Posts
January 17, 2013
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6:36 PM | Jumping on the #1000words bandwagon...
Chris Rowan and Anne Jefferson at Highly Allochthonous, inspired by Randall Munroe (of xkcd fame) decided to try and explain their geoscience research using only the 1000 most common English words (find the list here). I think they both did fantastic jobs. Inspired by them, I give it a shot:I study the bodies of small, water-animals that lived in the past (~several hundred years ago) and use them as keys to understand how the water they grew in was like: was it hotter or colder back
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Want to know how to capture a Giant Squid on video? Some people use worms to attract fish. Others use intricately painted lures or feathery flies.To get the catch of a lifetime, marine biologist Edith Widder built a bioluminescent sphere that mimics the frenzied pinwheel display of a panicked jellyfish.Her soccer-ball-sized creation enticed a . . . → Read More: How to get video of the largest invertebrate
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4:06 PM | Serenity Sighting
Apparently Dr. Miriam and I are not the only people who like to merge I love of the oceans and Firefly. -Twitter / leeners81: Serenity sighting in WA!! ….
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Undoubtedly you’ve already seen the above video of deep-sea squids mid-coitus at 1400 meters (0.86 miles) deep in the Gulf of Mexico. The male and female Pholidoteuthis adami are unconcerned with the lights, cameras, and audience. However, you may not know what is actually going on here. Well you may have some idea. Well . . . → Read More: Penetrating the mysteries of sex in deep-sea squid
January 16, 2013
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Visualization Vednesdays highlights graphics and movies created by professional scientists and explains the science behind the visual. I’ll be focusing on physical oceanography cause they be my peeps, but if you know of another great ocean visualization please send it my way. But, there are some rules. These videos have to be made by the . . . → Read More: Visualization Vednesdays: Where has all the sea ice gone?
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1:02 AM | Generation Anthropocene
Generation Anthropocene (or GenAnthro) is a new podcast that a good friend of mine, Michael Osborne, started along with a bunch of other Stanford students about a year ago. I've been meaning to write a post on their fantastic podcast, but alas, time and laziness took their toll. In any case, I've never particularly been 'into' podcasts (though I've been an avid listener of the radio) - especially for science communication and journalism. GenAnthro is a near-perfect amalgamation
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I’ve been meaning to post this for a few weeks but kept getting distracted with job hunting and government study payment interviews and all that exciting stuff. The BBC reported that a colony of about 100 million flame shells have been discovered off the west coast of Scotland near Skye, as part of a survey of [...]
January 15, 2013
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9:58 PM | FIU to take over Aquarius ReefBase
News today that apparently Florida International University in Miami has received a grant to operate the NOAA undersea research laboratory known as Aquarius ReefBase, which was operated by UNC Wilmington until government funding for undersea research was largely zeroed out in 2012 (more about that from Craig and I here). More details about the FIU . . . → Read More: FIU to take over Aquarius ReefBase
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9:40 PM | Drink beer for Sandy relief
At the end of the F line in Coney Island, Brooklyn stand three of the city’s more venerable institutions: Nathan’s Hotdogs, the Cyclone roller coaster and the New York Aquarium, part of the Wildlife Conservation Society (once known as the NY Zoological Society). I like roller coasters and hotdogs (a little too much), but I . . . → Read More: Drink beer for Sandy relief
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2012 marked the 70th anniversary of a series of World War II battles in the Pacific Ocean and on its islands, which are collectively known as the “Pacific theatre.” While the battles are long over, thousands of wrecked boats and planes from many nations still rest on the seafloor. These wreck sites represent a twin legacy: one a memorial gravesite and historical marker, and the other a potential source of pollution from the wrecks into the sea.
We call the first “...
January 14, 2013
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I have been called by many names, including sea monster, kraken, calamari, and dinner. I am a giant squid (Architeuthis spp.). I am a highly intelligent cephalopod. My cousins include the octopus, cuttlefish, and chambered nautilus. Despite my ancestors washing up on shore or getting caught in fishing nets, we have managed to stay elusive [...]
