer: What environmental contaminants are in the coral reef? Based on the findings, Dr. Loretta Fernandez can model contaminants in the area and refine methods for measuring them. 

I felt like a superhero being "weightless" underwater, jumping up and over the Aquarius habitat, which is like jumping over a two story building. I also took off my flippers and walked on the edge of the habitat like a tightrope walker. The Bonnet Rogue SCUBA divers caught my ballet "acrobatics" on video, but that footage won't come out until later! It turned out that I didn't need any added weight to reach neutral buoyancy on the seafloor. I also felt like I got the hang of swimming with the extra 30lbs on my head.  

I stared eye-to-eye with a barracuda for what seemed like a few minutes. They are a fearsome-looking fish, known for their scary appearance and teeth, but getting scared is one of the worst things you can do underwater because you might hyperventilate, lose control of your buoyancy, etc. Besides, barracuda will only bite if you look/smell like a fish. With bubbles streaming out of my Kirby Morgan and a tank strapped to my back, I don't look like a fish. 

Well, not quite yet . . . but soon! Artist Pharrell Williams (yep, the guy who sings Happy) is starting a hip clothing line made from recycled plastic from the ocean. It's not too clear how they're doing this (I'm curious on the engineering details, of course . . . Maybe they're going to use this 19-year old's idea !?). The video showing animated octos making the clothes certainly doesn't explain, but it must be possible . . . 

Speaking of celebs who want to help the ocean . . . Leonardo DiCaprio and the President of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, (link to his 2014 save-the-ocean speech) are also doing great things for the ocean. I hope more celebs will follow to spread awareness of the urgent need for ocean conservation!  

Pharrell's animated video with Raw for the Oceans and Bionic Yarn says the clothing line will be available August 15. 

There will be octopuses in the Florida Keys near the Aquarius reef base, although octopuses (yes, it's "octopuses," although "octopi" is apparently fine too, despite it sounding ridiculous) tend to fairly recluse. 

While reading up on octopuses I also learned for the first time about Paul the Octopus, who accurately predicted the results of the 2010 World Cup. Why didn't I hear of him before?! 

And despite my love of adventure, I really hope not to run into a giant Pacific octopus, which can grow to 30 feet.  (Photo at right.)