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In September 2019, off the coast of California, a fire aboard the MV Conception, a 23-meter (75-foot) scuba diving liveaboard, broke out during the night, killing 33 passengers and one crew member. The captain and four crew members barely escaped. After more than a year of speculations and rumors, the NTSB (the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board) published the results of its investigation and the U.S. Coast Guard issued a new policy on a few topics, including the charging of lithium-ion batteries aboard small vessels and liveaboards.

The paper presents the reasons why large predators of great ecological importance cannot supply the rising demand for shark fins, which is driven by profits that rival the drug trade and involves the fisheries of nations around the globe. They have essentially run out of fish so are targeting sharks now that the shark fin trade has made them valuable.

In one of the largest, most complex underwater archeological undertakings in Canadian history, Parks Canada and Inuit are working in collaboration to explore the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror―the storied ships of the 1845 Franklin Expedition that set sail from England on a quest to find the sea route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific through the Arctic Ocean―across what is now Canada's Arctic and Nunavut.

Reef-building staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) was abundant and widespread throughout the Caribbean and Florida until the late 1970s.  The fast-growing coral formed dense thickets in forereef, backreef, and patch-reef environments to depths over 20 m. 

Oxygen sensors, or "cells," which are used in rebreathers have a limited shelf life and need to be replaced every 12 to 18 months. However, new ones are currently not available to the dive community.

In the United Kingdom, oxygen cell manufacturers have been mandated by the UK government to supply cells to the medical industry, leaving the dive community with back orders.

I was greatly saddened by the loss of Lad Handelman, who passed away as a result of a heart attack on the evening of October 26, 2020. Though most people knew him as one of the larger-than-life giants and pioneers of commercial oilfield diving, few knew that he was a key advisor for my magazine aquaCORPS: The Journal for Technical Diving and the tek.Conferences in the early 1990s.