mariana trench

Will Cameron's deep-sea voyage yield breakthrough drugs?

Blockbuster-moviemaker-turned-aquanaut James Cameron's solo dive in the Pacific to the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep site last month opens up a vast, under-explored region of the world's oceans to researchers. There, scientists hope to discover, retrieve, and study a host of previously unknown organisms and chemical compounds that may someday help solve decades-old medical mysteries.

"What better place to look for adaptations and unusual compounds that have unusual characteristics than in the most extreme environments we can go to on this planet," says Richard Lutz, a professor of marine ecology and biology of deep-sea hydrothermal vents … Read more

Cameron and Branson race to bring urgent attention to oceans

Did famed filmmaker James Cameron just do for the oceans what scientific experts have struggled to do for decades?

When "Avatar" and "Titanic" director Cameron piloted his custom submersible, the Deepsea Challenger, to the bottom of the Mariana Trench yesterday and became the first person ever to make a solo dive to the world's deepest spot, he shined a crucial spotlight on the field of ocean exploration.

In recent years, scientists have been shouting from rooftops around the world that unless humanity puts more energy into studying our oceans, we are at real risk of … Read more

James Cameron hits the world's floor -- and returns

Give James Cameron this much: He's unafraid to follow his passions where they lead him. Even if that place is seven miles below the surface of the ocean.

Yesterday Cameron became the first person to make a solo dive to the ocean's deepest point -- a portion of the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench known as "Challenge Deep." Cameron piloted a "vertical torpedo" of a submersible he dubbed "Deepsea Challenger" to the bottom of the trench, 35,756 feet down, then spent three hours filming and taking samples before safely returning to … Read more

Steve Fossett's unfinished legacy: Deepest ocean exploration

Correction: This story reported that Fossett would have been the first person to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. In fact, a team of two men did the dive in 1960, aboard a bathyscaphe--a "deep boat"--called the Trieste. Had Fossett made the trip, he would have been the first to do it solo.

Steve Fossett was known for many things, but perhaps the millionaire entrepreneur was best known for the many world records he set in a variety of different adventure sports.

And were it not for what seems certain to be his untimely and … Read more