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Underwater photographer Alex Mustard to receive an MBE

The Queen’s Birthday Honours List recognises a wide range of extraordinary people across the United Kingdom. The awardees are acknowledged for their distinguished work and achievements in a specific field, in this instance "the Arts, Music and Dance".

Alex Mustard will receive his MBE or Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire medal in the next few months.

It's an incredible happy shock and I am delighted

It has therefore been fascinating watching Mustard's career flourish. He has won a number of awards including the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

In 2003 he received the Visions In the Sea Award for Outstanding Contributions to Underwater Photography. Ten years later, in 2013, Alex was named the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year for his image Night Moves. The only time an underwater photograph has won this prestigious award. In 2016 he was given the ADEX 2016 Award for Extraordinary Contribution to Underwater Photography.

Lex Warner, John Chatterton, Richie Kohler, Rosemary E Lunn, Roz Lunn, stage cylinder, Scapa Flow, Scotland, XRay Mag, X-Ray Magazine, scuba diving news, CCR fatality
File Image: John Chatterton and Richie Kohler of the Deep Sea Detectives gearing up to dive in Scapa Flow, Scotland. Rosemary Lunn is assiting Richie Kohler to clip a stage cylinder to his left hand side | Image Credit: Simon Mills

The Lex Warner case continues a sad trend

On 14 August 2012 Lex Warner was about to conduct a technical dive off the Scottish coast. He was diving a rebreather and bailout stages and whilst he was crossing the deck of the dive boat, he stumbled, fell forwards and landed heavily on the deck. He went down on his knees, then onto his hands, before rolling onto his side and finally onto his back. Having been helped back to his feet by the boat’s crew, Lex Warner was reported to have expressed frustration and annoyance at himself for falling.

Some rockpool prawns prefer to stick with the food they found while others tend to forage for more choices.

Shy prawns fare better than bolder ones

Scientists at the University of Exeter studying rockpool prawns (Palaemon elegant) have discovered that they exhibit different personalities, and those that are "shy" tend to fare better when competing for food.

The findings of their study was published in Volume 140 of the journal Animal Behaviour.

In the study, the prawns, all taken from the Gyllyngvase beach in Falmouth, were tagged and tested on their level of boldness by placing them in an unfamiliar tank and observing how much they explored and ventured to the centre.

Soviet Sub found and identified

According to Wallin's report, UMEX (Underwater Exploration Team) found and identified Sch-317 yesterday, 2 May 2018.

This Soviet submarine lies at 78 meters / 255 ft between Gogland (Suursaari) and Tuiters (Tytärsaari) in the east part of the Gulf of Finland in Russian waters.

Sch-317 was sunk in 1942 by a German mine after surviving several attacks by allies that included bombing the Swedish coast.

The submarine's final resting place is near her home port.

AP Diving announces Firmware update

The vast majority of AP rebreather divers will have been informed of this update by email. However it has come to APD's attention that some of their registered Inspiration users have not received the mailing. This is either because the email address APD has on record is out-of-date or the mailing has been rejected by the individual's spam filter.

AP Diving has therefore made the following request.

A new study propose alternative mechanisms for how marine vertebrates control gas exchange in the lungs

New hypothesis into how whales avoid getting the bends

When air-breathing mammals dive, their lungs compress. The ultra-deep-diving feats of some marine mammals go beyond our current understanding of respiratory physiology and lung mechanics. But historically, researchers assumed the chest structure of marine mammals meant their lungs compressed automatically at great depths, an adaptation that prevented them from taking up excess nitrogen and getting the bends.

NOC hosts Marine Plastic Pollution Talk

On 10 May 2018 David Jones will be talking on "Marine Plastic Pollution: How did we get here and what can we do about it?"

Plastic pollution is undoubtedly one of the biggest environmental issues we face at the moment. Plastic has only been in our lives for around seventy years, so how did we get to where we are, what went wrong? More importantly, what can we do about it?" David Jones.

Larger spleen enables Bajau to remain underwater longer

The Bajau are an indigenous people in parts of Indonesia renowned for their breath-holding ability when diving for food. They have been known to dive up to 70 metres using nothing more than a set of weights and a pair of wooden goggles.

Previously, scientists have speculated on whether dive capacity is related to spleen size, though no formal studies have been done on humans on a genetic level.

Could cheap Ikea batteries really be as good as top-dollar brands?

What to make of which batteries to use or not to use underwater

Our good colleague at Wetpixel, Adam Hanlon, recently reported that the extremely popular Eneloop rechargeable batteries are now not recommended for underwater strobe use. Panasonic, who owns Eneloop, specifically states on its website "Please do not use Eneloop Ni-MH batteries in underwater lights or other airtight appliances." Adam mentions it could be interesting if the strobe manufacturers have something to say, otherwise we’ll all keep using Eneloops as usual. It could indeed.

Developing the Mindset of a Successful Image Maker

Is underwater photography difficult? Actually, no—at least, not to any significant degree when compared with any other discipline of photography. Each single stage of creating an underwater photograph, if seen in isolation from the rest, is not so tricky. It is the sum of all its parts, as well as mastering the whole, which can appear confusing at times.