Update on the great Atlantic plastic hunt

To follow up on science writer David Lawrence's cruise with the "Plastics at SEA" expedition, David now reports, "I survived the SEA expedition without getting voted off the boat -- though there were discussions of heaving me overboard at times." Samples collected by the ship in 128 net tows included almost 48,000 pieces of plastic. Not very heartening, but, of course, correcting a problem starts with understanding its magnitude.