S 34° 33’ 51″ E 31° 01’ 48″ – Every day around dawn the Hespérides pauses in its 5,000 nautical mile journey. It does not begin again until mid-afternoon, when its researchers have slaked their thirst for samples with a bewildering variety of bottles and nets. Yet every day scientists ask one another a mysterious question: “Can I have some of your water, please?”
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Category Archives: News
Malaspina expedition: Starting with a splash
S 34° 50’ 20.6″ E 27° 32’ 18.8″ – The first working day of this leg of the Malaspina expedition began with the splash of a Neuston net into the black water on the starboard side of the Hespérides before dawn on Sunday. The bosun, another operations officer, and a handful of technicians and scientists wearing life vests and helmets stood watch with arms folded under the warm yellow running lights of the ship. They were waiting in the rich wet air for a fine mesh net, hanging behind the two metal pontoons of the skate, to fill with creatures of the night. Continue reading Malaspina expedition: Starting with a splash
Malaspina Expedition: Shipping out
Cape Town was filled with chattering Spanish researchers this week, on shore between legs of a circumnavigation that will take them from Cádiz to Sydney and back, by way of the Panama Canal. They chewed on biltong and rode the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. Now they are loading water sampling tubes and unpacking their laboratory equipment on the B.I.O. Hespérides, docked here in Cape Town until this afternoon, when we head for Perth. Continue reading Malaspina Expedition: Shipping out
Peruvian biologist’s defamation conviction overturned
A defamation case that hinges on a dispute over the presence of genetic modification in Peruvian maize crops, and that has attracted international attention, has moved back to square one — with a twist.
Biologist Ernesto Bustamante Donayre was last April found guilty of defamation — a criminal offence in Peru — for publicly criticizing a report published by a fellow biologist. Last month, however, the conviction was overturned: the appeal judge found that a lower court had not demonstrated that Bustamante had sufficient motivation to harm or defame his alleged victim. A recent government study of the crops in question may shape the outcome of any subsequent proceedings, Bustamante says.
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