A new set of gliders is being developed by a group of 19 European research organizations that will be able to go deeper than any other underwater robots have gone before, to 5,000 meters below the surface. The gliders will be chock full of onboard sensors that will take continuous samples of the water there, gathering data about the ecosystems down there as well as monitoring the water for pollution.
From the scientist's perspective more, better data is always a good thing. But scientists who need to compete for funding rarely keep that data to themselves and trumpet it in the public arena. The chance these undersea gliders could produce endless "The Oceans Are Dying!" memes is non-zero.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 21 2015, @01:19AM
I really applaud these guys, and those putting sensors in the rainforest, and sending them aloft to dwell in the jetstream for months, etc. Since the media frenzies about pharmaceuticals in the drinking water [ap.org] and Fukushima radiation in the Pacific [washingtonpost.com], I have begun to question the wisdom of running out to the "journalists" with a press release for the consumption of a public that is increasingly willfully ignorant of science.
Washington DC delenda est.