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132-Year-Old Science Experiment Washes Ashore In Australia (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): A message in a bottle was tossed off the side of a German ship on June 12, 1886, as it sailed through the Indian Ocean, the date and location penned carefully in script on the scroll inside. In January, more than 131 years after the bottle was set adrift, an Australian woman walking on the beach noticed the thick, discolored glass of an old bottle poking through the sand. The bottle -- and the message -- had been found. It is believed to be the oldest known message in a bottle ever recovered. The woman, Tonya Illman, discovered the tokens from another era while walking on a beach near Wedge Island, in Western Australia.
The Illmans took their discovery to the Western Australian Museum, which verified that the bottle and the note date back to the 19th century. The museum contacted experts in the Netherlands and Germany for more information, and confirmed that the bottle had been dropped from a German vessel called the Paula. A search of German archives uncovered the Paula's original Meteorological Journal, and in a captain's entry from June 12, 1886, researchers discovered a reference to the bottle, thrown overboard as the ship was sailing from Cardiff, Wales, to Makassar, Indonesia. The date and the coordinates matched. The bottle had been tossed into the Indian Ocean from the ship as part of a decades-long experiment by the German Naval Observatory to understand ocean currents. Thousands of bottles were thrown into the ocean around the world from German ships between the 1860s and the 1930s, each with a form bearing the date and location where it had been tossed into the sea, the name of the ship, its home port and the travel route, the Western Australian Museum said.
The Illmans took their discovery to the Western Australian Museum, which verified that the bottle and the note date back to the 19th century. The museum contacted experts in the Netherlands and Germany for more information, and confirmed that the bottle had been dropped from a German vessel called the Paula. A search of German archives uncovered the Paula's original Meteorological Journal, and in a captain's entry from June 12, 1886, researchers discovered a reference to the bottle, thrown overboard as the ship was sailing from Cardiff, Wales, to Makassar, Indonesia. The date and the coordinates matched. The bottle had been tossed into the Indian Ocean from the ship as part of a decades-long experiment by the German Naval Observatory to understand ocean currents. Thousands of bottles were thrown into the ocean around the world from German ships between the 1860s and the 1930s, each with a form bearing the date and location where it had been tossed into the sea, the name of the ship, its home port and the travel route, the Western Australian Museum said.
What a strange era for people to sign their litter. At least we know who to fine.
Perhaps someone should tell the homeless in San Francisco, Seattle, or other cities to sign their trash and they too can be a part of science.
It's good to know that I can rely on Slashdot to repost news interest pieces literally days after everybody else. Yes it's an interesting story but if you're going to be late to the party maybe have more information or don't post it at all? Slashdot content should either be timely or unique or else we can all just go to the BBC or NYT direct and save ourselves a step. Over the past six months /. has been increasingly more and more reposts of major websites' content.
I wonder how the bottle was sealed. If it was a cork, I'm surprised that it didn't rot or leak after 130 years.
Was it from a Prussian prince ? Just send $120.00 and I will send you 2,000,000 marks.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The note was apparently a NBN installation appointment.
Did anyone notify Sting?
It did not just now wash ashore as the headline implies. 133 year old experiment that washed ashore years ago was just now found.
No one ever found and mailed these messages back. Not surprising, since most messages called into question the validity of the marriage of the parents of anyone finding the message.
But still, it counts as science, right?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact