Posts

April 09, 2013

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FLIP is towed to its operating area in the horizontal position and through ballast changes is “flipped” to the vertical position to become a stable spar buoy with a draft of 300 feet. Photo from MPL. FLIP, the Floating Instrument Platform, is towed to an area in a horizontal position and through changing the ballast . . . → Read More: Flip Ship Photoshop Battle

April 08, 2013

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1:36 PM | A murder of crows and a stipple of whale sharks?

(A Crow Left of the Murder is a particularly excellent Incubus album, btw) One of the recent papers out of my group describes an unprecedented aggregation of whale sharks in Yucatan Mexico. Prompted in large part by a Twitter exchange with @Sharksneedlove, I have decided that “aggregation”, while utilitarian and certainly descriptive, is about as . . . → Read More: A murder of crows and a stipple of whale sharks?

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5:32 AM | Zombie bees and killer shrimp

Reblogged from Biodiversity Revolution: Those who know me know that I watch a lot of Asian films: some very high quality ones, and some very cheap ones, the latter often featuring zombies and killer seafood. It turns out, though, that truth is again stranger than fiction. Let's start with the zombies - or should I [...]

April 06, 2013

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11:45 AM | Observing the Cryosphere from the Troposphere: NASA’s P-3B Airborne Laboratory

Some people might think I am crazy for waking up at 4:45 AM on a Sunday morning to tour a plane, but you would too if you got a chance to tour NASA’s supercool P-3B’s Airborne Laboratory. And I mean that literally with the bad pun intended. As part of Operation IceBridge, this plane is . . . → Read More: Observing the Cryosphere from the Troposphere: NASA’s P-3B Airborne Laboratory

April 05, 2013

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1:00 AM | Endemic Genomes? Reason #1 to sequence the Deep Sea

Something to think about: the recent Gibbons et al. (2013) PNAS paper found that *one* site in the English Channel showed a 31.7-66.2% overlap in microbial communities when compared to any one of 356 datasets collected as part of the International Census of Marine Microbes (ICoMM). That’s a ridiculous overlap! As the paper title suggests, . . . → Read More: Endemic Genomes? Reason #1 to sequence the Deep Sea

April 04, 2013

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2:54 AM | Interview time with the office-mate

Just kidding… I know what Dax does! And I will show you in the next science + comics interview. Geophysics, yes!!

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1:51 AM | Dory announces Finding Dory, the Finding Nemo sequel!

Hi, Dory here. I am proud to announce that I’m starring in the sequel to Finding Nemo called Finding Dory! It will be released November 25, 2015 so get in line now…just kidding. At least I think that’s what it’s called. I still suffer from short-term memory loss, you know. Finding Dory takes place one [...]

April 03, 2013

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7:06 PM | Load Noise Makes Crabs Even More Crabby

Growing up in Arkansas, in the epicenter of Tornado Alley, a sound has coded on my psyche. When I hear this sound my breathing accelerates, adrenaline levels rise, and a tightness emerges in my gut. The sound of the sacred tornado siren (above), a cultural icon in the South and Midwest, will elicit a . . . → Read More: Load Noise Makes Crabs Even More Crabby

April 02, 2013

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8:15 PM | When the wall comes tumbling down: Elwha River sediment transport

If you live in western Washington, you are probably aware that the biggest dam removal ever done in the US is happening right in our back yard. Nearly one hundred years ago, developers on the Olympic Peninsula wanted to harness the hydroelectric power of the Elwha River. They built two dams: the Elwha Dam, eight [...]

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5:02 AM | NOW That’s What I Call Music! DSN Edition

Put your tentacles up and raise the sea level. It’s finally here! Compiling the Ocean’s Saltiest Hits, NOW That’s What I Call Music! DSN EDITION brings you 15 chart topping ocean science mash-ups. From School House Rock to LMFAO, salt marshes to coral reefs, these biologists drop their science with a whole sea full . . . → Read More: NOW That’s What I Call Music! DSN Edition

April 01, 2013

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5:26 PM | @protectoceans Top Tweets for March 25-31, 2013

1. Apps for nature (and especially fish) lovers via @fishconserve 2. Researchers unveil large robotic jellyfish that one day could patrol oceans via @sciencecodex 3. Crittercam dives into bizarre life of elusive jumbo squid via @msnbc_science @LiveScience 4. Blue Hope-An Ocean Book for the World by Sylvia Earle-Kickstarter via @SylviaEarle @kickstarter 5. Ocean plastics impact [...]

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1:34 PM | Climate Change and Hurricanes, Good for Squid?

Several news agencies are reporting today about an interesting phenomenon occurring in the Mississippi River. The Memphis Flyer reports… In the last several years hurricanes have ravaged the Gulf coast causing millions of dollars of damage to property and the loss of numerous lives. More powerful hurricanes also destroyed millions of acres of marshes…Climate change . . . → Read More: Climate Change and Hurricanes, Good for Squid?

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9:30 AM | When was climate normal?

It's been a couple years since I took up the question of normal climate, so time for another go. At that time, I used monthly data from Hadley, and arrived at the observation that if you're younger than 26, you've never seen a month where the global average as as cold as the 1850-2011 average, 317 consecutive months (at that point, now over 330) of warmer than 'normal' temperatures. I'll cheat and give you some answers first, read on to see how they're established:Climate was […]

March 30, 2013

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12:00 PM | Announcing the DSN Pinterest empire!

