Slashdot Mirror
Thousands of Rubber Ducks to Finally End Journey
Bert de Jong writes "The Daily Mail reports that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey. After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek. This has turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents. Now it seems inevitable though that they will finally land on the shores of South-West England. '[Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer] correctly predicted what many thought was impossible - that thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic. It proved true years later and in 2003, the first Friendly Floatees were found, frozen and then thawed out, on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. So precious to science are they that the US firm that made them is offering a £50 bounty for finding one.'"
I'm a turtle
I think I've just come up with a new money making scheme!
1) Goto shop and purchase large amounts of rubber duckies
2) Emerse them in water and ice for a few years and so
3) Sell them to this company for 50 pounds each
4) Profit!
More seriously, maybe scientists should be getting more brightly coloured floating objects and chucking them in the sea at various points. What about red for Russia (two types, one for each coast), yellow for (no I won't go there...) and various other colours for other countries.
A great way to learn more about ocean currents.
But they would get into trouble with (some) environmentalists, maybe they need to just "accidentally" knock a few more crates overboard?
I wank in the shower.
Quack quack quack, quack quack. Quack quack quack quack quack Quake!
Looks like a story tailor-made for a pixar movie. Sort of like a toy-story / finding-nemo mashup. -satyakam
duck duck duck duck duck duck duck ...
What a bunch of quacks...
It's a pretty cool story though (shock, someone actually read TFA). I'm sure that we've learned a lot more about oceanic patterns from those plastic toys than we have from a lot of other (more expensive) methods employed in the past.
Thousands washing up at 50 pounds a pop for returning them?
1. Train ticket to West Country
2. Beach scavenge
3. Profit!!
This will be more fun than when the Napoli beached off Branscombe! Easier to sneak plastic ducks off the beach than BMW motorbikes....
However, given the way the climate change deniers have been trying to rubbish oceanographers and meteorologists because of their agreement on inconvenient data, the fact that this guy predicted something as counter intuitive as the ducks traveling through a North-west passage in pack ice should give pause for thought.
When even people like Dyson try and rubbish climatologists (presumably because he wants unrestricted space travel and they are warning that this is impossible without doing severe damage to the Earth) this sort of thing reminds us of just (1) how much these people know and (2) what a lot they still want to learn, while their opponents seem to rely on soundbites and dodgy statistics rather than science.
Pining for the fjords
As a native of the South-West of England I for one welcome our new faded yellow Chinese rubber duck overlords.
Harper's did a long article on these in the January 2007 issue. If you're a subscriber, you can go to http://harpers.org/archive/2007/01/0081345 to read it.
Also, if you're interested in this stuff, you might want to check out Ebbesmeyer's website and newsletter about beachcombing: http://beachcombersalert.org/
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Wanna bet there's some collector paying more than those 50 pounds on EBay? If I found one, that's where it would end up.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I for one am welcomming our glob-trotting anatid overloads. I wonder, were any of these Bombay duck's?
Will code for new sig.
Cue climate-change questioning troll, but:
When a big pile of rubber ducks floating around on the ocean can give oceanographers compelling new insights into how the earth works, and add a lot on top of modern instruments as quoted here, I am somewhat uncomfortable remaking world economic order on the basis of forecasts made on that data.
(From Sesame Street) Rubber Ducky, you're the one, You make bathtime lots of fun, Rubber Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you; Woo woo be doo Rubber Ducky, joy of joys, When I squeeze you, you make noise! Rubber Ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true! Doo doo doo doo, doo doo Every day when I Make my way to the tubby I find a little fella who's Cute and yellow and chubby Rub-a-dub-a-dubby! Rubber Ducky, you're so fine And I'm lucky that you're mine Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you. Every day when I Make my way to the tubby I find a little fella who's Cute and yellow and chubby Rubber Ducky, you're so fine And I'm lucky that you're mine Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of - Rubber ducky, I'd like a whole pond of - Rubber ducky I'm awfully fond of you! Doo doo, be doo
We've been racing rubber duckies here in Rubber Ducky Regatta's for a while now! Hahahhaha Love seeing something like this fluffy story applied to science! Rocking.... lemme try and link ya'll, though I am having a bit of a difficulty with my curent transmission.... ((/me adjusts his set, even though they said not to in the Outer Limits warning)) here http://www.newhampshire.com/explore-nh/nh-101.aspx #95 on the list
Nice!
