Captain P.S. Barve - 40th National Maritime Day

Captain P.S. Barve,(center) Former Nautical Advisor to Government of India and the Chief Examiner of Masters and Mates.  I was examined for my First Mate’s orals by Capt. Barve.

PUNE: The need for a full-time Indian Maritime Service (IMS) was moderated by Captain P.S. Barve, former nautical advisor to the government of India, in his speech on 'The Maritime Vision 2027', delivered on the occasion of the 40th National Maritime Day function organised by the Indian Maritime Foundation (IMF) in the city.

According to Barve, a separate IMS was needed because the present Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers lacked sufficient maritime knowledge and expertise. Barve was of the opinion that a separate cadre of officers would help the growth of maritime activity in the country.

AND

Mrs. Kiran Dhingra, Director General of Shipping, Govt. of India, delivering her keynote address, appealed to all stake holders of the industry to be open to the idea of recruiting more girl cadets and to give up the apprehensions related to gender issues regarding the suitability of girls for an arduous career. She advised girl cadets to get into management jobs and also shore based jobs.

A panel discussion was arranged to make the seminar more interactive where in the the panelists included Mrs. Kiran Dhingra, Mrs. Anu Aga, Director Thermax Ltd, Vice Admiral (Retd) A. S. Krishnan, Mrs. Jyotsna Deshpande, Chairperson, The Institution of Engineers, Pune and Mr. Vijay Handa, VP Reliance Shipping discussed various issues and was well moderated by Capt. S. G. Deshpande of TMI.

Principal B. K. Saxena summed up the seminar and Vote of thanks was paid by Capt. P. S. Barve, Chairperson, Academic Council. 

Complete Civil War submarine C.S.S. Hunley unveiled for first time

Bruce Smith / AP

The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sits in a conservation tank after a steel truss that had surrounded it was removed

Once the H.L. Hunley was raised from her watery grave on August 8, 2000, she was immediately transported to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center. As soon as the H.L. Hunley arrived at the Conservation Center, she was placed in a large steel tank filled with 55,000 gallons of chilled fresh water. This was done to minimize bacteria and corrosion activity, to protect and stabilize the waterlogged submarine, and to begin the process of desalination. Shortly thereafter, preparations for the excavation of the interior of the hull could begin. Here, the mysteries of how and why she met her tragic fate will be revealed and the entire vessel will be conserved for posterity, as part of a permanent museum display.

Randall Hill / Reuters

Senior conservator Paul Mardikian checks over the stern of the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley.

Confederate Civil War vessel H.L. Hunley, the world's first successful combat submarine, was unveiled in full and unobstructed for the first time in 2012, capping a decade of careful preservation.

"No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete. We're going to see it today," engineer John King said as a crane at a Charleston conservation laboratory slowly lifted a massive steel truss covering the top of the submarine.

Bruce Smith / AP

The first clear view of the sub since it sank in 1864 off the South Carolina coast.

About 20 engineers and scientists applauded as they caught the first glimpse of the intact 42-foot-long (13-meter-long) narrow iron cylinder, which was raised from the ocean floor near Charleston more than a decade ago. The public will see the same view, but in a water tank to keep it from rusting.

Christopher Columbus' remains in Spain?

Cristina Quicler  /  AP file

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue; after he died in 1509, his remains remained on the move. He was originally buried in the Spanish city of Valladolid, but his remains were shipped to the Caribbean island of Hispanola (modern-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1537, in accordance with his will. When the Spanish lost the territory to France in 1795, they shipped Columbus's remains to Cuba, where they stayed until the Spanish-American War prompted their return to Seville in 1898. The tomb is shown here.

The Dominican Republic, however, says Columbus' remains never left Hispanola. In 1877, a box was uncovered in a Santo Domingo cathedral with an inscription identifying the remains as belonging to the "illustrious and distinguished male Cristobal Colon (Spanish for Christopher Columbus)."

DNA analysis of bone fragments from the Seville remains and those of Columbus' brother Diego, also buried in the city, are a perfect match. When researchers announced those findings in 2006, they declared that the century-old dispute was resolved. But DNA from the Dominican remains has yet to be studied, leaving the case not quite fully shut.

Recovery of the C.S.S. Hunley

 
Since the end of the War Between the States, explorers and treasure seekers have scoured the sea around the site of the fallen Housatonic, hoping to discover the Hunley and her crew. In the years following the Civil War, a reward of $100,000 was even offered by the great showman, P.T. Barnum, to encourage mercenaries to find the lost vessel. But as the years passed by, the story of the Hunley remained shrouded in mystery with her secrets hidden and her resting place unknown for well over a century.

