Canada CHS update in the Marine GeoGarage

2085 Toronto Harbor

75 updated charts for Canada (30/08/2010) :

• 1234 CAP DE LA TETE AU CHIEN TO CAP AUX OIES
• 1236 POINTE DES MONTS TO ESCOUMINS
• 1313 BATISCAN TO LAC SAINT-PIERRE
• 1314 DONNACONA TO BATISCAN
• 1432 LAKE ST.FRANCIS B-C
• 1509A RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES/ ILE BIZARD TO PONT-VIAU
• 1509B RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES PONT-VIAU TO ILE BOURDON
• 2021A MURRAY CANAL PRESQU'ILE BAY TO TRENTON
• 2021B TRENTON TO GLEN ROSS
• 2021C GLEN ROSS TO HAIG'S REACH LOCK
• 2021D HAIG'S REACH LOCK TO HEALEY FALLS LOCKS
• 2085 TORONTO HARBOUR
• 3062 PITT RIVER AND PITT LAKE B-C
• 3495 VANCOUVER HARBOUR EASTERN PORTION
• 3534 PLANS - HOWE SOUND
• 3602 APPROACHES TO JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
• 3606 JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
• 3625 SCOTT ISLANDS
• 3726 LAREDO SOUND AND APPROACHES
• 3736 KITIMAT AND KEMANO BAY
• 3854 TASU SOUND TO PORT LOUIS
• 3869 SKIDEGATE CHANNEL TO TIAN ROCK
• 3891 SKIDEGATE CHANNEL
• 4001 GULF OF MAINE TO STRAIT OF BELLE ISLE
• 4003 CAPE BRETON TO CAPE COD
• 4010 BAY OF FUNDY INNER PORTION
• 4013 HALIFAX TO SYDNEY
• 4016 SAINT-PIERRE TO ST JOHN'S
• 4017 CAPE RACE TO CAPE FREELS
• 4021 POINTE AMOUR TO CAPE WHITTLE AND CAPE GEORGE
• 4023 NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT
• 4047 ST PIERRE BANK TO WHALE BANK
• 4403 EAST POINT TO CAPE BEAR
• 4404 CAPE GEORGE TO PICTOU
• 4406 TRYON SHOALS TO CAPE EGMONT
• 4420 MURRAY HARBOUR
• 4470 BLANC-SABLON TO MIDDLE-BAY
• 4587 MORTIER BAY
• 4616 BURIN INLET AND APPROACHES
• 4624 LONG ISLAND TO ST. LAWRENCE HARBOURS
• 4663 COW HEAD TO POINTE RICHE
• 4679 HAWKES BAY \ PORT SAUNDERS \ BACK ARM
• 4702 CORBET ISLAND TO SHIP HARBOUR HEAD
• 4728 EPINETTE POINT TO TERRINGTON BASIN
• 4744 APPROACHES TO SPOTTED ISLAND HARBOUR
• 4745 WHITE POINT TO SANDY ISLAND
• 4817 BAY BULLS TO ST MARY'S BAY
• 4820 CAPE FREELS TO EXPLOITS ISLANDS
• 4821 WHITE BAY AND NOTRE DAME BAY
• 4831 FORTUNE BAY NORTHERN PORTION
• 4842 CAPE PINE TO CAPE ST MARY'S
• 4843 HEAD OF ST MARY'S BAY
• 4844 CAPE PINE TO RENEWS HARBOUR
• 4848 LONG POND
• 4854 CATALINA HARBOUR TO INNER GOOSEBERRY ISLANDS
• 4855 BONAVISTA BAY SOUTHERN PORTION
• 4856 BONAVISTA BAY WESTERN PORTION
• 4857 INDIAN BAY TO WADHAM ISLANDS
• 4863 BACALHAO ISLAND TO BLACK ISLAND
• 4865 APPROACHES TO LEWISPORTE AND LOON BAY
• 4909 BUCTOUCHE HARBOUR
• 5049 DAVIS INLET TO SENIARTLIT ISLANDS
• 5052 SENIARTLIT ISLANDS TO NAIN
• 5070 SATOSOAK ISLAND TO AKULIAKATAK PENINSULA
• 5080 PUNCHBOWL AND APPROACHES
• 5133 DOMINO POINT TO CAPE NORTH
• 5134 APPROACHES TO CARTWRIGHT-BLACK ISLAND TO TUMBLEDOWN DICK ISLAND
• 5135 APPROACHES TO HAMILTON INLET
• 5138 SANDWICH BAY
• 5143 LAKE MELVILLE
• 6021A LAKE MUSKOKA - 1
• 6021B LAKE MUSKOKA - 2
• 6030 MANITOULIN ISLAND LAKES
• 6035 LAKE NIPISSING EASTERN PORTION
• 6251 RED RIVER TO GULL HARBOUR

