The new iTunes is excellent

Apple has built a new iTunes store that is much more efficient. Click the Welcome image, it will open in a web preview first, in the past iTunes would open directly and there wasn’t a web page preview. This gives a viewer the chance to look around before launching iTunes, which is excellent.

Click and explore iTunes, and a moment to rate our video content.

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Sadly I report that my team did not get the National Park Service contract to provide high-speed catamaran service to Dry Tortugas. [ read about it from the NPS]

Dry Tortugas from Space

Recently the National Park Service re-issued a ten year contract to provide high-speed ferry service from Key West, FL to Fort Jefferson at The Dry Tortugas. In the next 60-days Congress will be asked to approve the contract, but they should take another look. http://keysnews.com/node/20390

Click the image for full screen. Image was requested by Captain Ghidoni and was taken by the Int’l Space Station.

The Keys from higher

In this specific case it seems remarkable the incumbent was awarded another ten years. Public outcry locally is well documented. http://keysnews.com/node/20390 The public is overwhelmingly negative because Key West locals know the history.

Does it serve the community for this large entity to grab yet another long-term contract in such a small town? The incumbent operates in several cities. In tough times which of their operations will suffer first? Maybe the smallest, least significant  - Key West? This is exactly why we feel our smaller footprint could do it better, faster, cheaper.

Are we disappointed?  You bet, it has been a long, long, competitive process with 18-months of delays, but they are the better company.

We carry forward the experience and we fully support the decision of the National Park Service. If you get to Key West; plan a day for Fort Jefferson.

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Online Coral Reef Resource Now Available at reefrelieffounders.com

Dear friends and Reef Relief founders Craig and DeeVon Quirolo retired from the Key West based grassroots organization last July, only to begin a comprehensive effort to provide an online resource on coral reefs.  Their new website provides all the award-winning educational tools, grassroots strategies, project reports and images of coral reefs assembled during their work over the past 23 years in the Florida Keys and throughout the Caribbean protecting coral reefs.  You can find it at www.reefrelieffounders.com.
“We just wanted to insure that others can learn from our experiences and continue the important work of saving endangered coral reefs,” noted DeeVon in a recent note.  “Craig’s image archive from all the years he monitored coral reefs, especially those revealing new coral diseases, are invaluable to researchers, students, media, divers and the general public to learn about coral reefs.  We hope to inspire a new generation of sea

Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis on a long cold night must have freaked out Ancient Man.

When do you use recur in stead of reoccur? Recur means - to repeat or reappear periodically, like a actor in a Recurring Roll. Reoccur - is a more random occurrence and less controlled. A Reoccurring Dream or nightmare can’t be scheduled. While the words recur, recurring, and recurrence are more often used, the words are subtly and distinctly different…

Do the Northern Lights recur or reoccur? Geomagnetic storms that ignite auroras happen more often during the months around the equinoxes; from September to October and from March to April, so Auroras recur.  And that is excellent.

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Holidays are for sharing and dinner is a favorite.

What do you bring for the dinner host?
Here’s an UNDER $20 gift for friends and family.
Wine is out! Ambiance is IN! Order today!

Our 2009 DVD is perfect for Holiday Entertaining and we have a holiday discount offer for you in our store. Natural ambiance compliments any decor. HD2O underwater video content is unique. We observe life on the reef and score an original soundtrack. The result is a ballet of spectacular colors and textures. Turn that big-screen into a looking-glass to casually gaze upon these coral ecosystems. All content is captured with no moving parts and no tape making us GREEN. GREEN for you too as Ocean water filters sunlight naturally. The resulting colors require less electricity on playback. How cool is that? NEWS FLASH: In a troubled economy friends tend to entertain at home rather than dine out. But how do you keep your company engaged in the conversation? Consider this totally underwater content. HD2O - The Keys was shot in HD and is available on DVD or you can download the HD content for the ultimate viewing. Perfect for entertaining or just relaxing at home. The 67-minute, six track program is a submersible flight through the coral reefs of the Florida Keys. And it loops! All night if necessary with a soundtrack scored to the motion of the ocean. Very sexy, if you get my drift, this is a No Brainer. visit our store $5 discount code:   US399.792FL You have friends on your list who, even if they have never been diving, they can enjoy the beauty of Nature from below the waves. Need enough for the entire department at work??? Give your team a timeless treasure; the coral reef. For a reasonable fee we can customize the disc and package to include a personal video message and insert pages. But we ask you to order now and be totally awesome for Christmas. Take a peek at our stuff. Click for our HD PodCast, or jump with both feet into this floating-log FLOG for articles and lots of embedded videos. Share this stuff with kids; Nature is what is hip. See you on the beach, Paul

We support these Cool Causes Awesome Friends with Fins Island Dolphin Care Exceptional Four-Pawed Partners Canine Companions Ultimate Four Hands and a tail Helping Hands Monkeys.

