Word: vortex
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...hoping it would someday reach land. Sorry, all you modern-day Robinson Crusoes, try that with a plastic bottle in real life, and your message will probably end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, bobbing in a floating collection of trash known as the Plastic Vortex. It's an accumulation of plastic debris swept into the Pacific - whether directly from beaches or flowing out of rivers - and carried by equatorial currents into a swirling pattern to one spot between Hawaii and the mainland...
...Plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic toys - even last year's Crocs - end up in the shifting vortex, which some scientists estimate to be twice the size of Texas. And as plastic use increases, especially in rapidly growing developing nations on the western end of the Pacific, that vortex will continue to grow. "It's huge," notes Doug Woodring, an entrepreneur and ocean conservationist in Hong Kong. But "unfortunately the ocean is a big place, and once it's out of sight, it's out of mind." (See TIME's photos: Fragile Planet...
...Woodring is trying to change that. With help from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woodring and several colleagues in ocean conservation are launching a two-ship expedition to the plastic vortex to explore it, take photographs and video and alert the public about the growing threat of ocean waste. "We need to make people realize what we are doing to our ocean," says Woodring...
...ships - the New Horizon from Scripps in San Diego, and the Kaisei from San Francisco - will depart from California for nearly monthlong missions to the vortex. The New Horizon will focus on scientific research, looking at the impact of the plastic vortex on marine life in the Pacific. As the plastic bakes in the sun, it slowly breaks down, leaching toxic chemicals into the water that may harm fish - and eventually us, when we eat them...
...finally seduce Jessica S. Lin ’09. How tough is it to get the Fallen Angels in a recording studio? Those girls are always on the go!But these next few years after graduation will be different. First off, you will be thrown a lot fewer Nerf Vortex footballs, Jock Jams will not be played when you enter a room, and business casual will no longer include Umbro shorts. Oh, sorry. This is about Harvard? That’s from our 1997 elementary school graduation Prestige and Mobility column.The real world will be tougher than Harvard, though. Brain...