The world would have to wait until the tools of modern technology could begin to unlock the secrets of the Hunley. In 1995, author and adventurer Clive Cussler found the Hunley resting on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Intact and remarkably well preserved, the Hunley was found buried deep within the sand and silt just outside of Charleston Harbor.

The recovery of the Hunley has turned out to be one of the most important single events in the history of South Carolina. After being lost at sea for 137 years, the Hunley was revealed on August 8, 2000, seen for the first time in her entirety, from bow to stern and top to bottom. It was indeed a remarkable moment in history.

As if stuck in time - she lay on her starboard side with the bow pointing almost directly toward Sullivans Island - four miles away. The same direction she was heading that historical, fateful and mysterious night.

Buried relatively soon after she sank, the Hunley was covered over completely with silt. It is estimated that this process comprised approximately 25 years. This "quick burial" has protected the rusty hull from the salt-bearing currents that normally erode sunken ships.

Carbon Offsets: Why do People Buy Carbon Offsets?

© Some people buy offsets to make up for air-travel emissions.

Agency: Dreamstime

 
As people and businesses become more aware of their own contributions to global warming, some turn to carbon offsets as a way to go neutral. Offset companies first estimate a customer's personal carbon output. Their Web sites include carbon calculators that determine the total GHG produced by a year's worth of electricity or driving, an event or even a round-trip flight. Offset companies then charge an amount based on their own GHG price per ton. The money funds programs that offset an equal amount of emissions. Some offset companies allow customers to choose their projects; others do not.

Aside from the physical benefits of offset projects, voluntary commercial offsets make customers look beyond the limits of their own households or businesses. Before buying offsets, people presumably first reduce their own emissions. They may limit travel, choose energy-efficient appliances or convert to renewable energy. After they cannot reduce any more, or if they find it uneconomical to do so, carbon offsets help make up for the rest.

Some purchasers, however, make no attempt to reduce their emissions before buying carbon offsets. Critics claim that offsets give people who are unwilling to change their lifestyle an easy, monetary way out of taking real responsibility. Offsets do not provide carbon atonement for a trip by private jet or the construction of a sprawling mansion. When the average American car produces more CO2 in a year than the total annual production of an average global citizen, it's clear that monetary investments cannot replace actual GHG reductions in developed nations [source: New York Times].

Carbon offsets have also become the mode in corporate responsibility. Companies with green reputations attract a public increasingly concerned with the environment and global warming. Because carbon offsets are voluntary, generous purchases can help strengthen a company's environmental image. Some companies make real efforts to modify their operations, create fewer GHG emissions and offset the rest. But businesses can also conceal lax environmental standards with highly promoted carbon offsets. Environmentalists call this type of deception greenwashing.



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Deepest Wreck Currently Under Excavation in U.S. Waters: Silent Cannon

Photograph courtesy NOAA

A cannon sits 4,330 feet (1,300 meters) down on the seafloor amidst the remains of the Monterey shipwreck.

Although cannons aren't the only weapons archaeologists have found—muskets manufactured in England were also on board—experts are unsure whether the 84-foot-long (25-meter-long) vessel was a warship, a privateer, or passenger ship.



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Carbon Offsets: The Theory Behind Carbon Offsets

Carbon offsets help support renewable energy sources like wind power.

© Photographer: Philip Lange | Agency: Dreamstime


GHG emissions are a global problem. Carbon offsets operate on the idea that any reduction in any area is worthwhile. Yet it's much cheaper to reduce or absorb emissions in developing or transitional regions of the world. Currencies might be weaker or supplies less expensive. Logistically, it is easier to make changes in an area that does not already have a developed infrastructure.

Offsets, however, are somewhat of a luxury. You are, after all, paying for non-emissions -- something that doesn't even exist. Because of this, most people who purchase offsets live in developed nations where drastically lowering domestic emissions is difficult and expensive. A business or household might find buying offsets more economical than retrofitting a building or eliminating auto emissions. With the planet as a whole producing about 25 billion tons of CO2 per year [source: Clean Air-Cool Planet], it doesn't really matter if a reforestation project in Ecuador gets its funding from an Ecuadorian banker or an American factory.

