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SCUBA News...
News, research and articles on scuba diving, travel and the marine environment.

• Europe should spend now to avoid climate catastrophes
  Europe is warming faster than the world average, creating conditions that are making the Mediterranean region dryer and the north wetter, according to a report studying the impact of global warming on Europe.
• 27% Off Dive Magazine
  DIVE magazine is the UK's most popular scuba diving publication and is now being offered with 27% off for 12 issues. It contains the latest news, equipment reviews, photography, features on where to dive and tips to improve your skills. Delivered world-wide but discount only available in the UK.
• Marine 'dead zones' leave crabs gasping
  It's not easy being a fish these days, but it could be even harder being a crab. Research into marine "dead zones" around the world suggests that crustaceans are the first to gasp for air when oxygen levels get low.
• Film of fishermen dumping catch causes uproar
  British trawler has sparked an international incident after being filmed taking a boatload of endangered fish caught in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and then dumping the majority overboard in UK waters. Norwegian government coastguards filmed the crew of the Prolific, a Shetland-based trawler, openly discarding more than 5,000 kg of cod and other dead white fish, or nearly 80% of its catch. It is illegal to discard fish in Norwegian waters, but boats are forced to do so in European Union waters if they have caught the wrong species of fish or fish that are too small. Last year the EU estimated that between 40% and 60% of all fish caught by trawlers in the North sea is discarded. The practice of dumping is widely recognised as unsustainable but inevitable given the present EU quota system.
• Acidifying oceans are brewing up an underwater din
  The ocean is getting noisier. Sound can now travel further than it did a century ago, thanks to carbon emissions that have made the oceans more acidic. Researchers have known for some time that acidity can influence how far sound travels in seawater. Oceans are becoming more acidic because of rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which dissolves in seawater to form carbonic acid.
• Underwater Photo Gallery: Italy
  SCUBA Travel have a new room in their Photo Gallery, dedicated to the marine life and dive sites of Italy.
• Secrets of Effective Communication beneath the Sea
  An acoustic signal is sent horizontally through ocean waters from one point to another. Along the way the sound is bouncing off a "ceiling" of choppy, wind-whipped seas and seafloor that could be craggy rock or smooth sand. If researchers can better understand how physical conditions like these distort sound as it travels through the ocean, they could send data underwater faster and with less power and could make it much easier for networks of sensors to talk to each other simultaneously. They could improve wireless communications from commonly used ocean instruments such as Doppler current profilers and potentially eliminate the need for vehicles and gliders to surface just to transmit modest amounts of data. With these goals on the horizon, a science team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography have successfully completed a three-week study of waters west of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
• Reef Search Finds Hundreds of New Species
  Hundreds of new kinds of animal species surprised international researchers systematically exploring waters off two islands on the Great Barrier Reef and a reef off northwestern Australia - waters long familiar to divers. The discoveries were made at Lizard and Heron Islands (part of the Great Barrier Reef), and Ningaloo Reef in northwestern Australia. The found about 300 soft coral species, up to half of them thought to be new to science.
• Greenland seeks whaling breakaway
  Greenland is attempting to remove its whale hunt from the jurisdiction of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Its whalers are angry that the IWC has twice declined to permit the addition of humpback whales to its annual quota. The move could make Greenland the only state outside the IWC to systematically hunt the "great whales".
• Climate: New spin on ocean's role
  New studies of the Southern Ocean are revealing previously unknown features of giant spinning eddies that have a profound influence on marine life and on the world's climate. These massive swirling structures - the largest are known as gyres - can be thousands of kilometres across and can extend down as deep as 500 metres or more, a research team led by a UNSW mathematician, Dr Gary Froyland, has shown in the latest study published in Physical Review Letters. "The water in the gyres does not mix well with the rest of the ocean, so for long periods these gyres can trap pollutants, nutrients, drifting plants and animals, and become physical barriers that divert even major ocean currents," Dr Froyland says.
• Aqua Lung Recalls Scuba Regulators and Adaptors
  Aqua Lung USA are recalling Titan DIN 1st Stage Scuba Regulators and Titan/Conshelf DIN Scuba Adaptors. All owners of TITAN DIN regulators whose serial number is lower than 6062501 or TITAN/CONSHELF DIN adaptors that are marked 300 BAR MAX should return their regulator to their Aqua Lung retailer for an upgrade.
• Free Prize Draw as SCUBA News Celebrates 100th Issue
  SCUBA Travel, the guide to diving around the world, is celebrating the 100th issue of its newsletter "SCUBA News" (ISSN 1476-8011) with a free prize draw. Any subscriber to SCUBA News can participate, and subscription is free at http://www.scubatravel.co.uk/news.html. The free stuff on offer includes diving books and SCUBA Travel merchandise like pens, fridge magnets and caps. Elsewhere in the 100th issue is a newly updated list of the top 100 dive sites of the world, as voted for at the SCUBA Travel web site. Top of this list is the wreck of the Yongala in Australia, closely followed by Blue Corner Wall in Micronesia and the Thistlegorm in the Red Sea. Over the years SCUBA News has changed from being a purely text-based newsletter, to offering the choice of an HTML issue with colour and photographs. The main focus is still on content though, with not just the diving news from around the world but articles on diving areas, marine life, ocean facts and everything you need to know before visiting a new diving destination.
• Mediterranean tuna management an "international disgrace"
  According to Greenpeace, an independent review panel of international fisheries experts has branded the management of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery an "international disgrace". The body responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas is the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The independent panel was commissioned by this very organisation to review its performance following concerns raised by the international community about the management of tuna fisheries resources.
• New Book: Sea Fishes and Invertebrates of the North Sea
  Visitors to the North Sea are astonished at the profusion of marine life that exists in this relatively small, box-shaped sea that is bounded by Britain to the west and the shores of northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and the far south-west of Sweden in the east. This book includes more than 300 full-colour photographs and black-and-white line drawings. The introduction describes the formation of the North Sea, the habitats and types of animal found there, and the urgent conservation issues of this ecologically diverse area. The core of the book is the field guide section. This contains fascinating species accounts accompanied by identification photographs of nearly 300 species of sea creature, including fishes, molluscs, crustaceans, starfish, sponges and corals. Now with 34% off at http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/asin/1847731252/rss1-21
• Climate change could stop corals fixing themselves
  Climate change is depriving coral reefs across the globe of the building materials used to mak