The ocean is such a magical place; yet 95% remains unexplored.
UNDERSEA RESEARCH
| Aquanaut scientists Adam and Andy are currently doing undersea research for the first part of the mission, and Liz and I will switch with them on June 17. To follow along with the undersea research, there's information on the Mission-31 website, video channel, and aquanaut scientist Adam Zenone's blog Zen1 for 31.The Northeastern team is also keeping a topside M31 science blog at View from the Surface. |  Throwback Thursday! Andy, Adam, and I holding the three large grouper decoys. Real Goliath Grouper are several feet long and hundreds of pounds. |
IF YOU FIND THIS ...
| Every morning at 5:30 a.m., Adam and Andy set-up the Goliath Grouper decoys (in the photo above) before the real grouper (and rest of us!) awake. Adam's blog post describes about how one got away! Adam was forced to simply watch as one large grouper decoys slowly slipped upward after it crossed his dive "ceiling" -- the height he cannot pass due to saturation. I can only imagine being so close, but unable to swim after it. Adam describes more details about the research he and Andy are conducting in his blog, including why he's chatting and collaborating with Norway about research while underwater! Please keep a lookout for the grouper decoy and become a part of M31 research! |  Finding Grouper. If you see a large grouper decoy that looks like one on left, it's Adam and Andy's! One of the three decoys got away. Adam cleverly suggested a new ocean current study. As Dori said in Finding Grouper, "When life gets you down, just keep on swimming." |
GIGABYTES OF OCEAN RESEARCH
| Every two days, Adam and Andy generate 800 gigabytes of undersea research data; that's a lot of data (yea!). The prefix giga means 10 to the 9th power; so one gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes. They only use solid state drives in the habitat even though spinning drives are cheaper because the pressure differences undersea squeeze the spinning drive too much. So, Adam and Andy pod their solid state hard drives to me from below , and I transfer the data to spinning drives. Keep the ocean data coming, guys! |  Ocean research by the gigabyte! No camera filter can make this an attractive photo. I'm transferring data from solid state drives (that work undersea) to cheaper spinning drives. |
 Can you guess what Andy is doing in this photo? This was taken last night outside the habitat with a Nokia Lumia phone. To find out, watch the newest video on the Mission 31 YouTube channel! |  Adam shared this beautiful photo of the Key's coral reef on Instagram with caption, "It looks so alien." Credit to Adam Zenone, Nokia Lumia 1020. |
 More sneak peek footage. From left to right, here are Kip, Adam, Fabien, Liz, Andy and me standing on top of the Aquarius habitat. |  At first glance, this photo probably doesn't make sense. It shows equipment (arrived today) for plankton studies. Divers will tow this net to capture plankton over areas of coral reef. I'll install a flow meter to record the net's speed. Northeastern graduate student Amanda will analyze the results for her thesis. |
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE OCEAN
It's wonderful to see so many students and teachers excited about our oceans. There's lot's of outreach everyday via M31 Skype-in-the-Classroom and other sources. There's also a Mission 31 curriculum for grades K-12 to bring back lessons "from the seafloor to the surface."
LASTLY . . .
 My watch made it to the big screen! Marc sneakily caught this shot of my watch as I was reviewing one of the M31 videos on YouTube. Credit Marc Ostrick. |  Some "light" reading arrived from our sponsor DOXA. These coffee table books describe the watches' rich history, starting with Jacques Cousteau. |
 More sneak peek footage. From left to right, here are Kip, Adam, Fabien, Liz, Andy and me standing on top of the Aquarius habitat. |  What a gorgeous end to the day! A pink sunset over the pool. |
SURFACE DIVES TOMORROW!
I can't wait till tomorrow. I'm helping film 30-second science clips demonstrating basic physics concepts underwater. More on that later! For now, good night.
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