Carbon offsets fund projects like forest planting, conversion to renewable energy sources or GHG collection and sequestration. Offsets support both large-scale and community projects. A single company might restore a forest in Uganda and support the construction of efficient stoves in Honduran villages.

But can carbon neutrality really be bought? We'll learn all about retail carbon offsets and why people buy them in the next section.


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Raising of the Costa Concordia

This is what the Costa Concordia looks like after the raising (parbuckling) operation. Apparently this whole endeavor may cost around $800 million!

Salvage crews finished pulling the Costa Concordia wreck upright on Tuesday, more than 20 months after the cruise ship capsized off the coast of Italy's Giglio Island. The parbuckling operation to right the ship was the largest ever undertaken, and the AP notes that engineers will now prepare the wrecked cruise liner to withstand winter so it can be towed and scrapped in 2014. Take a look at the impressive time lapse video that condenses the 19-hour operation into just one minute. 

 

Famous Ships: C.S.S. Hunley

This early excuse for a submarine proved to be far more dangerous to her own crews than she was to the Union Navy, but she was to start a revolution in naval engineering that remains with us to this day. Built by the Confederates in 1863 specifically to sink Union ships then barricading Southern ports, she sank twice while being tested, killing 13 of her crew (including her designer, H.L. Hunley) in the process. Finally ready for her first combat test, on the evening of February 17, 1864, the Hunley, which never seemed to run out of men eager to serve on her despite the generally suicidal nature of doing so, snuck up on the Union sloop Housatonic and buried a spar torpedo in her side. Remarkably, the torpedo detonated as planned and the Housatonic sank, giving her the dubious distinction of being the first ship in history to be sunk by a submarine. Tragically, the little boat didn’t make it back to dock but sank for the third and last time that evening for unknown reasons, taking her entire eight-man crew down once again. After sitting on the bottom of Charleston Harbor for the next 136 years, she was finally located and raised in August of 2000 to great fanfare. The remarkably well preserved hulk now sits in a specially designed tank awaiting conservation. 



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AIDS Vaccine Created at OHSU May Clear Virus From Body

KFVS12 News

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) - An HIV vaccine created by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University may be able to completely wipe out the AIDS-causing virus from the body, the university announced Wednesday. 

The vaccine, under development at OHSU's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, is being tested by using a primate form of HIV, called SIV, which causes AIDS in monkeys. Researchers hope an HIV-form of the vaccine candidate will soon be able to be tested in humans. The journal Nature published the research results online Wednesday. 

Dr. Louis Picker, the lab's associate director, said HIV infection has only been cured in "a very small number of highly-publicized but unusual clinical cases." In those cases, people with HIV were treated with anti-viral medicines very early after the onset of infection or they received a stem cell transplant to combat cancer. "This latest research suggests that certain immune responses elicited by a new vaccine may also have the ability to completely remove HIV from the body," Picker said. 

The approach uses cytomegalovirus, or CMV, which is a common virus that doctors said is carried by a large percentage of the population. Pairing it with SIV had a unique effect, researchers found, and SIV-infected cells were sought out and destroyed. 

Researchers said they were able to teach the monkey's body to better prepare its defenses to combat SIV, and they're hoping their modified CMV will have a similar result in humans. "What we've shown is that not only does this vaccine control the infection, but it actually eliminates the virus from the body of the monkey," Picker said. 

Grants from several organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are funding OHSU's research.

Reposted From KFVS12

Carbon Offsets

Carbon offsets help reduce the global greenhouse gas total by funding projects like reforestation in Ecuador.

© Photographer: Elena Kalistratova | Agency: Dreamstime

Carbon neutrality begins with reduction. It's a concentrated effort to produce less waste and use more renewable energy. After reduction has reached its limit, or its comfortable threshold, carbon offsets can make up for the rest.

Carbon offsets are a form of trade. When you buy an offset, you fund projects that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The projects might restore forests, update power plants and factories or increase the energy efficiency of buildings and transportation. Carbon offsets let you pay to reduce the global GHG total instead of making radical or impossible reductions of your own. GHG emissions mix quickly with the air and, unlike other pollutants, spread around the entire planet. Because of this, it doesn't really matter where GHG reductions take place if fewer emissions enter the atmosphere.

Carbon offsets are voluntary. People and businesses buy them to reduce their carbon footprints or build up their green image. Carbon offsets can counteract specific activities like air travel and driving or events like weddings and conferences.