Presumably if some ducks got caught in the ice which then melted, some are still in the ice and, maybe, in 1000 years or so, someone may find a rubber duck from a newly melted iceberg.
10-4 rubber ducky
America, Home of the Brave.
Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer - that's quite a good name for someone who works with the sea.
Get your own free personal location tracker
I have a Chinese mfg make a couple thou of them. pre-bleached. Stamped "Teh First Years"
You be seeing them on eBay soon, though, since they were also washed overboard it's not entirely clear where I be pickin them up yet.
Why in Chtlus name a link to the daily mail? I got sick from all the pictures of bikini clad babes that were supposedly famous (oh! she broke her leg while doing house chores) FCS dress up or take it all off (&make that porn movie)....
6 8-uk-on-alert-for-plastic-duck-invasion.html
So here is the link to a more sensible website:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn121
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Nike got there first with shoes that had serial numbers to allow tracking across the globe.
In late May of 1990, the container vessel Hansa Carrier encountered a severe storm in the north Pacific Ocean (~48N, 161W) on its passage from Korea to the United States. During the storm, a large wave washed twenty-one shipping containers overboard. Five of these 20-metre containers held a shipment of approximately 80,000 Nike shoes ranging from children's shoes to large hiking boots. It has been estimated that four of the five containers opened into the stormy waters, releasing over 60,000 shoes into the north Pacific Ocean.
Life is just a bowl of All Bran - Small Faces
Yes, replacing the Council with faded yellow Chinese rubber ducks might actually be an improvement.
Pining for the fjords
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All the technology and cleanup and reductions in the world will do ZERO good because the whole of china + india and asia (with their wreckless stupid forest burning)
will out do 10 fold all the reductions the west does.
If they are that dumb, then let them suffer with 90% cancer rates and dead agriculture farms polluted to death. China doesnt get it.
Its not about being nice and green for no reason, its about not destroying your only source of human lively hood.
What good is it to make $5000 billion in profits when in 30 years 90% of the population has cancer of lungs and poisoned water that costs
more than petrol. Or does china want to kill 900 million people in one go? cheaporgansbay.com ?
100 rockets a day is nothing compared to 5000 coal plants in china.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Rubber ducky, you're the one
That makes oceanography so much fun....
This message brought to you by the number i.
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
Sounds like quackery to me.
Obviously, those ducks were hit hard by sea storms etc. in the past. So maybe some got deformed and their shadow resembles Elvis! Imagine the tons of money you could get in Ebay with such a duck!
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Or, let's put the question in another perspective : Given the fact that we aren't perfectly sure how to predict climate and that rubber duckies still have something to teach us, will you take the risk to continue dumping into the atmosphere massive amount of CO2 - that wasn't there before in a recent time-scale ?
Are you ready to gamble that we won't encounter any problem ?
Isn't it best to decide that, because we can't be 100% sure, let's be on the safe side and avoid introducing perturbation in a model that we don't fully understand.
Remaking world economy on unsure data may seem unreasonable to you.
Avoiding to introduce perturbation in the climate that we may not perfectly understand seem a perfectly reasonable decision. If you don't understand it, don't touch it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
that trigger my 'take it off or put something on' response.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Glaciers are made of ICE, not frost. Mod parent down, and mod me up. (This would make my life COMPLETE.)
Do you have other facts to share? ;p
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Mod parent up. This is just tooooooooooo funny.
http://www.eric-carle.com/10LRDpage.html :)
Great story, for kids and scientists
In elementary school, I read a book by Holling Clancy Holling called Paddle-to-the-Sea. It's about a toy that was set free in Lake Michigan, and its adventures floating through the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence, and into the Atlantic. That story captured my imagination when I was a kid, and I can't wait to get home to tell my five-year-old son the story of these ducks.