Ocean ambiance, relaxed presentation,
our 2009 DVD get HD2O online.

U.S. Coast Guard|by PO3 Walter Shinn

November 18, 2009 - JUNEAU, Alaska – The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea, the world’s most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker, will moor at the South Franklin Pier in Juneau and is scheduled to open for public tours.

The Polar Sea is returning to its homeport in Seattle after completing a 101 day deployment, 60 which were above the Arctic Circle. Although the crew of the Polar Sea has conducted multiple patrols in the Arctic, this would mark the cutter’s first science deployment in more than a decade concluding the cutter’s Arctic West Fall 2009 deployments.

The first phase took place over the course of two weeks in mid-September and involved 34 scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory led by Dr. Richard Coffin. The scientists met the cutter off Barrow, Alaska and conducted coring operations to study sediment composition. They were also involved in taking water samples to study temperature, salinity and levels of oxygen at varying

click for a closer look at this image.

I agree with personal responsibility at home and especially while on vacation. Travelers tend to think they don’t need to be too concerned or bothered when that is exactly when they should; visiting sensitive environments. Liter and carelessness are inexcusable human diseases cured with care and mindfulness.

Simple; don’t litter.

We live on a dynamic planet. Earth changes will happen as they have for millennium. These changes should not be exploited by politicians who selfishly combine eco-emotions with issues of personal responsibility. Fjords for example happened because of Earth changes and no politician can change the weather.

But we can all influence others to be conscience of the environment. Be realistic steward and others will follow your good example.

via Blog Action Day: Climate Change. We can make the difference « eXplorer.

Could this be ‘yo mama’? Odds are she is ‘everybody mama‘!

After 15 years of rumors, researchers made public fossils from a 4.4 million-year-old human forebear they say reveals that our ancestors were more modern than scholars had assumed, widening the evolutionary gulf separating humankind from apes and chimpanzees.

You’ve got to see highlights of the extensive fossil trove, a female skeleton a million years older than the iconic bones of Lucy, the primitive female figure that has long symbolized humankind’s beginnings. One million years more human history? This throws a serious curve ball into the entire theory of human existence. Could there be even older human existence? Could ‘yo mama’ be the oldest? This is NOT the old human ever, because who was her mama?

An international research team led by paleoanthropologist Tim White at the University of California, Berkeley, unveiled on Thursday remains from 36 males, females and young of an ancient prehuman species called Ardipithecus ramidus.

Unearthed in the Awash region of Ethiopia starting in 1994. The creatures take their scientific name from the word for “root” in the local Afar language. They aren’t the oldest known fossils of hominids — as prehuman species and their relatives are called — but constitute the most complete set discovered so far.

Read on, see a slide show and interactive graphics via Wall Street Journal:

Fossils Shed New Light on Human Past.

Madrid — The Oceana Ranger catamaran is equipped with a robot that has dived down to 500 meters depth to film species that are rarely spotted, or have never even been seen, in the Canarian archipelago.

Click image!

The goal of the expedition is to identify areas that should be turned into marine protected areas. Only 2.7% of the EU’s marine surface area is protected, but the United Nations calls for 10%.

Oceana has found around a dozen species in the Canary Islands whose existence in the archipelago was unknown until now. Glass and rock sponges, ball, white and black coral, and armored searobin are some of the species that have been found. A wide variety of rare species, or species for which hardly any biological information is known, were also able to be filmed live, including channeled rockfish, anglerfish, silver and pink gallo fish, fan coral, bathyal sea fans, Venus fly-trap anemones, and lollipops sponges.

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By KENNETH CHANG, NY TIMES

September 10, 2009

With ferocious flames and smoke in the barren Utah hills north of Salt Lake City, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Thursday successfully test fired the first stage of a new rocket. read on

Shipwrecks have captured the imagination of scuba divers with each person alone with their thoughts to wonder what may have happened, who was on board, how many died, and if other divers may have tempted the interior to find a watery grave since. Most wrecks are as safe as underwater safety can be, and most divers use extreme caution when entering a ship’s interior, totally aware of what could be. This wreck is mostly skeletal with very few interior spaces to explore, but that doesn’t diminish the experience.

The BENWOOD was sunk in 1942 after WWII. Some say she was hit by German U-boat torpedoes and could not limp back to port. Other say she was laid to rest and used for target practice. Either way the BENWOOD is a shallow dive in reasonable current in the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary as a wonderful artificial reef to explore… and wonder.

Choose the 640 or 960 HD clips, or better yet jump to our HD PodCast on iTunes for the best viewing experience.Music by Garry Lee Rosenberg, appropriately titled; Sea Anemone.