Sylvia A. Earle is an American oceanographer, explorer, aquanaut, and author. She was born on August 30, 1935 in Gibbstown, New Jersey. She was raised on a small farm near Camden. She loved exploring the woods near her home and was fascinated by the animals and plants she found there. Her parents taught her to respect wild animals and to not be afraid of the unknown. During family trips to the Jersey shore, she discovered a magical world of wildlife at the water's edge. When she was 13 years old, her family moved to Clearwater, Florida. Sylvia became interested in the wildlife of the Florida Gulf coast. She described the experience as "living on the edge of the great unknown every day." She attempted her first dive at age 16 using a diving helmet, since scuba was not yet available. She excelled in school and earned a scholarship to Florida State University. As she attended college, she supported herself by working in college laboratories. While working at the college, she learned how to scuba dive and was eager to study marine life. She decided to study botany and believed that understanding plants is the first step to understanding any ecosystem. She earned her Master's degree at Duke University. Her dissertation Phaeophyta of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico earned her a reputation in the scientific community. She has since made it a lifelong project to catalog every species of plant in the Gulf of Mexico.

Every diver I know can remember perfectly when he or she caught the diving bug. For some it's when they first put on a wetsuit, for others it doesn't happen until they see their first underwater fish. For me, personally, it only happened on my 3rd dive, when I saw a great white shark during a cage diving session I took part. Witnessing this incredible creature that had been part of my consciousness ever since I saw "Jaws" as a teenager was truly a life-changing experience. Far from being terrified, I couldn't wait to get back into the water for more.

Examining how land-use changes may affect water quality and fisheries resources in lakes and rivers will help natural resource agencies manage wildlife populations, according to Steven Chipps, leader of the U.S. Geological Survey, South Dakota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at South Dakota State University. The fisheries biologist and Muthiah Muruganandam, a Fulbright scholar from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, will use existing data to track changes in the characteristics and water quality of surface waters in northeastern South Dakota.

The following script is from "The Last Vaquitas" which aired on May 22, 2016. Sharyn Alfonsi is the correspondent. David Schneider and Joyce Gesundheit, producer.

You would think the most endangered sea mammal in the world would be a cause célèbre -- complete with a star-studded, high profile campaign to save it. But that's not the case with the vaquita, a small porpoise with a distinctive face that's on the verge of extinction.

It lives in waters off Baja California where the Mexican government is trying to save the vaquita by paying fishermen not to fish. Scientists from the U.S. and Mexico set sail recently to count the last vaquitas still in existence. It's not easy because their numbers are dwindling and the animals are notoriously elusive. That's one reason why most people have never heard of vaquitas and fewer have seen one. We didn't expect to see any either.

While reviewing scuba BCs, you're bound to notice a few differences between the many available styles and designs. Some BCs solve the same problem in different ways. Here's a few examples from our 2016 BC test.