About 200 yards offshore of North Miami Beach, an underwater experiment is underway. An artificial reef called 'the Sea Hive' will test how a blend of manmade and natural defenses can help protect some of the nation's most valuable waterfront property against the battering waves of tropical storms.The Sea Hive is a stacked pyramid of 12-foot-long hexagonal concrete tubes submerged in about 30 feet of water.
as it is known, invests in national security technology and its work often has impacts well beyond the Pentagon—DARPA gave us the internet, among other things. Still, corals and marine barriers seem a bit far afield for the military.'It is kind of a strange funding source for this type of work,' Lirman said, but the coastal nature of several military installations makes climate-driven storms a national security issue.