We have finalized the new membership card. Many thanks and rounds of applause for making this happen. Tremendous team work by:
1. Deepblu
2. Eddvamp
3. Chotty
4. Jasmine
5. Syed KA
6. Sheik

1. Front

Sorry about the The MUW words as in the design, my camera tikam cannot capture those. But can be seen by naked eyes.

2. Back of the card

Notice your real name. And also the call-sign in gold.
Membership # is actually taken from MUW Members List. This is unique number for each member.

3. Transparency

Notice the card is partly transparent. Again, camera won’t be able to capture those MUW words written on the card.
(background pix is truly a lovely dog, huh?)

4. How your card looks like in your wallet. It’s a credit card size, quality and thickness.

5. Or you may put your card like so:

We’re ready to take orders.
Those who have been issued the previous cards, you will be replaced at no charge–but MUST return the old one to any of the Mods listed below:
1. Hollowman
2. Jasmine Ho
3. Adzri
4. Sheik
5. Ikan
6. Lara
7. Bijan

Those who would like to oder, it’s the same cost of RM15. Details will be provided later.
Some of the benefits of this card:
1. Special discounts and/or privileges at the Friends of MUW DCs and DSs.
2. To identify your membership to those places who are Friends of MUW.
3. More to come.

The year 2008 has been designated as the International Year Of the Reef and Sime Darby Plantation has agreed to support the Sustainable Island Programme. The Programme is a joint collaboration between Wild Asia and Reef Check Malaysia, which will potentially see up to 30 certified Malaysian Underwater (MUW) Ecodivers surveying dive sites on the 3 main islands of the East Coast of Peninsular.

Expenses for food, accommodation, and 6 survey dives are all covered by our generous corporate sponsor, so what are you waiting for? Sign up for the EcoDiver Certification Course HERE and click HERE to find out how YOU can be involved in the SIP and positively contribute to IYOR 2008.

Grab this great opportunity to give back to Mother Nature and her precious reefs!

Date  : 14th March 2008 until 16th March 2008
Venue: Putra World Trade Centre (Click HERE for Map)

The MATTA FAIR ‘08 will showcase a comprehensive range of travel and holiday products from all over the world in one place. During these three days, visitors can expect to find attractive bargains and great value in all the packages on offer

Matta

Read more FiNS Magazine Issue 7.1 (14.5 MB) Jan/Feb08

Sea spiders the size of dinner plates, giant worms and jelly fish with 18 ft-long tentacles have been discovered by a scientific expedition exploring the largely unknown waters of Antarctica.

Man’s effect on world’s oceans revealed Antarctic seabed ecosystems invasion threat Acidic oceans threaten marine life The bizarre menagerie - many of the creatures are new to science - was documented by a fleet of three Australian, French and Japanese marine research ships which docked in Hobart, Tasmania, this week. Sponges, gorgonians and lace corals on the ocean floor (left) and tunicates which look like glass tulips (right) “Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters,” said Australian scientist Martin Riddle, voyage leader on one of the research ships, the Aurora Australis. “Many [of the creatures] live in the dark and have pretty large eyes. They are strange looking fish.” The expedition collected video footage of the sea bed at depths of up to 4,200ft. “It’s amazing to be able to navigate undersea mountains and valleys and actually see what the animals look like in their undisturbed state,” Dr Riddle said. Grenadier fish swim over glass sponges in Antarctic water “In some places every inch of the sea floor is covered in life. In other places we can see deep scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by.” The collected specimens, which include sea urchins, fish and glass-like animals called tunicates or sea squirts, will be sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA analysis. Some of the creatures hauled up from the deep weighed up to 65 lbs. “Not all of the creatures that we found could be identified and it’s very likely that some new species will be recorded as a result of these voyages,” said Graham Hosie, leader of the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census project. The scientists are monitoring how the impact of environmental change in Antarctic waters, such as ocean acidification caused by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, could affect marine life. It is feared that acidification will make it harder for marine organisms to sustain their calcium carbonate skeletons. Giant scale worm on the seabed (left) and brightly coloured coralline bryozoans and sponges (right) Scientists are also concerned that another threat to Antarctica - global warming - could draw sharks to the Southern Ocean, shattering a delicate ecological balance. Biologists who gathered in Boston last week for the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science warned that sharks would devastate soft-shelled mollusks and other invertebrates inhabiting the ocean floor. Global warming has already pushed temperatures up by 1 - 2ºC in the past 50 years, and within a century sharks might be able to move into Antarctic waters, scientists said. “The Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators,” said University of Rhode Island biology professor Cheryl Wilga. “The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks, and at the rate we’re going, that could happen this century.” “Once they get there, it will completely change the ecology of the Antarctic benthic community,” she said. Global warming would also make Antarctica more appealing to crabs which have previously been unable to survive the freezing temperatures, threatening marine life which has not changed since the Paleozoic era of 250m to 500m years ago. “Predatory crabs are poised to return to warming Antarctic waters for the first time in millions of years, which will disrupt the composition of the archaic marine communities,” said Rick Aronson, of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama.   Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

