Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
A full moon is when we see its entire lit-up side. This occurs every 29.5 days, when the moon is directly opposite the sun relative to the earth. Jan. 31 will be our next full moon in the lunar cycle.
What's a Lunar Eclipse?
The moon's orbit is tilted by about 5 degrees relative to the earth's orbit. So, most of the time the moon ends up a little above or below the path Earth follows as it revolves around the sun. But twice in each lunar cycle, the moon does cross into our planet's orbital plane.
If that crossing corresponds to a full moon, the moon will pass into the earth's shadow, resulting in a total lunar eclipse. Since the moon needs to be behind the earth, relative to the sun, a lunar eclipse can only happen on a full moon.
To see the phenomenon, you need to be on the night side of the earth; this eclipse will be visible mostly in Asia, Australia, the Pacific and North America. But don't worry if you miss it—lunar eclipses happen on average a couple times a year. The next one visible in North America will be on Jan. 21, 2019.
A Blue Moon That Looks Red
When a lunar eclipse happens, the moon appears to darken as it moves into the earth's shadow, called the umbra. When the moon is all the way in shadow it doesn't go completely dark; instead, it looks red due to a process called Rayleigh scattering. The gas molecules of Earth's atmosphere scatter bluer wavelengths of light from the sun, while redder wavelengths pass straight through.
This is why we have blue skies and red sunrises and sunsets. When the sun is high in the sky, red light passes straight through to the ground while blue light is scattered in every direction, making it more likely to hit your eye when you look around. During a sunset, the angle of the sun is lower in the sky and that red light instead passes directly into your eyes while the blue light is scattered away from your line of sight.
In the case of a lunar eclipse, the sunlight that makes it around Earth passes through our atmosphere and is refracted toward the moon. Blue light is filtered out, leaving the moon looking reddish during an eclipse.
On top of it all, the Jan. 31 full moon is also a considered a blue moon. There are two different definitions of blue moon. The first is any time a second full moon occurs in a single month. Since there are 29.5 days between two full moons, we usually only end up with one per month. With most months longer than 29.5 days, it occasionally works out that we have two full moons. We already had one on the first of this month and our second will be Jan. 31, making it a blue moon. With this definition our next blue moon is in March, leaving February with no full moon this year.
The second definition of a blue moon states it's the third moon in a season in which there are four moons, which happens about every 2.7 years. We'll only have three this winter, so the Jan. 31 full moon won't be blue by this definition. Stargazers will need to wait until May 18, 2019, for a blue moon that fits this older, original definition.
A Supersized Supermoon
Finally, to add the cherry on top, this will also be a supermoon. The moon's orbit is not perfectly circular, meaning its distance from Earth varies as it goes through one cycle. The closest point in its orbit is called the perigee. A full moon that happens near perigee is called a supermoon by some.
This happened with our full moon earlier this month on Jan. 1 and will again on Jan. 31.
Its proximity makes it seem a little bit bigger and brighter than usual, but that's the extent of its effects on Earth. The distinction is usually hard to notice unless you're looking at two pictures side by side.
There are long traditions of giving different moons names. This being a bigger, brighter, reddish-looking blue moon, perhaps we should call the next full moon the super purple moon. The moon will not actually appear purple, nor will have it a cape—but Jan. 31 is a great time to gaze up and enjoy the night sky.
Why Eclipses Were Seen as Omens in the Ancient World https://t.co/T8MPtAhd85 @TheScienceGuy @guardianscience— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1502575808.0
Reposted with permission from our media associate The Conversation.
For the first time in history, the U.S. government has approved a private company's plans to visit the moon.
The lunar mission will be undertaken by Cape Canaveral, Florida-based Moon Express, Inc., an aerospace startup founded in 2010 by space entrepreneurs Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards, Naveen Jain and Dr. Barney Pell.
The landmark approval was given to Moon Express after meetings with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the White House, the State Department NASA and other federal agencies.
The company plans to send a 20-pound, unmanned spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit to the surface of the moon in 2017. If everything goes to plan, Moon Express will become only the fourth entity in history to soft-land on the moon following the U.S., USSR and China, as
TechCrunch noted.
Jain enthusiastically described the ambitious moon-landing project to the Wall Street Journal:
If the maiden trip proves successful, the company plans to mine and retrieve rare elements and metals from the moon in future missions.
"This breakthrough U.S. policy decision provides authorization to Moon Express for a maiden flight of its robotic spacecraft onto the Moon's surface, beginning a new era of ongoing commercial lunar exploration and discovery, unlocking the immense potential of the Moon's valuable resources," the venture's press release states.
