{"id":974,"date":"2015-07-27T18:53:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T18:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?p=974"},"modified":"2016-01-04T18:25:07","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T18:25:07","slug":"the-medusa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/?p=974","title":{"rendered":"The Medusa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Virtual Science Team,
\n\"MEDUSA<\/a>Today is the fifth day of our cruise and the Medusa is on her second drop. This is the first time for the Medusa to be in the Gulf of Mexico. The Medusa is a camera system designed to explore the deep sea in a new way \u2013 one that focuses on attracting animals instead of scaring them away.\u00a0 I became interested in a different way of exploring after many years of diving in submersibles and using Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs). Both convinced me that animals were avoiding the bright lights and noisy thrusters on these standard exploration platforms.
\nMy solution was a camera platform that was quiet and that could see without being seen by illuminating with red light that is invisible to most deep sea animals and that used an optical lure. \"MEDUSA<\/a>What’s an optical lure? It’s a ring of dim blue lights that imitates the bioluminescent burglar alarm display of a deep-sea jellyfish. The burglar alarm might startle the predator and entice bigger predators to swoop in for a quick meal of the would-be predator. When the e-jelly on the Medusa lights up, it lures animals closer so we can capture them on video.
\nIt has been remarkably successful and has\u00a0recorded some amazing things including the first video ever recorded of a giant squid in the deep sea!\u00a0 We probably won\u2019t see any giant squid on this mission but I\u2019m always hopeful that we\u2019ll see something completely new and exciting.
\n\"ANIMAL<\/a>Here is\u00a0a photo from its first deployment on this cruise, a very cool eel.
\nIt’ll be exciting to\u00a0find out what else\u00a0the Medusa saw in the deep!
\nCheers,
\nEdie<\/em><\/span>
\nDr. Edith Widder
\nMarine Biologist and Deep-Sea Explorer
\nCreep into the Deep Mission:
\nBioluminescence and Vision on the Deep Seafloor 2015 Expedition, NOAA-OER<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Virtual Science Team, Today is the fifth day of our cruise and the Medusa is on her second drop. This is the first time for the Medusa to be in the Gulf of Mexico. The Medusa is a camera system designed to explore the deep sea in a new way \u2013 one that focuses … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,34,24,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creep-into-the-deep","category-postcards-from-the-deep","category-seamails","category-virtual-research-missions","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whaletimes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}