Scientists from OCEAN, and other collaborators, spent much of this summer laying down “nodes” on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, off the Pacific Northwest coast. Their goal? To monitor events in the ocean in real time, and to allow anyone else who wants it to access the same data. Pretty ambitious! Learn more from this story, where John Delaney and Deb Kelley are quoted, and check out the OOI site here. 

The Washington State Academy of Sciences has named 35 new members, 25 of them from the University of Washington, in recognition of distinguished and continuing scientific achievements. From CoEnv, new members include E. Virginia Armbrust of Oceanography, and Clifford Mass of Atmospheric Sciences. Congratulations! 

The first U.S. cabled ocean observatory reached a milestone on July 14 with the installation of a node 9,500 feet deep off the coast of Oregon. Like a giant electrical outlet on the seafloor that also provides Internet connectivity, the node was spliced into a network of cable segments totalling some 560 miles that were laid in the summer of 2011.  

Preliminary new findings suggest that, contrary to previous assertions, consistent rain and warm temperatures may have given the Mongols the energy source they needed to conquer Eurasia: grass for their horses.  Read more here; OCEAN‘s Avery Shinneman is mentioned. 

Professor John Delaney, of the School of Oceanography, is the recipient of the 2012 Athelstan Spilhaus Award, given by the American Geophysical Union.  The Athelstan Spilhaus Award is awarded not more than once annually to an individual AGU member for devoting portions of their career to conveying to the general public the excitement, significance, and beauty of the Earth and space sciences.