This year 2008 is the International Year Of the Reef (IYOR) and Malaysia is coming forward with its own slogan “OUR Reefs, OUR Heritage, OUR Responsibility”.

From the 20th - 24th of February, The Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy, in collaboration with several local NGO like ReefCheck, Coral Malaysia, MNS, WWF have put together an array of activities on its Launching and Exhibition of IYOR 2008 which will happen in the Ground Floor, HIGHSTREET(NEW WING), One UTAMA Shopping Centre..

Please come and show support for the event and proudly wear your MUW t-shirt to the event..

As stated in image file above, the launching will be at 10.30 AM, Saturday Feb 23rd, HIGHSTREET(NEW WING), ONE UTAMA..If i’m not going to bangi on saturday, i’ll show up for the event and those wanting to get their shirts or wants to get a shirt, kindly PM me..

For the full programme itenerary, pls click HERE

Craig Ross, founder of Calibre Boats, takes a Scuba Scuta for a spin at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The fish weren’t the only curious snappers yesterday at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World when Kiwi boat builders Calibre Boats launched their Scuba Scuta, an Australian invention which the company is exclusively building and marketing in Helensville. A bit like an underwater jetski the $20,000 scooter can cruise at 2.5 knots at a depth of 10 metres for an hour and a half with air pumped into the perspex dome.

But rather than scare away the creatures in the big tank, the fish’s curiosity at times made it difficult for photographers to get pictures, chief executive officer Olaf van Daal said.

He described riding the scooter as “like sitting on a little moped”.

“It’s a bit strange at first but all of a sudden you find yourself at the bottom of a lake or somewhere and it’s amazing.”

Yesterday’s demo was almost a tease though - none of the scooters will be available for sale locally, with production destined for large export orders only.

This year the company will build 100 units from fibreglass moulds for a chain of international resorts in Malaysia and by next Christmas it’s hoped a million of the units will be out for sale.

Source : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/

Miflex hoses are committed to supply the high quality products for the scuba diving market with the XTREME high performance range of diving hoses which has been developed in cooperation with expert divers for a superior in depth performance.

Source : http://www.deeperblue.net

Being Xtreme-ly light & flexible Miflex hoses are available for Regulator and Jacket/BCD applications in Yellow, Blue and Black and come in re-usable packaging which you can be used as a water-proof bag.

Enter Competition Here

Question

Miflex Xtreme hoses are made to the highest quality and specification, with this in mind, what is the outer layer of the hose manufactured from, as stated on our technical data sheet

a) Rubber

b) Braided Polyester

c) Braided Nylon

Note: The answer is on website and on our data sheet that is downloadable from the link http://www.miflexhoses.co.uk/xtremefeatures.html. You can win one right now by emailing your correct answer to the question to competitions@miflexhoses.co.uk

Eligibility

Anyone can enter from anywhere in the world. Just email your correct answer to win!

Closing Date

This competition will close at midnight on 29th February 2008.