Dentists discover secret of narwhal's tusk

This species of whale has an unusual and mysterious long horn, once harvested and sold as a unicorn horn for ten times its weight in gold

From CBC

Scientists in the United States have discovered the secret of the narwhal's long tusk, which they say is something unique in the animal world.
Researchers working in Canadian Arctic with the sea mammal say the tusk is actually a sensory probe delivering information to the animal in a distinctive way.

The narwhal's tusk, a 1.5-metre-long tooth emerging from the left side of the upper jaw, has long been a source of fascination. Its spiral nature led to it being marketed for princely sums in medieval Europe as a unicorn's horn.

In the past the tusk has been judged a weapon, a mating display and a fishing spear.

It turns out, the truth is stranger than the fiction.

Scientists studying the animal in Canada's Arctic have found that more than 10 million tiny nerve connections tunnel their way from the tusk's core to its outer surface.

These give the tusk an extremely sensitive surface, capable of detecting changes in water temperature, pressure and particle gradients, scientists say. It also allows the whales to detect water particles characteristic of the fish that constitute their diet.

And when Narwhals display "tusking" behaviour, or rub tusks, they're likely experiencing a unique sensation, say scientists.

The researchers say there is no other animal with a comparable ability in nature, and certainly no comparable tooth with that kind of functional adaptation.

"Now that we know the sensory capabilities of the tusk, we can design new experiments to describe some of the unique and unexplained behaviours of this elusive and extraordinary whale," said Martin Nweeia of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine in Boston.

The research into the nature and function of the narwhal's tooth may also lead dental researchers to develop better materials for tooth restoration in humans, says Nweeia.

The research was partly funded by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
The findings were presented Tuesday at the Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in San Diego.

New map charts diversity, distribution and abundance of ocean life

Download a full resolution map (PDF, 128MB)

From Duke University

A new map developed by Duke University researchers, in partnership with the Census of Marine Life and National Geographic Maps, provides the most detailed overview yet of life in the world’s oceans.

The two-sided, poster-sized map, is based on 10 years of data from the international Census of Marine Life and other scholarly sources.

It is being publicly presented for the first time, along with other documents and findings from the census, at a news conference today (October 4) in London, U.K., at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

The map took more than two years to plan, develop and design, and includes new data previously not available in any one document, says Patrick Halpin, associate professor of marine geospatial ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

“The value of this map is that lets us see patterns of species diversity and migration in a new light, and provides a clearer picture of biological abundance, which is very hard to measure,” he says.
“We see connections that couldn’t be documented before.”
The hope, he says, is that the map will attract greater public attention to the census and its discoveries.

Among other things, the map identifies the regions that are home to the world’s greatest concentrations of marine biodiversity and abundance; the long-distance migration paths of key predators; the regions that have experienced the greatest impacts from human activities; and the locations of coral reefs, hydrothermal vents, seeps, seamounts and other geological features that act as “islands of high diversity and abundance,” says Halpin, whose team at Duke’s Marine Geospatial Ecology Laboratory created the document with input from census leaders.

Each side of the color-coded map illustrates a different set of related topics or themes.
On the side titled “Diversity, Distribution, Abundance,” the main image tracks the long-distance migrations of 11 taxonomic groups of ecologically important predators, including sharks, sea turtles, seabirds and tuna.
A smaller panel maps vertical movement in the water column — how fish and zooplankton migrate up and down, from sunlit surface waters to the murky depths, in response to changing diurnal and seasonal stimuli.

On the side of the map titled “Past, Present and Future,” the main image shows which regions of the world’s oceans are home to the greatest biodiversity of species, and which have experienced the greatest human impacts.
Marine hot spots appear around the Philippines, Japan, China, Indonesia, Australia, India and Sri Lanka, South Africa, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Biodiversity and high human impacts collide in coastal areas such as the Western Pacific and North Atlantic.
A smaller map charts the abundance of seafloor life of the world’s oceans – the quantity of animals, measured as biomass, found in each region regardless of the number of species.

“While the greatest biodiversity is found in the warm waters of the tropics, the greatest abundance of life appears in high latitudes in the polar regions,” Halpin says.
“So diversity and abundance have almost exactly opposite trends.”

