A first: scientists combine satellites, sophisticated imaging, and airborne searches to site ocean debris that can harm marine life. "Much of the floating junk comes from industrial fishing, logging, and dumping," Anahad O'Connor reports. The joint effort by NASA and NOAA "really helped us narrow down our search so we didn't have to scan the entire Pacific," O'Connor reports lead scientist James Churnside as saying. One particularly nettlesome waste material, abandoned fishing nets, synthetic and often translucent, hard for animals to see, and slow to decay. "When they drift for miles or months, they catch sea birds, turtles, seals, and endangered animals," EPA's Javier Velez-Arocho says. The nets are especially dangerous, to people and marine life, when they become entangled with coral reefs. Divers need to cut them free and load them onto inflatable boats, a difficult and risky chore. "The outer islands of Hawaii act as a comb, picking up a lot of debris," says an official of the Alaska-based company that manages the project. "It wreaks havoc on the coral reefs. Basically, it kills them." (See http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/14/science/space/14DEBR.html?)