LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: And if you want to get a bit closer to Florida's fish than the view of Mitchell Roffer gets from a satellite, soon you'll be able to scuba dive under the sea without leaving your living room. A survey of the coral reefs off the Florida Keys is being done using the same fish eye camera lenses that Google uses to capture street view images. Researches and scientists will use the images to measure the effects of climate change, pollution and fishing on the reefs. This is the first time this has been done in the U.S. But the Caitlin Seaview Survey has already recorded 400,000 images off the coasts of Australia and around the Caribbean. The project is funded by the insurance company Catlin Group, which hopes the data will help them understand how insurance risks could be managed in the future. How exactly that works, we're not sure. But it's probably safe to say it won't bring down your car insurance rate. What it will mean, though, is that you can explore the deep sea from your computer when some of these images are made available on Google Maps.
A scientific survey of coral reefs off the Florida keys is being done using the same fish-eye camera lenses that Google uses to capture street views. Scientists will use the images for research.