The battery-operated gliders – called Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) – take in and expel water
to change their buoyancy; are virtually silent (so they don’t frighten any animals); send data to faraway labs
via satellite; and only cost about $25,000 – a fraction of the cost of retaining a large research vessel. In
addition to testing ocean acidity levels, and monitoring ocean pollutants, one scientist, Mark
Baumgartner, uses the gliders to
observe whales. One day, the gliders will probably be out there in the ocean, guiding dives, making sure you
don’t touch the coral. [Thanks, Drew!]
Gosh,
wouldn’t it be great if scientists could send out programmable, underwater vehicles to study the ocean and send
back the vital data they gather? What’s that? They already do? According to this AP story, for the past few years, scientists
have been using 6-foot-long, 100-pound underwater gliders to do their dirty work. No, I’m not talking about seal pups…I mean
little airplane-like robots.
What's Six Feet Tall, Weighs 100 Pounds, And Collects Data?
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