Unsurprisingly, this unprecedented commercial space mission opened up a can of interstellar worms—space regulation is under jurisdiction of the United Nations. As TechCrunch described, Moon Express bought its lunar craft from Rocket Lab on October 2015 before it even had government permission to launch it. The company also did not have the approval to keep what they find on the moon.
But then in November, President Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act into law that allows private companies to keep any resources taken from outer space.
Still, the company did not have clearance to make the trip. To get around this regulatory hurdle, according to TechCrunch, "Jain explained that representatives from multiple federal agencies, including the State Department and the NSA worked together to determine that the FAA, which is already responsible for granting launch licenses to rocket companies, should be the official point of contact for this type of activity."
To get final government approval for the mission, Moon Express had to ensure it was not breaking space law, as The Verge explained:
Moon Express tried to address three critical provisions of the Outer Space Treaty. First, nations must continually supervise all of the space missions that happen within their borders. Moon Express told the FAA it would frequently update the agency with information on the 2017 trip, so that the government could oversee it. The second rule is not messing with other nations' spacecraft or space operations. On the Moon, that mostly means respecting the Apollo sites, and Moon Express assured the government that it wouldn't disturb these areas. "Don't do wheelies over Neil's footprint," joked Richards.
Finally, Moon Express had to show the State Department it would abide by the Outer Space Treaty's provision that is meant to prevent people from contaminating other worlds, called planetary protection. If companies like Moon Express want to land on a body in outer space, they have to be careful not to spread too many bacteria on the surface. Fortunately the Moon doesn't host life, so Moon Express doesn't have to worry too much about contamination. In its voluntary disclosures to the federal government, Moon Express gave the FAA all its data about how it would adhere to the rules of planetary protection.
"The Moon Express 2017 mission approval is a landmark decision by the U.S government and a pathfinder for private sector commercial missions beyond the Earth's orbit," Richards said. "We are now free to set sail as explorers to Earth's eighth continent, the Moon, seeking new knowledge and resources to expand Earth's economic sphere for the benefit of all humanity."
Thrilled to announce formal USG approval for our Moon Express 2017 mission https://t.co/4YxItqdbfm https://t.co/bHNp38fv7g— Moon Express (@Moon Express)1470232562.0
"The sky is not the limit for Moon Express—it is the launchpad. This breakthrough ruling is another giant leap for humanity. Space travel is our only path forward to ensure our survival and create a limitless future for our children," Jain said in the release. "In the immediate future, we envision bringing precious resources, metals, and Moon rocks back to Earth. In 15 years, the Moon will be an important part of Earth's economy, and potentially our second home. Imagine that."
The company has a long-term mission of exploring and developing lunar resources for the benefit of humanity and a short-term mission of providing lunar transportation and services for government and commercial customers.
Moon Express hopes to win $30 million from the Google Lunar X-Prize to fuel their lunar mission.
An actual race on the Moon is going to take place in 2017. Seriously! (@GLXP #GLXP) https://t.co/txc2MwVWMG @IFLScience— XPRIZE (@XPRIZE)1469066414.0
A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite captured the moon moving past the sunlit side of the Earth for the second time in a year.
The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured the images while orbiting 1 million miles away from Earth. Sitting between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR's primary mission is to monitor solar wind for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as EurekAlert noted.
"For the second time in the life of DSCOVR, the moon moved between the spacecraft and Earth," Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said. "The project recorded this event on July 5 with the same cadence and spatial resolution as the first 'lunar photobomb' of last year."
A camera onboard the satellite, Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), is always focused on the sunlit side of Earth to provide observations of ozone, vegetation, cloud height and aerosols in Earth's atmosphere, EurekAlert reported. But for this moment, the camera focused on the moon.
Far side of the moon captured by @NASA EPIC camera aboard @NOAA's DSCOVR satellite on 7/5/16 https://t.co/kDuw1lfL4q https://t.co/AjHoqRdqZf— NOAA Satellites (@NOAA Satellites)1468333524.0
The images seen in the gif above were taken between 11:50 p.m. on July 4 and 3:18 a.m. on July 5. The moon is moving over the Indian and Pacific oceans.
EPIC recorded the first occurrence of the moon "photobomb" between 3:50 and 8:45 p.m. on July 16, 2015.
DSCOVR has also captured eclipses on camera, according to the satellite's website.
The satellite mission is a partnership between NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force.