HOLLYWOOD, California (6 Feb 2007) — There are several dazzlingly pretty but profoundly dumb characters in “Fool’s Gold,” characteristics they share with the film itself.A treasure-hunting comic romance set in the Florida Keys, it’s sunshiney enough to correct your midwinter vitamin D deficiency, and very easy on the eyes.But you could find a more intellectually stimulating plot on the Golf Channel.When the lovably daffy Kate Hudson is cast as the story’s deepest thinker, expectations must be lowered. Hudson, a multilingual history scholar, married immature treasure diver Matthew McConaughey after a spring break fling that turned into a passionate but aggravating romance. “You married a guy for sex and you expect him to be smart?” marvels her lawyer at the inevitable divorce hearing. The dauntingly buff McConaughey, looking as though he drinks a brew of Bovine Growth Hormone and Hawaiian Tropic, wants her back. The prospect of locating a sunken Spanish treasure boat reunites them. Think “National Treasure,” but with more romantic bickering and less clothing. The upshot is often silly, rarely funny. Hudson works aboard the yacht of a megamillionaire (Donald Sutherland), whose riches have been unable to buy him a convincing upper-class English accent. His featherbrained daughter Alexis Dzenia, who may as well have “romantic rival” stenciled on her forehead, gets the best of the script’s slim pickings with such lines as, “The oceans are all connected, right?” For no convincing reason, Sutherland sponsors the treasure hunt, and they race against comic-violent rap mogul Kevin Hart, who wants the loot and also wants them dead. The script repeatedly assures us that McConaughey is a tiger in the sack. Maybe this is the pasty, envious middle-aged guy in me talking, but somebody who works out as much as McConaughey probably writes love notes to his mirror. Source : http://www.cdnn.info

Silly plot, bad acting and the guy’s got bigger boobs than the bikini babe: Must be another REALLY STUPID SCUBA MOVIE. In any event, there’s no electricity in his scenes with Hudson, nor even a sense that this is a welcome reunion after 2003’s “How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days.” Portraying an emotional iceberg slowly melting under McConaughey’s doofus charm, she’s unpersuasive. The characters lack warmth, and the actors deliver detached paycheck performances. Director Andy Tennant (”Hitch,” “Sweet Home Alabama”) allows the subplot-heavy story to run on for nearly two hours, which is more than formulaic romantic comedy can bear. We know that market researchers insist that these films be predictable, but can’t they be predictable in an unpredictable way?

SOURCE - Star Tribune

The respiratory physiology of goats ‘closely resembles’ that of humans.

The Ministry of Defence says it will abandon deep-diving experiments which involve inducing decompression sickness in live goats. The animals were used to see what the likely risk of “the bends” would be following escape from a submarine at varying depths under water.

The information would help crews judge whether it would be safer to abandon a stricken vessel or wait to be rescued.

Animal rights campaigners say the move will “end decades of animal suffering”.

More than 400 such experiments have taken place since 2000.

However, the tests were suspended in March 2007 while a review committee of six experts examined alternative methods, such as computer-modelling techniques to simulate the effects of the “bends”.

Now the MoD says there is no further need for the animal testing.

The “bends” - the often deadly effect of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream - is the sickness caused when divers rise to the surface too quickly.

Staff welfare ‘paramount’

It can result in a loss of balance and breathing difficulties and, in the most serious cases, paralysis and death.

During the MoD tests in Gosport, goats were subject to various pressures in a hyperbaric chamber.

Goats have suffered brain damage and other hideous effects of these unnecessary experiments Wendy Higgins Dr Hadwen Trust

Goats were used because their respiratory physiology is said to closely resemble that of humans.

Defence Secretary Des Browne said the MoD owed a duty of care to its submarine staff and “the welfare of its personnel is paramount”.

However, the aim of the tests has “now been achieved”.

“The review has concluded that the remaining associated areas of uncertainty in submarine escape and rescue relate to events that are considered highly unlikely and do not therefore need to be addressed by means of animal testing,” he said.

“The MoD has endorsed these recommendations and as a result, it has no immediate need to continue animal testing of this type.”

‘Victory’

The non-animal medical research charity the Dr Hadwen Trust, which specialises in humane alternatives to animal testing, welcomed the decision.

Spokeswoman Wendy Higgins said: “This is a victory for commonsense and animal protection which sees an end to decades of animal suffering.

“It is regrettable but inevitable that warfare causes human suffering, but it is totally unethical that we should add to this the unnecessary suffering of innocent animals.”

Mike Hancock, the Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South, said he was “absolutely delighted” with the MoD decision.

“I hope that this will set an example to other government departments and private companies to also seek replacing animal experiments as a matter of urgency,” he said.

The MoD said it only conducted animal testing “where absolutely necessary” and all work involving animals is carried out in strict accordance with the requirements of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk