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.'"
Quack quack quack, quack quack. Quack quack quack quack quack Quake!
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?
The type of duck is quite specific, and it has the comapny name stamped on it. The thing about cheap plastic that that anyone can make is that there are literally thousands of variations, and the scientists are only interested in one breed. Different plastic, differnt sizes, different designs.
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
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.
Dilution is the solution to pollution.
In fact, in some municipalities, waste into the sewer system is allowed below a certain concentration, but get above that concentration and get fined. So you can (and some do) simply add water when dumping stuff down the drain. Environmentally this makes little sense as it's the same amount of "bad stuff" going down the drain, but in the allowed case you're also "wasting" lots of water. (this ignores the issue of high concentrations being bad for the piping system of course).
I'm not sure how this got modded 'insightful'
Consider the difference between the amount of excretia generated by even the largest shoal of fish (or even Moby Dick) and the amount generated by a human population centre of any size, lets say a city of 100,000+, of which there are many around the coasts of the world.
Add to that the fact that the shoal of fish, and especially Moby Dick, will be mobile and deposit the excretia over a significant area whereas sewage outlet pipes aren't particularly known for their mobility.
It's the sheer concentration involved with urban human population which makes simply dumping the stuff at sea bad for the environment because it seriously disturbs the balance.
Otherwise, by a similar argument, we might as well be dumping our sewage in the street as they used to; after all, all other animals shit where they stand.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
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).
You do know that water is composed of oxygen, right?
And hydrogen! Attracted to each other through quantum electrostatic forces! And unless those forces are overcome, that oxygen won't be available for deep sea dwellers to breathe! That was their point!
After all, I am strangely colored.