Web as Platform For Research on Oceans, Galaxies

By RICHARD MACMANUS, ReadWriteWeb

The University of Washington has announced two new research projects that will utilize cloud computing platforms from Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM. According to the press release published on Genetic Engineering News, the University of Washington has won grants from the National Science Foundation to fund projects examining ocean climate simulations and analyzing astronomical images. Both of these projects will utilize cloud computing to examine and interact with "the massive datasets that are becoming more and more common in science."

The University of Washington projects tie into a couple of major trends in the current era of the Web: there's now much more data being created for the Web, or being transported to the Web; and we're seeing Web technologies being used to analyze and make sense of that data.

It's not only in scientific realms. We're seeing this on the Consumer Web too, as Marshall Kirkpatrick explained this morning in an article about social media monitoring tools. He wrote that data mining tools are being democratized and being used more nowadays, similar to how online publishing tools were democratized in Web 2.0. The cloud computing servers that University of Washington will utilize are relatively cheap and easy to use Web platforms that will enable data mining on a scale not seen before. These projects will access a cloud datacenter established for educational use in 2007, through a partnership between Google, IBM and six academic institutions (including University of Washington).

Oceans and Galaxies of Data

Bill Howe, a researcher at the UW's eScience Institute, explained the impact of cloud computing on his ocean climate simulation project. Instead of running a simulation to test a single hypothesis, he said, climate scientists are now running long-term simulations and then sifting through tens of thousands of gigabytes of resulting data to discover trends.

Andrew Connolly, a UW associate professor of astronomy, explained that for his project analyzing astronomical images, cloud computing makes it easier to store and process information in the cloud and make the information available over the Web. He said that whereas scientists once competed for time on telescopes, recorded data and then studied the individual images in detail, now "telescopes continuously record high-resolution images that are available to all, providing millions of times more information." So the shift is that the data gathering has been automated and is available on a much larger scale than before for scientists to analyze it.

Data Rich - And Useful

This current era of the Web, which some are calling 'Web 3.0' (but which we frankly don't know what it's called yet) is increasingly data rich. The same thing could have been said about the Web 2.0 era, when oceans of 'User Generated Content' were created. However the world of sensors is rapidly pouring even more data onto the Web. Ed Lazowska, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, noted that "the rapid evolution of sensors is transforming all sciences from data-poor to data-rich." He said that "the challenge is to use modern cloud computing resources, such as Amazon Web Services, and modern computer science advances, such as data mining and machine learning, to explore these massive volumes of data." He claimed that this new computational science will be pervasive and will have enormous impact.

We're always pleased when the Web has a meaningful impact on the 'real world' - and particularly on science projects such as this, where the findings could be profound.

Seri Face 21st Century Challenges

Written by Tim Dykman
Wednesday, 27 June 2007 22:16
Ancient Tribe at a Crossroads Mexico's Reclusive Seri Confront the Inevitable March of Development By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, June 28, 2007; A18 PUNTA CHUECA, Mexico -- Gloria Sesma clamps tough stems of desert limberbush between her front teeth, shredding the plant into the floppy strands she needs to weave graceful baskets. Sesma's lifelong work has worn her top teeth down to tiny stubs, much like the teeth of other women in this remote Gulf of California village, home to Mexico's most reclusive indigenous people, the Seri Indians. She and her daughters adhere to traditional techniques, so it can take 10 months of shredding and weaving to make a single basket. But Sesma's family also reflects new realities for the Seri, a tribe at a crossroads. While eight of her children married within the tribe, a ninth -- her son, Ezekiel -- piqued the family by breaking with tradition and moving away last year to marry a non-Seri woman. Now, the Seri desire for insularity is being tested on a larger scale. The inevitable march of development is forcing the Seri to confront fundamental questions about their future, questions that will help determine whether one of the last truly autonomous tribes in Mexico melds into the greater society or stays walled off from the world. "The community is really at this huge crux point," said Jay Roberts, a professor at Earlham College in Indiana who studies the Seri. "They're a case study for what's happening to indigenous people around the world
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Native Oceans