Some environmentalists doubt the validity and effectiveness of carbon offsets. Because the commercial carbon trade is an emerging market, it's difficult to judge the quality of offset providers and projects. Trees don't always live a full life, sequestration projects (for the long-term containment of emissions) sometimes fail and offset companies occasionally deceive their customers. And voluntary offsets can easily become an excuse to overindulge and not feel guilty about it.

Carbon offsets do, however, raise awareness about lowering the GHG world total.

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Deepest Wreck Currently Under Excavation in U.S. Waters: Pickup Artist

Photograph courtesy NOAA

A suction cup attached to the end of a robotic arm gently picks up an artifact from the Monterey shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pilots sitting on a boat thousands of feet up must carefully manipulate the controls to place the precious cargo into storage boxes so that the ROV can bring them back to the surface.

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Famous Ships: The Santa Maria

Though less than 70 feet long and by all accounts a slow and hideous vessel, few can deny the fame the tiny Spanish boat achieved when she brought Christopher Columbus to the new world. While Columbus has acquired a bad rap of late for his brutality as governor of Hispaniola and other little foibles he was famous for, no one can deny his extraordinary seamanship or his courage in making the crossing not just once, but four times during his lifetime. Unfortunately, the sturdy little Santa Maria would not be making a repeat journey, as she ran aground on Christmas day, 1492, and was salvaged for her wood (which, interesting enough, went into the construction of another ship originally called La Navidad—Christmas—because the wreck occurred on Christmas Day). While the original is long gone, no fewer than four replicas of the ship have been built since, all of them capable of putting to sea. Unfortunately, none of them are exact duplicates as no records of the ship’s original construction exist, resulting in a number of different configurations.

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The Reality of Climate Change: Climate has changed before

(Image left: heat given off by Earth's surface and atmosphere; Right: sunlight reflected back out to space.)


Myth: Even before SUVs and other greenhouse-gas spewing technologies, Earth's climate was changing, so humans can't be responsible for today's global warming.

Science: Climate changes in the past suggest that our climate reacts to energy input and output, such that if the planet accumulates more heat than it gives off global temperatures will rise. It's the driver of this heat imbalance that differs.

Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate's sensitivity to CO2.

Deepest Wreck Currently Under Excavation in U.S. Waters: Field of Bottles

Photograph courtesy NOAA

The Monterey shipwreck contained bottles (pictured) that appeared to contain liquor, medicine, and sauces, said NOAA's Delgado in an interview last week.

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Global warming in one unmistakably compelling chart

By Jason Samenow

If you have any doubt the balance of the globe has warmed over the last century, view this chart:

Produced by NASA, the chart illustrates how temperatures have compared to “normal” (or the 1951-1980 average) from 1880 to present, from pole to pole (-90 latitude to 90 latitude).

From the 1880 to the 1920s, blue and green shades dominate the chart, signaling cooler than normal temperatures in that era.  Then, from the 1930s to the 1970s, warmer yellow, oranges, and reds shades ooze in, balancing the cooler shades.

But since the 1970s, the blue and green shades rapidly erode and oranges and reds take over, dramatically.

The rapid warming at the northern high latitudes especially jumps out in recent decades, reflecting “Arctic amplification” or more intense warming in the Arctic.  Although the warming is most pronounced up north, it is apparent at almost every latitude.

(And yes, you can even sense the much discussed slow-down in the rate of warming over the last 10-20 years as the coverage of oranges and reds has remained pretty static)

Of course, it is widely accepted the Earth has warmed in the last century.  Or, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put it in 2007, the warming of the climate system is “unequivocal.”

But even as the debate has moved on from whether warming has occurred to the effects, there remain some doubters.  Show them this this chart – it packs an incredible amount of data into one tidy, irrefutable visual.

Reposted From The Washington Post

Interesting Facts About The Earth: She's Got a Waistline

Mother Earth has a generous waistline: At the equator, the circumference of the globe is 24,901 miles (40,075 kilometers).



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Interesting Facts About The Earth: Squashed Sphere

It's not a perfect sphere. As Earth spins, gravity points toward the center of our planet (assuming for explanation's sake that Earth is a perfect sphere), and a centrifugal force pushes outward. But since this gravity-opposing force acts perpendicular to the axis of Earth, and Earth's axis is tilted, centrifugal force at the equator is not exactly opposed to gravity. This imbalance adds up at the equator, where gravity pushes extra masses of water and earth into a bulge, or "spare tire" around our planet.

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