Grist: That message in a bottle you tossed into the sea as a young rapscallion? Remember how you didn`t get a response? It`s because oceans aren`t the same thing as carrier pigeons. Instead of sending bottles bobbing merrily on their way across the Pacific, ocean currents tend to push bits of trash to convergence points in the ocean called garbage patches.
The video above shows a new data visualization from NASA illustrating the phenomenon. By mapping the paths of free-floating ocean buoys distributed...