Too old for camp but still love it and want to be involved? Then check out Felix Neck’s Leader-in-training (LIT) program for young adults, ages 14-18. LIT’s assist Counselors in planning and teaching lessons. For more information please call or email: Phone: 508-627-4850 Email: felixneck@massaudubon.org

Woods Hole Sea Grant is accepting pre-proposals for its 2010-2012 funding cycle. In keeping with the strategic plans of the National Sea Grant College Program and the Woods Hole Sea Grant program, the theme areas for 2010-2012 are: *Fisheries and Aquaculture*, *Environmental Technologies* (marine biotechnology, remediation technologies, and remote technologies), and *Estuarine and Coastal Processes* (coastal erosion, sustainable landforms, water quality, and sediment quality). However, pre-proposals representing other areas will be considered. The Northeast Sea Grant programs are also issuing a special call for regional proposals directed at the Gulf of Maine science plan.

Interested individuals are encouraged to attend Sea Grant's Open Meeting on February 11 at 2:00 p.m. in WHOI's Redfield Auditorium, 45 Water Street, Woods Hole.

To view the full Request for Pre-Proposals, which includes deadline (March 2) and content requirements, visit www.whoi.edu/seagrant/whatsnew/rfp.html or contact Judy McDowell at (508) 289-2557 or jmcdowell@whoi.edu.

The global warming equation is not as simple as turn up the heat and palm trees start sprouting at the poles.

"Everyone is saying that climate change is going in one direction, but there are quirks," said Robert Pickart, a senior scientist and physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

That was evident last winter when a major ocean current, which many scientists thought had either significantly slowed or stalled altogether due to global warming, inexplicably switched itself back on.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090114/NEWS/901140326/-1/NEWS01

In 1953, when Sylvia A. Earle began studying algae, the marine plants and related microbes were often considered weeds or worse. Boaters ridiculed them as scum that turned patches of sea into pea soup.

Today, Dr. Earle notes that just one type — Prochlorococcus, so small that millions can fit in a drop of water — has achieved fame as perhaps the most abundant photosynthetic organism on the planet. It daily releases countless tons of oxygen into the atmosphere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/
science/earth/13ocea.html

The first weekend of the new year began with the last of the Christmas Bird Counts for this winter. The Martha's Vineyard Christmas Bird Count was run last weekend on Jan. 3 with fairly good weather but lots of wind and snow cover making it tough to find birds.

The bad weather makes it much harder for observers. With some rescheduling of counts due to nasty weather and often punishing temperatures and winds, many observers who participate are happy to be done with these until the end of the year. A well-earned 50-week respite is coming.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20090110/LIFE/901100334/-1/NEWS01

A major report on the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm is expected today, but at least one key finding will not be included and another has just been received by the lead agency reviewing the project.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service — a division of the Department of the Interior — is expected to release its final environmental impact statement on the wind farm today, according to a notice posted on the Web site of the Office of the Federal Register. A draft version of the report issued by MMS almost exactly a year ago was largely favorable toward the project.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090116/NEWS/901160312