Somaliland has it’s fair share of modern day pirates around the region of Berbera. They have a reputation of being ruthless as they plunder resources from passing vessels. The plundering in the area has been keeping most shipping vessels away from the shipping lines in the Gulf of Aden. Enormous tankers which would normally be traveling through the region are taking alternate routes.

While the patrolling pirates in the area may be bad news for shipping lines, they are excellent for the fish and coral reefs in the area. The study of the marine biology in the region has found a rich diversity of fish as well as extremely healthy coral reefs to host the schools of fish. The civil war and instability in Somalia leading to the formation of Somaliland and Puntland has been a huge benefit to the world underwater.

Add to this the preference of the local population to eat meat rather than fish, the waters are nearly untouched. Even unlicensed foreign vessels keep away from fishing in the region because of the threat of pirates, despite the rich breeding grounds for fish. Needless to say a detailed scientific study of the area will throw up many interesting facts about the underwater ecosystem.

An extensive three year study of the Australian Great Barrier Reef will be conducted by a team of international scientists and researchers over the next three years. The interesting part is that although the feature being studied is largely under water, the study is going to be conducted from the air from an altitude of 28,000 feet.

How is that going to work? They will use the Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer or PRISM. The PRISM will be used to obtain high definition images of the areas being studied. The resolution of the images will enhance the electromagnetic spectrum of the areas under observation. PRISM will be mounted on a modified Tempus Solutions Gulfstream IV aircraft when it takes the images.

The data will then be calibrated and analysed for 10 key biological and environmental features. The study will provide the coral reef science community with high-quality oceanographic imagery. These will be analysed for accuracy, range, resolution, signal-to-noise ratio, sensitivity and uniformity to obtain the state of the reef.

There is a great deal of excitement about the science project as this is the first such study of it’s kind. There are sure to be a great many discoveries to be made.

The reefs found in Earth’s oceans have been suffering from ecological damage for years from man based activities. NASA has now come up with an airborne mission to study the sensitive coral reef and the ecosystem at the famous Australian landmark.

It is ti be a three year mission which will offer the clearest and most extensive picture on the actual condition of the world’s largest coral reef. The data provided by the scientific study will help scientists in the future to come up with new models of analyzing the reef.

Six distinct sections of the reef have been identified for the purpose of this particular mission. These are spread over from the Capricorn-Bunker Group in the south to Torres Strait in the north. Two of these locations will serve as bases for in water validation of the data collected.

Scientists are coming together from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the University of Queensland in Brisbane, NASA and BIOS for the purpose of this study. Close to 900 islands and 2,900 reefs will be under scrutiny as part of this science project. It is truly a large scale study which should provide lost of data on the Great Barrier Reef.

Can you imagine what would happen if you were unable to make new memories because your long term memory was destroyed? You would never be able to learn something new. You would not remember new people you have met and interacted with. You would have to relearn processes every time you needed to perform an action.

The short term memory allows you to handle a number of facts for a small period of time. For instance when someone yells out a phone number for you to dial, you remember it for just the time that it takes for you to punch in the numbers. If you need to redial, you most likely will have to ask for the number to be repeated to you again.

The long term memory starts out with you learning something new in the short term memory. Then as you spend day after day using the same skills, they transfer by consolidation into your long term memory. Eventually it becomes a part of the long term memory set up which you can recall anytime you need to use that skill.

There are a number of science experiments and studies on memory which hope to find out the trick to taking short term memories to long term memory faster and more efficiently.

Route 66 is famous enough for being the longest highway in the country with more than two thousand miles on it. The singers have made sure that people getting their “kicks on route 66” enjoy the music as well as the drive. Now scientific researchers have come up with another way to make the route famous.

Apparently an Idaho-based company called Roadway Solar and the Missouri Department of transportation have crowd funded a $2.25 million project to cover the road with solar panels that can store energy from the sun. The project called “Road to Tomorrow” will have interactive solar panels which will allow electric vehicles to charge themselves as they run on the road.

The road will also have embedded LED lights which can be controlled by a remote operator based on the state of traffic on the road. The best part is that the roads will not need to be repainted or repaved as often as they are now, and maintenance of the solar panels is all that will be required.

This is a science project that aims to bring the historic road into the future of travel. Needless to say if the transportation system of electric vehicles and recharging roads with solar panels takes off successfully it will totally redefine the future of road transport!