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

Fluctuat nec mergitur

How funny, Paris symbol is a ship in a harsh weather, could it be our flag / motto?



Fluctuat nec mergitur (or FLVCTVAT NEC MERGITVR when an inscription written in capitals) is a Latin phrase meaning "She is tossed by the waves, but is not sunk":

• fluctuat: the verb fluctuare in the third-person indicative singular of the present tense in the active voice. Fluctuare means "to be wave-like", "move up and down"; of persons and passions, "to be tossed about", "to waver". In English the verb fluctuare gave to fluctuate.
• nec: contraction of et non, which means "and not", "and does not", "and is not".
• mergitur: the verb mergere in the third-person indicative singular of the present tense in the passive voice. Mergere means "to dip", "plunge into liquid", "immerse", "sink", "overwhelm". In English the verb mergere gave to merge as well as to submerge (literally "merge under", "sub-merge").

This phrase is the motto of Paris, France, and is present in the city coat of arms depicting a ship floating on a rough sea. Both motto and city arms have their origins in the Seine River boatsman's corporation; this powerful hanse ruled the city's trade and commerce as early as the Roman era. Although this corporation through the centuries became an entity resembling more a municipal government than a trade organization, they maintained their original arms and motto, and it is for this that the Mairie de Paris bears them still today.
The phrase is also the motto of Albert Messiah's classic textbook on quantum mechanics.

Ocean farmers

As a matter fo fact we want to become "ocean farmers". Fish farms are super interesting structures to look at.
http://wwz.ifremer.fr/aquaculture/filieres
We want to grow as many things as possible, especially stuff we can eat.
We need to learn so many things, meet so many people...
Sea farming can look like this (source Kames sea farming products) :













OH! Made with tyres! Of course! Where shall we put all these tyres?

Peter von Bartheld sais:

There are quite a few companies constructing very fancy fish pens which can with stand violent storms and attacks from pretators. I would certainly be worth it to drag your fresh supply of fish along, right? One of those companies is Ocean Spar.