News and Events

Halloween is almost here, and while most people are preparing costumes, putting out spooky decorations and stocking up on candy, scuba divers head to the sea equipped with pumpkins and carving knives.

A New England dive shop has come up with an unusual approach to scuba examination. The divers finishing up their Open Water certification have an option to take the written exam while hovering underwater. East Coast Divers, an SSI shop based in Brookline, Massachusetts, says that taking the exam while neutrally buoyant is not a requirement for the program, but rather a challenge, created for the newly trained students to help them get completely comfortable underwater.

On Monday, October 1, the state of California opened the Emerald Bay Maritime Heritage Trail - an underwater showcase of Lake Tahoe’s historic sunken watercraft and barges. The bay is the final resting place of several recreational boats, launches and barges used on the lake during the early 20th century. These boats were likely intentionally scuttled (sunk) in 1950s when they outlived their usefulness. Nowadays, they serve as reminders of the golden age of recreation in Tahoe.

Hollywood action star Jason Statham revealed that he went diving with bull sharks to prepare for his starring role in the latest summer blockbuster The Meg. The actor plays a deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor, who is called upon to save a team of scientists and the local population from a 75-foot-long prehistoric shark called a Megalodon.

A seminal study published in the Journal of Disability and Rehabilitation has confirmed that scuba diving does have therapeutic benefits for military veterans with physical and psychological injuries as a result of combat.

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and George Mason University in the US developed a simple solution that can triple the survival time for swimmers in wetsuits. Currently conventional wetsuits offer no more than an hour of swim time in icy water, and the experience can be quite painful at best. That's no good if you're a special ops soldier or a member of an undersea maintenance crew and need to stay underwater for hours at a time.

Titanic star Kate Winslet and the Oscar-winning film's director James Cameron are once again joining forces. And once again, their collaboration will send Winslet plunging into the ocean, this time for a role in Cameron's Avatar 2, the sequel to 2009's record-breaking sci-fi adventure.

Opening this month, the first installation of the Underwater Museum of Art features seven sculptures, designed to facilitate and encourage responsible tourism, environmentalism, and creativity. The sculptures will be installed approximately 60 feet / 18 meters deep about a mile / 1.6 km off Grayton Beach State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

Last fall, Aston Martin - the British luxury automaker, has announced an unexpected collaboration. The company revealed its plans to team up with Triton Submarines to create a sleek and luxurious compact sub. Called Project Neptune, the submarine has now been revealed in its final production format. The new exclusive underwater craft looks equal parts speedboat and lunar rover.

The National Museum of the Great Lakes has recently announced the discovery of a shipwreck off Kelleys Island in the western end of Lake Erie. The staff first learned about the find in 2015 and has since narrowed down the possibilities to three ships, with the 200-year-old shipping schooner, Lake Serpent, being the most likely answer.

Ever wanted to own a piece of a real sunken treasure? If your pockets are deep enough, you will soon get your chance, as the gold from one of the greatest lost treasures in U.S. history is about to be offered for sale. The 3,100 gold coins, 45 gold bars, more than 10,000 silver coins and over 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of gold dust recovered from the wreckage of the S.S. Central America steamship are now sitting in a makeshift laboratory just south of Los Angeles, waiting for their public debut.

A recently published UK study has unveiled a new less traumatic method of monitoring sharks - via environmental DNA (eDNA). Marine ecologists have shown that even a small sample of seawater can provide the identifiable 'tracks' of numerous species of sharks, rays and other large fish. Current methods of baiting, hooking and filming these animals are invasive, costly and require teams of scientists spending much time at seas.

A few weeks ago we have already discussed the topic of growing food underwater. Specifically, we have looked at the futuristic project designed to cultivate terrestrial crops in the sea, Nemo’s Garden. In case you have missed that article, you can find it here. Today we have decided to talk about another project exploring the potential of underwater farming - vertical gardens beneath the waves.

Numerous Titanic fans will be happy to hear about the beginning of dive tours to the famous shipwreck in May 2018. The expedition participants will have a unique chance to descend more than two miles (3.2 km) below the surface of the Atlantic to explore the Titanic and it’s surroundings. What’s more, this could well be one of the last opportunities to visit the site, since, according to a 2016 study, the extremophile bacteria can eat the shipwreck away inside 15 or 20 years. Don’t rush to pack your bags though. The tour to the legendary Titanic is an ultimate in luxury travel. Participants will have to pay a whopping $105,129 per person, the exact price of the only voyage aboard the Titanic, adjusted for inflation.