I couldn't tell exactly what the noise was or where it was coming from: There was the ping ping ping of xylophones, a beating drum, and the shaking rattling noises of...something. Pursing the sounds across the grounds of the New York Hall of Science, I expected to find a small band of people using a clearing as a practice space. Instead I found a guy in a plaid shirt standing behind a folding table loaded with small player-pianoesque musical instruments (aka, Nick Yulman and his Bone Conductor Mechanical Orchestra).
My brain-swirling day at World Maker Faire NY was officially underway.
Claire Johnson Fackler grew up swimming in Hawaii's waters, but she'd never seen anything like this. "I could see something large coming directly toward me from about 60 feet away. The only thing I'm really supposed to be terrified of would be a tiger shark," says the national education liaison for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Sanctuaries Program. "So I'm trying to assess what this thing is, and it comes to within a foot of my face. It was just a really curious large ulua [a giant predatory fish]. They look like big dogs, sort of. By the time it got close enough, I was like, 'Grab the camera! Grab the camera!' The fear of the unknown was gone. It was just amazing to see an ocean wilderness that has this type of diversity and abundance."
Fackler is one of a small group of scientists that have had the chance to dive in the waters of the newest U.S. national monument, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. It takes five days to sail the 1,200 miles from Honolulu to the farthest reaches of the islands.
Read the story on the American Way site.