January 11, 2013
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About a month ago, two researchers at the Institute for Geophysics (where I am based), John Goff and Jamie Austin, sent out an email asking for a graduate student participant to accompany them on a cruise off the coast of New York to investigate the impact of Hurricane Sandy using seafloor and sub-seafloor mapping. My friend Cassie took up the opportunity and the team left for the field earlier this week. Cassie is blogging about her field experience and I recommend it if you are
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10:30 AM | Looking back at blogs 1
Some of these might still be active, at least the author might be. Please let me know the new locations if I don't have one. If not, well, they still wrote some articles worth consideration.Trees for the ForestLooking at GHCN temperaturesRust Never SleepsOld Man in a CavemutantClimateRationally Thinking Out Loud (new location) http://rationallythinkingoutloud.wordpress.com/ -- old locationRespectful Insolence -- The blog certainly has continued, this is the link to the new feed […]
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12:58 AM | First Video Glimpse of the Giant Squid
Finally found, albiet brief, video of the giant squid. Spectacular! Although I will not that it is unlikely, despite what the reporter states, that Giant Squid’s obtain sizes of 50 feet. As I mention in this post that covers everything you wanted to know about the Giant Squid, the longest scientifically recorded length of . . . → Read More: First Video Glimpse of the Giant Squid
January 10, 2013
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11:06 AM | Bits from 2012
Some items that interested me in 2012 that I never made full posts from ...As you've no doubt heard, the 5th review from IPCC is in progress. I passed up yet another opportunity to be an expert reviewer.One method of getting science together is a special issue or theme issue of a scientific journal. One that crossed my desk and I thought might be interesting to blog readers are:Call for Papers – Climate Consensus: Steps Toward a Global Understanding of Climate And, of course, […]
January 09, 2013
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9:25 PM | 2012: A Review
The past year was quite eventful for me. Here are twelve photographs and associated trivia from the months of 2012:January In January, I returned to India after 1.5 years in the US and it was a treat to see my family and friends. Pictured here is my grandmother, who takes pride in that I study 'nature' for a job.February I was back in Austin around late January and was gearing up to get my Master's thesis on the statistics of individual foraminiferal analyses started while
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2:20 PM | Happy New Year 2013
Happy near year! I see that I have been away from here for quite a while, including past a spectacular (again) new minimum in Arctic sea ice extent this past September. Certainly lost me at least one of my bets with Alastair, maybe both. I'll be looking in to it and write up a full evaluation of the predictions I worked with.One of the reasons for the quiet here is that I've been working on articles for professional journals. 2 now out in Deep Sea Research, 1 to be […]
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As a physical oceanographer, I go to a lot of conferences, talks, seminars and lectures where a fellow scientist shows a visualization. And so many are FRICKIN’ AWESOME. I get all excited and gesture wildly. Everyone else in the audience gets all excited and gestures wildly. It’s a gesture wildly-fest that sparks great science discussions/debates . . . → Read More: Visualization Vednesdays: Modeling internal waves
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1:15 AM | Hostile Takeover For Nautilus Mineral
We have been following Nautilus Mineral for some time. As a quick recap, they are the company that is actively pursuing the mining of massive sulfide deposits, i.e. hydrothermal vent chimneys, from the seafloor particularly off of Papua New Guinea. Since July their stock has taken a huge plummet from over 2.5 Canadian dollars per . . . → Read More: Hostile Takeover For Nautilus Mineral
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1:05 AM | First Stills of the Giant Squid
As I mentioned before, Discovery Channel announced the capture of a live Architeuthis dux, aka the Giant Squid, on video. In the last couple of days, the first stills from the video were released. Above and below I have them both at the largest resolution I can find. I made a few predictions in . . . → Read More: First Stills of the Giant Squid
January 08, 2013
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8:46 PM | Overly honest (marine science) methods
Dr Leigh (@Dr_Leigh) started a genius Twitter hashtag (#OverlyHonestMethods), allowing scientists to come forward and admit how they might really write those extremely dull method sections if journals gave them complete freedom to be extremely blunt. Here are Words in mOcean’s … Continue reading →
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Follow @D_Aldridge Dinoflagellates are large single-celled motile phytoplankton that are extremely widespread and abundant in the ocean. They are astonishing little creatures that – depending on the species – can produce potent neurotoxins, feast on organisms many times larger than themselves … Continue reading →
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I have a vivid childhood memory of sitting under the Blue Whale model hanging in the Natural History Museum in London, eating an ice cream and wondering “How in the world did that whale get so big?” These days we are closer to knowing the answer. Over the past several years, a group of researchers have been studying how blue whales eat to better understand how such a big animal can survive on such small food.
Blue whales are in a family of whales that have evolved comb-like baleen and large
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January 07, 2013
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1:03 AM | Siesta Key Sea Turtle Hatchling
Sea turtle hatchling emerging from a nest on Siesta Key, Florida. More than 2,400 loggerhead sea turtle nests and seven rarer green sea turtle nests were documented by volunteers who monitor the 35 miles of local nesting beaches each day of nesting season, May 1-Oct. 31.
January 06, 2013
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If you haven’t seen this video, than you must! It is an amazing intersection of human adaptation with oceanic phenomena, in this case the Inuit of Kangiqsujuaq, Quebec and how they exploit the large tides to collect mussels under sea ice. I stumbled across it as a free download for a long plane ride. What . . . → Read More: Tides, Ice, and Mussels: The science behind the harvest
January 05, 2013
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Strong earthquake in coastal southern Alaska produced no damaging tsunami.
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12:58 AM | How does a coral reef grow?
Corals are tiny animals that make skeletons big enough to be seen from space. This short and simple video shows how an entire reef is built using the example of a coffee cup, juice cup and plumeria flower. Stanford University marine biologist Dr Steve Palumbi makes it easy to understand how important reefs are as ecosystems [...]
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Genomics, Biodiversity, and Antarctica – three of my favourite things! For all you expedition junkies, these three things are exactly the focus of the 2013 “Ivy Inverts” cruise. My Gulf oil spill collaborator at Auburn University, Ken Halanych (along with an international team of students and colleagues), is currently steaming towards Antarctica aboard the Research . . . → Read More: “Icy Inverts” 2013 Cruise – Scientific Adventures in Antarctic Waters
January 03, 2013
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I don’t know why this dying matriarch’s herd abandoned her, but it must have been for good reason. I knew she needed help standing up, and I wanted to help her with her last dying wishes. She had a swollen trunk, a broken tusk, and several abrasions on her body. I have a feeling that [...]
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12:01 PM | Science is never an option
Science is not an occupational hazard at MailChimp.Ever notice how Science is never an occupational option listed on surveys and forms? I have and I thought I'd start collecting some examples. Here's one from mailchimp.com.Anyone know how these categories are created? Maybe there is a federal agency that keeps a master list of acceptable occupational fields that these guys all crib from.