Oh, and in Soviet Russia, we duck the Chinese.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
You were a great band, Journey! Who could have known that you would be mobbed and killed by thousands of rubber ducks!?!? What did you do to deserve this fate?!?
hackshop.com - My tech hobby project hub
Imagine if you could create Asbestos Ducks that you'd drop into a subduction zone to trace the earth's magma currents.
Of course, you'd have to wait a bit longer than 4 years for them to pop up at their destination...
Chip H.
And even if it was "carefully" dumped the problem is that we don't stop after getting it nice and diluted. We keep dumping a large quantity of carefully diluted pollutants into an extremely low energy ecosystem. In addition of sources of energy into a low energy ecosystem causes an extreme change in that ecosystem.
Oh, and if you 'carefully dilute' something into the ocean by what process do you propose that you keep it from becoming undiluted? Life forms are the most efficient way to aggregate dilute substances.
Actually this is one of the dumbest, "If I can't see anything it must not be happening" suggestions I have ever heard.
THINK! Did it work for landfills? 'But we did such a good job of hiding it under the dirt and I can't see it there!' (Of course my well is contaminated now and I have to pipe water in...)
Is Yoda writing slashdot article summaries now?
Untreated sewage (as long as it's just that, and doesn't contain non-biologically-generated crap...) is NOT bad for the environment.
It may create local conditions that are unpleasant or even unhealthy for humans, but that's not the same as "bad for the environment". Lots of things that are perfectly natural are unpleasant or even downright deadly, and the presence of mass of fecal matter is no exception.
Where do you think all the fish in the sea go to shit? Ever wonder how lions find that herd of millions of wildebeests and zebras?
A Country and Western number called "The Long Lonely Road".
First Line:
It's a long lonely road
In the lifetime of a trucker
America, Home of the Brave.
Wow, old habits die hard. GOTO? How about: ...
10 LET STEP1$ = "Go to shop and purchase large amounts of rubber duckies
20 LET STEP2$ = "Emerse them in water and ice for a few years and so"
30 LET STEP3$ = "Sell them to this company for 50 pounds each"
40 GOTO 1000
1000 REM Profit Routine
1010
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
If they were only doing a mile a day in the pack ice, how come they're out already?
You'd think you could spot tens of thousands of brightly colored rubber ducks on Google Earth/Maps, ya think? Anyone have links?
:-)
Why oceanographers did not think of this before? Using toys on purpose as floats in order to draw attention? Because they are boring people without business experience! Anyway this can be the start of a new business.
Those Rubber ducks could have carried a payload! This was just a drill to test the possibility of using those cute tiny rubber ducks against us!
Tinfoil you say? Hey, the Japanese tried that before...
Actually, one of the local Microbrews by me, here in Kalamazoo, makes a microbrew called "Duff". It is an amber ale, which imo tastes fairly well. Bilbo's Pizza makes the beer.
Live Free
I wonder if Sony has anything to do with these ducks...
Can we expect an interview with Phil Harrison anytime soon?
(lol'd at the captcha, "stoned")
There was a radio documentary about them in 2006 - my page about the programme, http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/invasion _of_the_yellow_ducks.html/, has a link to the "Listen Again" where you may be able to hear it (the BBC sometimes keeps the old factual programmes available).
Who likes the little little duckies in the pond? I do, I do, I do A chick a quack quack
http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/invasion _of_the_yellow_ducks.html
I don't understand. If this really has "turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents" then why hasn't anybody done this before?
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
So, the Roswell aliens crashed on our little planet to study what caused its inhabitants to throw little rubber ducks in their world ocean?
Pining for the fjords
Duck hunt 2.0!!!
crap.
