Show Date: January 25 , 2005

DIVING FOR DINOSAURS AND TAMING TYPHOONS
Pam Eastlick for the Marianas Variety

Greetings and welcome to The Deep column and the deepest radio show on Earth. The Deep is the science talk radio program that takes you from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of the universe. This week on The Deep hosted by Jim Sullivan and aired at 6:00 Wednesday evening on K-57, we’ll range from dinosaur bones to stopping typhoons in their tracks. We’ll also have some expedition calls and our science news updates as well as taking your phone calls. Tune in tonight!

DIVING FOR DINOSAURS
Darren Tanke, a technician with Canada’s Royal Tyrrell Museum is preparing to go diving for dinosaur bones, but he’s not taking a shovel with him. These bones have already been dug up once. Tanke wants to dive the shipwreck SS Mount Temple, which lies at the bottom of the North Atlantic.

The story starts during World War 1, in the summer of 1916 in what is now Dinosaur Provincial Park near Brooks, Alberta. American fossil hunter Charles H. Sternberg collected a treasure trove of fossils there, including a nearly complete hadrosaur skeleton and an equally rare turtle.

The fossils were loaded onto the steamship Mount Temple, destined for display in a London museum. But en route to England, the Mount Temple was intercepted by a German ship, the SMS Oldenberg. After firing on the Mount Temple, the German crew boarded the Canadian merchant ship and planted explosives on the hull. The ship was scuttled and its precious 75-million-year-old cargo was sent to the bottom of the ocean. It now sits somewhere in a remote patch of the ocean, about 700 km northwest of the western Azores.

Tanke, along with professional diver and marine archeologist Rob Rondeau, are in the early stages of a effort that could someday salvage those bones from the shipwreck SS Mount Temple. Next month, Rondeau will lead a diving expedition to the Oldenberg, the German ship that sunk the Mount Temple. The Oldenberg survived World War 1, but it was sunk off the coast of Norway at the end of the Second World War.

That's just a prelude to the more ambitious task of recovering the fossils. Rondeau hopes the first dive will attract a film producer, such as James Cameron who produced the mega-movie hit Titanic. He also seeks sponsors with deep pockets to cover the Mount Temple costs, which will be in the millions of dollars.

TAMING TYPHOONS
To the hurricane-weary people of Florida and the typhoon-weary people of Guam it sounds almost too good to be true. Peter Cordani of the Dyn-O-Mat Corporation, says he has found a powder that’s a hurricane killer. All you do is sprinkle it on the clouds of a typhoon and they vanish.

How does it work? It’s a patented power that Cordani claims absorbs between 2,000 and 4,000 times its weight in rain. Each molecule of powder can hold several molecules of water and the wet powder becomes a gel. Three years ago, Cordani dumped 9,000 pounds of it on a fair weather cloud off West Palm Beach and claims it made the cloud disappear from a radar screen. Of course, cumulus clouds come and go all the time and there’s some question that Cordani’s powder actually made the nasty cloud go away.

And then there’s the little problem of what happens to the gel. The theory is that once the polymer turns into a gel, it becomes heavier and falls to earth. Cordani says the gel dissolves when it hits salt water, so if possible, storm clouds will be tackled over the ocean. But is the gel safe if it falls over land?
"Much of the gel evaporates on the way down, and it is biodegradable and not hazardous to the environment or anybody's health," says Cordani. The company spent $1 million on their test, and hopes to sell their powder to the US government.

According to the patent, Dyn-O-Gel is a “super-absorbent water-soluble polymer”. These chemicals absorb water and cross-link, becoming water-insoluble. Here’s what the EPA says about this chemical family.

“EPA has a concern for potential fibrosis of the lung or other pulmonary effects that may be caused by inhalation of respirable particles of water-insoluble HMW polymers. For these substances the Agency makes the "may present an unreasonable risk" determination with concerns for fibrosis and cancer, based upon water absorption properties. Concerns are associated with substances that absorb their weight (or greater) in water.”

Could Peter Cordani’s Dyn-O-Gel powder kill a typhoon? There’s no concrete evidence that it could, but the EPA has some serious concerns about what it could do to you. And tons of goop falling on the ocean and being carried over land might just produce a bigger hazard than the typhoon.
Join us tonight on The Deep and discuss unusual marine salvage and taming typhoons. Don’ miss it. You can also log on to www.thedeepradioshow.com for more information.