Deep Sea Vents Package

Written Piece

Newly discovered shrimp species

Southampton Scientists have discovered swarms of mysterious chemical feeding eyeless shrimps in the depths of the ocean, writes Daniel Mackrell.

The discovery was made about three miles beneath the ocean surface, on 'black smoker' vents in the deepest part of the Caribbean.

Scientists used an underwater robot called Autosub6000 to locate the deep sea vents, south of the Cayman Islands.

Dr Douglas Connelly, one of the team at the National Oceanography Centre, described the experience as 'absolutely brilliant, it does represent the culmination of a lot of hard work'.

The undersea environment is able to support life despite no sunlight reaching these depths. The shrimps do not gather energy from sunlight, but by breaking down chemicals in their surroundings.

They have been named Rimicaris hybisae, and are closely related to the mid-atlantic species.

Dead tube worms, which are normally located in the pacific, were also found near the vents. Mining companies are hoping to start working in the vents, which are believed to be rich in iron and copper.

The next two research projects will be taking place in the Scottish Sea Loch to do a trial CO2 release.

Their will also be an expedition in the North Sea as part of a project called Eco2, which focuses on renewable energy in the UK and Europe.

Image: Courtesy with National Oceanography Centre and University of Southampton.

Link to written piece here.

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Now for Year 2

Well, this summer has been an interesting one, i feel like i've faced a few new experiences, and i've noticed myself getting into some good journalistic habits. I've been watching news in a very different way. I'm sure my parents won't miss me constantly commenting on why they're doing certain things on news stories, and trying to explain some of the process behind it.

Thier has certainly been a number of big stories over the summer with the two biggest being the Phone Hacking scandal and the riots.

On this blog i didn't a few posts during the riots, including to live blogs which kept people updated on what was happening. Twitter proved a very useful source, and as i live very close to Croydon and similar areas, i had to contacts that i could speak to about what they could see. I recieved a number of 'retweets' linking to my blog, including one from Chris Ship of ITV news.
The blog attracted around 10,000 views on one day, and around 15,000 overall which i was very pleased with. It still continues to attract traffic to my blog on a daily basis with people still googling about the riots.

When the new year begins, i'll be taking my position as part of the production team, and as a sub editor, and I am looking forward to it.

Thier will be a number of new, interesting blogs, and I hope to present them in new ways. Very soon i will be posting a few demo voice overs, so keep on the look out for them.

Thank you for keeping up with my blogs, and i hope youst around, because thiers plenty more to come.

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