The photo shows a duck, a turtle, a frog and a fourth creature that might be a beaver or an otter. I wonder if there is any difference in the distribution of where they ended up, and what that might mean. Perhaps a difference in wind drag and water drag, or how fast the packaging disintegrated.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Only this. In the face of this, I agree the earth could be a on a long term (ish) warming trend, but I doubt man's role in it.
This is a subtle way the Chinese are using to undermine Canadian sovereignty by going through the Northwest Passage without our permission!
But that scale is in *thousands* of years. The global warming trends I showed you was measured in *years* . That's off by a factor of one thousand, an entire three magnitudes. In slashdot terms, it's the difference between a file of one Gb and one Tb.
The global warming is not a "long trend", at least as these things go. The rise will perhaps be over and stabilized in 200 years, which would not even be visually distinguisable on your graph.
The graph does show a very clear match between CO_2 and temperature. Interesting, I didn't know it was that clear cut, with the forcing slightly lagging the response, just as I'd expect. Wow.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
You can see it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJRjkWiO-ow I thought the ducks already got to England.
If I had mod points right now, you'd be getting them. The New Scientist is a joke. It's sad how many Slashdotters seem to take it seriously.
Reading: "...After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek.", any grammar Nazi would have to ask how the scientists had got trapped in the container in the first place.
From TFA:
thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic.
Huh?? Being that Canada isn't 15 miles across, at that rate it should take thousands of years for the ducks to reach the Atlantic, no?
Another thing: The illustration shows the ducks passing down (north to south) the East Coast of North America before reversing and heading towards England across the middle of the Atlantic. Isn't that the exact opposite of the gulf stream ?
I'm no oceanography expert, but something smells fishy about the geographic fact-checking in this article. Can anyone confirm?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would also add that Europe and the US--yes, even the big bad US--are efficient polluters. We produce a lot of products used by the rest of the world, and we do it efficiently! The numbers are all out there--CO2 emissions, GDP, etc--you can do the comparisons yourself!
China also produces many products, but they are not as efficient, pollution-wise. This is why they have sulfur dioxide emissions that are as high as America's were almost 40 years ago BEFORE we cut back to our current low rates. Sulfur dioxide causes those nasty little problems like acid rain which currently impacts a large number of Chinese cities and agricultural areas. And now they appear to have become the biggest CO2 polluters as well.
Let's just consider this...by offshoring our efficient manufacturing from the US and Europe to China / 3rd world, where the end result is cheaper to buy, but much more environmentally damaging, we are directly damaging the environment. People who promote Kyoto want to make US/European companies even less competitive in manufacturing, which will no doubt force even more manufacturing to China/3rd world, are ignoring the consequences of their actions! they care for only the seen, and not the unseen..
The thing that annoys me the most about CO2 debate is that people who obsess on it tend to ignore so many other KNOWN worse factors!
Given that this seems to be the only photo that of the actual toys, http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns /cms/dn12168/dn12168-1_280.jpg there is a good chance that the entire story is a hoax.
Show me one photo of even a small cluster of these toys in the water.
You just failed maths and science 101 - If you'd have RTFA that you linked to properly then I'd be asking for you to resign your slashdot membership for good :-D
Who said anything about them being frozen for 15 days? I thought it was more like 15 years.
1 mile/day = 365 miles a year. 15 years meant we have 365x15 or nearly 5500 miles...
An no you're not an oceanography expert - the guy in the article is though and correctly identified the gulf stream as bringing warm waters north east from the gulf of Mexico to north western Europe. Mostly the UK. Which is why it's wet and windy but not frozen in the UK like it is at a similar distance from the pole in Canada.
True there is a current running in the opposite direction that is also part of the gulf stream - but that's cold water flowing back. However the warm water flows at the top of the ocean (where those rubber ducks will be as they float) and the cold water streams back at the bottom. This is why the gulf stream is also called the "North Atlantic Conveyor Belt" as it is like a conveyor belt and goes both ways at the same time, one at the top and another at the bottom.
Pounds? Why pounds? Give me dollars, man, dollars!