All posts tagged: Pacific

How to watch a live deep-sea exploration in the Pacific

How to watch a live deep-sea exploration in the Pacific

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Most people learn about deep sea discoveries in the days and weeks after marine biologists make them, but you don’t need to be aboard a research vessel to experience new finds in real-time. Since July 19, a crew on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Okeanos ship has conducted regular surveys of the abyssal plains near the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. And if your schedule is free later today, you can join the exploration. On August 3 at approximately 5:30 p.m EDT, the expedition’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is scheduled to arrive at the seafloor after a three-hour descent. At a depth of nearly 3.5 miles, the pitch-black abyssal waters (and its residents) will require illumination from onboard lights. …

Pentagon Restores Pacific Command Name, Reversing 2018 ‘Indo-Pacific’ Rebrand

Pentagon Restores Pacific Command Name, Reversing 2018 ‘Indo-Pacific’ Rebrand

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times, The Pentagon said on June 16 that it was restoring the name U.S. Pacific Command, reversing a 2018 decision that rebranded the command as U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to reflect the growing strategic importance of India and the Indian Ocean in U.S. defense policy. The Department of War said in a statement that the command, known as U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) since 2018, would officially revert to its previous designation, U.S. Pacific Command, or USPACOM, a name it carried for more than seven decades before the change. War Secretary Pete Hegseth highlighted the move on social media, writing, “U.S. Pacific Command…is back.” The Pentagon said the decision was intended to restore the command’s historical identity and military heritage rather than to signal any change in mission, geographic scope, or strategic priorities. “Restoring the legacy USPACOM designation honors the command’s deep historical roots, fostering a sense of pride and collective spirit among all who serve in the Pacific,” the department said in a statement. The Pentagon further clarified that …

Photos From Around the North Pacific

Photos From Around the North Pacific

Published by Daniella Wilson

Mike Korostelev / Getty Waves crash over a Pacific walrus on a beach in Chukotka, Russia. Byron M. O’Neal / Getty A humpback whale raises its tail before a deep-feeding dive, with the Port of Tacoma and Mount Rainier in the background. Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket / Getty A spirit bear (Ursus americanus kermodei) walks along a river looking for salmon on Gribbell Island, Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada, on September 6, 2025. Naoki Haranaka / The Yomiuri Shimbun / Reuters Salmon, on their way to spawn, swim through the surf near the mouth of a river in Mashike, Hokkaido prefecture, Japan, on September 24, 2023. Andronius / iStockphoto / Getty The abandoned Aniva Lighthouse stands on the shore of Russia’s Sakhalin Island. The structure was built in the 1930s, during a period when this part of the island was controlled by Japan. Michael Nolan / RobertHarding / Getty The shell of a grounded B-24 Liberator bomber in Bechevin Bay, on Alaska’s Atka Island. Bad weather forced the crew to make a crash landing, …

2022 Pacific Division Dewey Lecture: Philosophy as Personal Quest and Collective Enterprise

2022 Pacific Division Dewey Lecture: Philosophy as Personal Quest and Collective Enterprise

Published by Jenni Sidey

Below is the audio recording of Margaret Gilbert’s John Dewey Lecture, “Philosophy as Personal Quest and Collective Enterprise,” given at the 2022 Pacific Division Meeting. The full text is available on the APA website (member sign-in is required) as well as on JSTOR.  The audio of the lecture is available here: “Philosophy as Personal Quest and Collective Enterprise” by Margaret Gilbert Margaret Gilbert is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, where she was the Founding Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy from 2006 to 2025. Prior to joining the faculty at UCI, she taught at the University of Manchester (UK) and the University of Connecticut, where she is professor emerita. She has a BA in classics and philosophy from Cambridge University, as well as a BPhil with distinction and a PhD in philosophy from Oxford University. Her research interests are in social phenomena such as acting together, collective beliefs, social conventions, agreements and promises, and related areas of moral and political philosophy and philosophy of law, including rights theory …

Pacific Fusion’s latest prototype packs 440 gigawatts into an 80-nanosecond burst

Pacific Fusion’s latest prototype packs 440 gigawatts into an 80-nanosecond burst

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Pacific Fusion took the wraps off its latest pulser module prototype on Tuesday, a piece of equipment that allows the company to move ahead with its demonstration fusion power plant. Construction on the fusion power plant is expected to begin this summer. Results from the shipping container-sized prototype were good enough to unlock another tranche of Pacific Fusion’s Series A round, which exceeds $1 billion, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The company did not disclose the size of the tranche. Pacific Fusion is among the best-funded fusion startups. The tranche-based model is more widely used in biotech, where it saves startups time on fundraising, allowing them to remain focused on hitting technical milestones.  The funding arrangement has allowed the company “to keep our heads down,” Pacific Fusion CTO Keith LeChien told TechCrunch. “It means that we can lean into the future without spending 20% to 50% time constantly looking for the next piece of capital.” Pacific Fusion is pursuing a form of fusion power known as inertial confinement. Its reactor will use 156 pulser modules …

