The soft robot is tested in the sea. (CHINA DAILY)

China: Breakthrough Enhances Deep-Sea Research! (6.9.2025)

Their latest research, titled “Plasticized electrohydraulic robot autopilots in the deep sea”, was published in the journal Science Robotics. Conducted in collaboration with Zhejiang University and the China Ship Scientific Research Centre, the research team has developed an electrohydraulic-driven soft robot which has been applied to deep-sea exploration.

As the largest unexplored frontier on the earth, the deep sea holds the key to understanding life origins, resource exploration and climate evolution.

However, scientists face significant challenges due to extreme conditions such as high pressure and low temperatures during their exploration. There is also another obstacle: balancing the high costs of exploration and equipment reliability with the protection of fragile deep-sea ecosystems, according to the research team.

Mr Stephen Keenan - Irish Hero!

Eire: Remembering the Celtic Bravery of “Stephen Keenan” – Free-Diving [and Safety] Champion! (31.1.2024)

‘Last month, Stephen Keenan, aged 39 and from Dublin, drowned while overseeing a dive by the freediving world record holder Alessia Zecchini. While attempting to cross “the arch” of the Red Sea’s notorious Blue Hole using only a single breath, the 25-year-old Italian became disoriented. Keenan rushed to her aid and guided her to the surface. She made it out unharmed but he blacked out and was found floating face down some distance away.

Yellow Submarine: How the Beatles Invented Pyrhonesque Cartoons! (9.4,2023)  

As for its surface structure – I think that with the ‘Yellow Submarine’ we are seeing the essence of how the Monty Python team presented their ideas to the world! As Monty Python sketches are available all over the internet and streaming services – most people are better acquainted with this form of communication than they are with that seen in the ‘Yellow Submarine’! This tends to give the inverted notion that the Monty Python methodology came before the ‘Yellow Submarine’ – but we all know that this is not true! Just a quick perusal will demonstrate to the average viewer that Terry Gillian must have been inspired and motivated by The Beatles output and philosophical intent (which seems ‘Anarchic’ at this point and definitely ‘Existential’). The working-class norms that all four Beatles were brought up within are there – but so is the ‘freedom’ from this conditioning – and that’s all the ‘Yellow Submarine’ represents! The problem was the difficulty of psychologically conveying this ‘freedom’ whilst still being physically ‘stuck’ in exactly the material conditions assumed to have been thrown-off due to some type of superior insight! This is the ‘idealism’ of The Beatles! It was their millions of pounds which gave them an enhanced sense of ‘choice’ whilst living within a capitalist society. Immense wealth and success constituted the foundry within which the superstructure of the ‘Yellow Submarine’ was hammered out – whilst the imbibing of LSD was the bottle of Champaign (or non-descript ‘infrastructure’) that was smashed against its side – and which launched it into the stream of human consciousness! Do with it as you will.