Eye-In-The-Sea was designed to be used as an exploratory platform for observing life in the deep sea in an unobtrusive manner.  Currently, most of the tools that we use in the deep sea use large, bright lights, loud thrusters and other tools that disturb and scare away deep sea animals.  EITS uses quiet technology, a special ultra-sensitive camera, and unobtrusive far-red lighting that deep-sea species have limited sensitivity to. 

The system also contains a suite of peripherals, such as a bioluminescence sensor, CTD, current meter, scaling lasers, and an “electronic jellyfish” which emulates bioluminescent lightshows.   These sensors, along with video and audio recordings, will enable scientists to study the behavior deep-sea scavengers and associated species in response to simulated food falls (seal and pig carcass drops) and both natural and simulated bioluminescent displays (e-jelly).

In addition to the scientific uses, the educational and outreach potential for such technology is enormous..  Connection to shore via the MARS network allowed for live steaming to the Internet where teachers and students around the world had the ability to view and propose propose questions about the organisms inhabiting the deep sea. MBARI's EARTH website was used as a porthole to participating classrooms.  In the future we plan to use archived EITS data as part of a hands-on curriculum to bring science and exploration into the classroom.




WEBSITES:

http://www.teamorca.org/cfiles/eyeinthesea.cfm

http://www.mbari.org/earth/mar_tech/EITS/eits.html

EITS in the NEWS:


Wired Science: (01/22/09)
Gallery: Robotic Sub Installs Deep-Sea Webcam

Wired Science : (01/21/09)
WiSci Tweets Live from a Monterey Bay Research Boat

PBS Nature Interview: (06/11/08) 
The Beauty of Ugly—Interview with Dr. Edith Widder

Popular Mechanics: (May 2006)
A More Candid Underwater Camera

Science News for Kids: (12/12/07)
Eyes on the Depths

Live Science: (03/02/05) 
Mystery of Large Squid Caught on Video

EITS PUBS:


Cline, D.E., Edgington, D.R., Mariette, J. An Automated Visual Event Detection System for Cabled Observatory Video. 3rd International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications, 22-25 January, 2008. Funchal, Madeira Portugal. 
Cline, D.E., Edgington, D.R., Mariette, J., An Automated Visual Event Detection System for Cabled Observatory Video. MTS/IEEE Oceans 2007 Conference Proceedings, Vancouver, Canada September 2007. IEEE Press 
Raymond, E & Widder, E (2007) Behavioral responses of two deep-sea fish species red, far-red and white light