Why so many carcasses are washing up on Pacific shores

Why so many carcasses are washing up on Pacific shores

Published by Sam Flores

While they are in the Arctic, the whales typically feed for four to six months, Stewart said. Then, for the next six to eight months, they largely fast. That means the Arctic feeding grounds are their most important source of food. Why food is less available in the region is complex, and scientists are still untangling it. What they know, according to Stewart, is that the system used to work like this: Algae would grow on the bottom of sea ice, then fall to the seafloor as the sea ice melted. The algae would dissolve and fertilize a productive seafloor, feeding amphipods in the sediment. Whales would suck up the dirt and find the nutritious critters inside. Now, researchers think sea ice is melting earlier in the year, allowing sunlight to reach the water column earlier. That promotes the growth of phytoplankton and other species, which take in some of the nutrients that used to reach the seafloor. Scientists think that is reducing the overall amount of prey available to the whales. For gray whales, …

The Pacific Northwest’s Anti-Democracy Progressives

The Pacific Northwest’s Anti-Democracy Progressives

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Jeff Eager via RealClearPolitics, Seattle, which is home to Amazon and Microsoft, currently employs some 193,000 well-compensated Washingtonians working in the tech sector. One major reason that Seattle emerged as the first big tech hub outside of California is obvious: It is the only West Coast state with no state income tax. Its state constitution forbids an income tax. High wage workers and entrepreneurs seeking a piece of the relatively laid back, outdoors-focused Pacific Northwest lifestyle can move to Washington without taking a state-mandated pay cut. For the progressive Democrats who dominate state politics in the Pacific Northwest, money in the pockets of anyone other than the government and its political allies is wasted. To grab more of it, legislative Democrats in Washington are pushing through an income tax in the guise of a “millionaire’s tax” that would levy a 9.9% tax on incomes over $1 million. Just yesterday, as the “millionaire’s tax” neared the finish line in the Washington legislature, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced he and his wife have relocated …

Lucy Raven’s New Film Captures a Dam Removal in the Pacific Northwest

Lucy Raven’s New Film Captures a Dam Removal in the Pacific Northwest

Published by Jenni Sidey

Lucy Raven’s film work Murderers Bar (2025) captures the removal of a dam in the Pacific Northwest and the dramatic release of water that takes the form of a newly born river as it rushes from Oregon through Northern California on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The 42-minute piece is the final part of a trilogy titled “The Drumfire,” which also includes the 2021 film Ready Mix, a meditation on processes involved in making concrete at a plant in Idaho, and the 2022 films Demolition of a Wall (Album 1 & 2), which focus on shockwaves visible in the air at an explosives testing range in New Mexico. Source link

Methamphetamine and HIV epidemics wash over the Pacific island of Fiji

Methamphetamine and HIV epidemics wash over the Pacific island of Fiji

Published by Sam Flores

SUVA, Fiji — The methamphetamine drop-offs to a squatter settlement here followed a routine. Once a week, according to residents, a black Dodge truck with tinted windows pulled up to a tent on the edge of the community, a dense maze of tiny shacks connected by muddy paths, slick from the persistent summer rain. A man stepped out, swapped drugs for cash with his local contact, and drove off. Dealers repacked the white crystals into tiny zip-top bags, no bigger than a child’s pinkie, before doling them out for about $22 each. Source link

Snowed in? Watch albatrosses nest on a sunny Pacific island instead

Snowed in? Watch albatrosses nest on a sunny Pacific island instead

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. While winter is raging in an unusually large swath of the United States, the weather is balmy for the birds nesting on the Pacific Ocean’s Midway Atoll. As many as 75,000 pairs of Laysan albatrosses (or mōlī in Hawaiian) are nesting in the wildlife refuge on the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. Now you can watch these brilliant snow-white birds while avoiding the actual snow with a 24/7 live cam. This live cam is run by Friends of Midway Atoll via memberships and donors. Midway Atoll NWR Wildlife Live Camera Laysan albatrosses (or mōlī in Hawaiian) return to this same nesting site every year and will reunite with their mates. If all goes well, the pairs will lay a single egg and stay on the atoll to nest.  As nesting progresses, you may see a single egg dotting some of the nests. In the distance, you may also catch a glimpse of ka‘upu (black-footed albatross), the endangered koloa …