Halpin and his team, Nicholas School research associates Jesse Cleary and Ben Donnelly, used geographical information systems technology to bring together key findings from the wealth of census and related data archived at the Ocean Biogeographic Information System, the world’s largest, publicly accessible marine species database.
With more than 2,700 census contributors and thousands of related publications to draw from, they had to make tough choices.

“Ninety-nine percent of the data from the census isn’t here, but the key themes – that life in Earth’s oceans is richer, more connected and more altered than expected – are represented,” Halpin says.

Most of the data included on the new map would have been impossible to document 10 or 15 years ago, he explains.
Recent advances in satellite telemetry tracking devices, sonar, underwater cameras and microphones, autonomous reef monitoring structures, DNA barcoding to identify species, and other technologies have made it possible.

The Census of Marine Life is a network of researchers in more than 80 nations who engaged in a 10-year scientific initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.

Halpin, Cleary and Donnelly are part of the Census’ Mapping and Visualization Team.
They will join other project contributors at the October 4 news conference in London, and on October 5 will make a more detailed presentation about the map at a symposium at the Royal Society in London.
Principal funding for the mapping project came from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Links :

• Telegraph : Oceans could contain 750,000 undiscovered species
• Guardian : Study identifies more than a million ocean species
• WashingtonPost : Global Census of Marine Life reveals thousands of new species, other discoveries
• BBCNews : Marine census publication marks 'decade of discovery'
• CNN : Biggest sealife survey, most ocean life is unknown
  
• ITNNews video : Ten-year marine study reveals new marine species

Where good ideas come from : about the birth of GPS

People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments.
But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story about the natural history of innovation.
His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web and GPS birth.

Navy surgeons' notebooks released by British Archives

Sea legs, watercolour illustration showing 'Strap and buckle apparatus for fracture of patella'
(page from the Medical and surgical Journal of HMS Racoon by Dr Pierce Mansfield.
The ship was stationed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1868)

From NationalPost

From a young girl who vomited a giant worm to lightning strikes and walrus attacks, the treacherous nature of life at sea in the 19th century was laid bare Thursday in newly released British archives.

Bruno Pappalardo, naval records specialist at the National Archives in London, said the handwritten notes, dating from 1793 to 1880, were an important source of medical history.
"The journals are probably the most significant collection of records for the study of health and medicine at sea for the 19th century," he said.

More than 1,000 Royal Navy medical officer journals were made public for the first time by the National Archives, revealing a world where drunken debauchery was a common theme of ship life, but rum was also used as a medical cure-all.

One of the most startling accounts reveals the case of 12-year-old Ellen McCarthy, a passenger on an 1825 journey from Ireland to Canada who complained of pain in her belly, constipation, a quick pulse and a great thirst.

She subsequently vomited up an 2.2-meter worm, and later had another “motion”, producing two shorter worms.

Inside front cover of the medical and surgical journal of His Majesty's Steam Ship Albert by J O McWilliam, MD, Surgeon. The Albert explored the course of the Niger River from 1841; the illustration is "'One of the sons of Onnese Obi Osai chief of Aboh, River Niger', drawn by John Duncan
The collection of surgeons’ logs reveal elsewhere how three men were killed when the ship Arab, on its way to the West Indies in 1799-80, was hit by lightning at sea.

Another ship, this one bound on a voyage of discovery to the Arctic in 1824, was attacked by several walruses, which had to be beaten off with bayonets.

The account of the Arab also describes a man stung by a scorpion or centipede and another bitten by a tarantula. In both cases the surgeon turned to rum, which he claimed was effective if applied early.

Rum was not only used for medicinal purposes, however. Littered throughout the logs are accounts of heavy drinking, which one surgeon in the Royal Navy remarked “kills more men than the sword.”

Tobacco smoke was also used as an experimental treatment on a man who fell overboard from the Princess Royal which serviced the Channel in 1801-02, and appeared to be dead by the time he was pulled aboard.

After smoke was pumped into his lungs for almost an hour, a pulse was detected and he recovered. The treatment was hailed a success, although in the next journal, he was hospitalised suffering from pneumonia.

The dangers of sea life did not only affect those on board, however.

The medical journal of surgeon Godfrey Goodman of the Dido in 1875 expressed concern that his ship had spread a measles epidemic to Fiji, which eventually killed one-third of the population.
Links :

• BBCNews : Navy surgeons' stories
• TheGuardian : Amputations, acid gargles and ammonia rubs, Royal Navy surgeons' 1793-1880 journals revealed
• TheTelegraph : 7ft worms, hermaphrodite sailors and resurrection by tobacco revealed in archive