Written by Tim Dykman
Sunday, 06 May 2007 05:29
When Ocean Revolution established the Native Oceans Award we made a commitment to indigenous coastal communities where the sea has great economic, cultural and spiritual significance. Traditional knowledge brings powerful scientific and practical value to effecting global change, providing economic alternatives to overutilization of the ocean's resources and in reminding us why grounding ourselves as part of the natural world is essential to preserving the world as we know it. Ratu Aisea Katonivere was one of the recepients of this award last year. Find out why young indigenous people are leading the way in global ocean conservation. HONOLULU (AP) -- With its buzzing overpasses, fashionable shops and swarms of soaring building cranes, it seems illogical to describe Hawaii as behind struggling economies such as Pohnpei and Fiji in almost anything. But experts say the state has much to learn - or relearn - from its less developed neighbors to preserve its precious ocean resources. "Things that these cultures have kept alive and know about now, we're just beginning to discover in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands," said Randy Kosaki, research coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Monument. Pacific island nations are far ahead of Hawaii in terms of blending traditional ecological knowledge and Western science, Kosaki said in an interview at the conference. In Pohnpei, when members of the grassroots Conservation Society of Pohnpei wanted to create local preserves, they simply needed to ask local elders to point out where the fish spawning grounds are, he said. But in Hawaiian waters, those critical answers can only be gained by highly trained scientists conducting lengthy studies tagging and tracking targeted fish species to discover their "spawning aggregations. "We're trying to reinvent the wheel using high-tech methods when these cultures have kept that knowledge alive for millennia," Kosaki said. President Bush created the monument last year to protect the 4,500 square miles of coral reefs and more than 7,000 marine species among the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. And now federal and state authorities must find ways to manage the massive area. Islands of the Pacific are linked not just by culture, but also ecological and geological similarities. Because of its political ties, Hawaii has historically looked toward North America for models. But in many cases a good continental model is inappropriate for the islands, where fish populations are gathered in discrete spots rather than along massive shelves extending down an entire continental coast, Kosaki said. "Models that have been developed in Oceania are much more applicable to what we do here," he said. Among the vanguard of a current trend toward creating marine managed areas in the Pacific is Ratu Aisea Katonivere, paramount chief of the Fijian province of Macuata with a population of about 110,000. Katonivere decided to protect his province's reef after learning from a worker with the conservationist group WWF, known as World Wildlife Fund in North America, that the reef - the third longest barrier reef system in the world - had global significance. At the same time fishermen were reporting progressively leaner catches, he said. "So it was a big thing for us to mobilize a society to believe the vision of conservation is to do marine protected areas," said Katonivere, a towering, massive man whose physique seems suited to his title. Katonivere brought his idea to the people of his province, who know the reefs best, and asked them to decide where to put the protected areas. In January 2005, as Katonivere's local effort was moving forward, Fiji's government pledged to protect at least 30 percent of its waters by 2020. By November 2005, Katonivere and four other chiefs had created protected areas covering 32 square miles of Macuata's reef. And now fish have already begun returning to the area, he said. Inspired by Fiji's example, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands made a similar pledge last year called the Micronesia Challenge. The same type of community involvement seen in Macuata will help Pacific nations overcome their financial limits to creating and enforcing marine protections, said William Kostka, a founder of the Conservation Society of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. Hawaii currently has a mix of several protected areas, such as Oahu's Hanauma Bay, and some managed areas where fishing for certain species is periodically banned or only certain methods, such as pole fishing, are allowed. The state also is working to put gill net bans in effect for portions of Oahu and Maui. Macuata in Fiji has had a ban on such nets since 1989. "Again, we're learning from the Pacific. We're kind of the last one to come to this table for marine resource management in the Pacific. But it's about time," Kosaki said.
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World-wide Ocean Eco-Portal

Written by Tim Dykman
Sunday, 12 February 2006 07:38
Earth News. News from around the world relating to the ocean environment and sustainability.

Teen Environmental Activists Honored

Written by Tim Dykman
Tuesday, 07 February 2006 10:47
Earth Island Institute each year selects seven young activists from around the country for its Brower Youth Award. Each year the $3000 prizes are given to young people who have shown the promise to be leaders of tomorrow's environmental and social justice movements. The Brower Youth Awards give voice and resources to an optimistic, energized and fearless group of young people working on solutions to today's environmental and social justice problems," says program director Jason Salfi. "We hope to motivate them to continue doing what they're doing."