15/11/2009

Aquanaut adventure, urine and drums

[via newscientist.com]

Well, this is not quite "open" nor "sailing", but it has a lot of cool stuff inside!

Aquanaut adventure

Imagine spending 13 days underwater with nothing for company except some urine-loving algae and a drum kit. It hardly sounds like a great holiday, but it was a dream project for Lloyd Godson, an Australian marine biologist who wanted to create and live inside his own "bio-regenerative microcosm".

Godson has spent the last couple of weeks living inside a metal box measuring 3m x 2m x 2m some 5m below the surface of a quarry lake near Albury in south-eastern Australia . He won £20,000 funding for his BioSUB project through a competition called "Live Your Dream", sponsored by the magazine Australian Geographic.

The BioSUB contained various systems to keep Godson alive and well. These included an algae biocoil to produce breathable oxygen and absorb exhaled carbon dioxide when soaked in his own urine.

Another system, called Air2Water absorbed moisture from the air to produce drinking water. And Solar panels back on the shore and an exercise bike inside the box produced electricity for light and a waterproof laptop. And, each day, meals were delivered by scuba divers, although the website mentions a plan to eat some of the algae too. Yummmm.

Apparently, Godson also helped stave off boredom by playing the drums (without fear of upsetting any neighbours). And he produced a surprisingly catchy song to celebrate his mission, which you can see him performing here. I really admire Godson's spirit of adventure. Hopefully it won't be long before we hear about another one of his unconventional research projects.

Will Knight, New Scientist Tech editor

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