Be worried – us marine scientists are officially taking over the internet. I’m super excited to announce the launch of Deep Sea News on Pinterest. We’re still working out the kinks…and trust us, these new things can get pretty kinky (#TWSS). Bear with us as we build up our visual smorgasbord, and be sure to . . . → Read More: Announcing the DSN Pinterest empire!

March 29, 2013

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5:03 PM | SNAIL!

Sure this is a terrestrial snail and this is a marine blog. But c’mon I’m a malacologist and snails and dubstep are a natural pairing

March 28, 2013

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6:45 PM | I’m a grazer baby.

I was just thinking to myself the other day on how we needed more songs about the finer things in life like seagrass and amphipods. How did the scientific masterminds of the Zostera Marine Network (ZEN) know?!? Or maybe this is just what happens when you’ve been in the lab sorting epifauna samples too long. . . . → Read More: I’m a grazer baby.

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3:25 AM | Hormesis: Why drinking in moderation might actually improve your game

Even though my first love will always be chemical ecology, I often find myself dabbling in the exotic realm of ecotoxicology. It’s kind of dangerous and sometimes sexy and I think that’s why I am drawn to it. Paracelsus is his name. Toxicology is his game.Source: WikimediaCommons For the most part, experiments in ecotox are . . . → Read More: Hormesis: Why drinking in moderation might actually improve your game

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1:24 AM | Is Marianas Trench A Lifeless Void?

When he made his historic solo dive into the Mariana Trench last month, James Cameron brought back images and descriptions of a “lunar like” marine landscape nearly devoid of life.-via National Geographic Returning from humankind’s first solo dive to the deepest spot in the ocean, filmmaker James Cameron said he saw no obvious signs of . . . → Read More: Is Marianas Trench A Lifeless Void?

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12:29 AM | Dolphin Woo

Thanks to Cara Santa Maria for bringing this to my attention Can’t stop laughing

March 27, 2013

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5:52 AM | This ice crack is whack.

Kids, we all know that crack is bad for your body. And when it comes to sea ice, the same policy applies. Too much crack is whack. Starting in mid-February a bunch of giant cracks in sea ice, or leads, began forming in the Beaufort Sea. Now a couple of leads are not unusual, but . . . → Read More: This ice crack is whack.

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4:00 AM | A Bite of Bitter Crab

Hopefully you've never bitten into a delicious hunk of snow crab meat and instantly spit it out because instead of crab you tasted... aspirin?! If you have, it might have been crab meat infected with a species of Hematodinium, a parasitic dinoflagellate that is the cause of Bitter Crab Disease in cold-water crab species. This parasite lowers the “...

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12:01 AM | Holy F’n 2-Headed Shark Batman!

Well I just found new fodder for my nightmares. The two-headed fetus was removed from a pregnant female captured in the Gulf of Mexico near Key West, Florida, U.S.A. by a commercial fishing vessel (F/V Island Girl) on 7 April 2011. According to the authors of the recent study describing this anomaly Each . . . → Read More: Holy F’n 2-Headed Shark Batman!

March 26, 2013

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11:51 PM | ScienceOnlineOceans

Will Smith – Miami by GuenZouMark it on you calendars October 11-13th IT WILL BE OWN in Miami. Interested in the intersection of the ocean ecosystem and the digital online landscape? Then you need to attend!! A great team is assembled to pull this bad boy off including David Shiffman, aka Mr. Shark. This . . . → Read More: ScienceOnlineOceans

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11:48 PM | The Ocean Cleanup. The newest of the new plans to remove marine plastic.

I’m just going to come out and say it, any project that touts itself as the “World’s first realistic Ocean Clean-up Concept” is just asking to be torn apart. “The Ocean Cleanup” is the brainchild of a 19-year old Boyon Slat. He proposes using the oceans themselves to clean up plastic. By setting up a . . . → Read More: The Ocean Cleanup. The newest of the new plans to remove marine plastic.

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11:26 PM | Ways for marine scientists to save money and beat the budget sequester

David Aldridge is a phytoplankton-loving marine biology PhD student at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK. Also the founder and editor of Words in mOcean, a website dedicated to publishing blog posts and features on marine science. We’ve asked David to guest post for us here at DSN. Enjoy! So, Republicans and Democrats entered . . . → Read More: Ways for marine scientists to save money and beat the budget sequester

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3:08 PM | @protectoceans Top 5 Tweets for March 18-24, 2013

1. Palau’s president has proposed to create one of the world’s largest marine reserves, roughly the size of France 2. Leatherback sea turtle nest numbers down via @SFGate 3. Bringing back the dead: A Stanford professor discusses the science and ethics of resurrecting extinct species (VIDEO) via @nytimes 4. The Earth’s Largest Ecosystem in Your [...]

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3:00 PM | Diatom survival: It’s in their genes

Please welcome Sara Bender to the Science+comics interview series! This week we’re taking a peek into the world of diatoms, and how they take up nutrients. Check it out! Diatoms are tiny, single celled organisms that live near the surface of the ocean. They are a type of phytoplankton, which are small, drifting organisms that [...]

March 25, 2013

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3:08 PM | Guest post: Beach Chair Scientist

Ann blogs at Beach Chair Scientist. Ann has defined what it means to be a 21st century armchair scientist. She finds creating opportunities that make marine science accessible to the general public (those without science degrees or in the science field day-to-day) to be a very rewarding experience. The following pictures are 5 Favorite Finds [...]

March 23, 2013

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5:29 PM | DSN community, I need your help

I’m going to shameless co-opt the DSN soapbox for selfish research purposes for a moment. Do you know anyone who lives near Seadrift TX, east of Corpus Christi/West of Houston? I have a satellite tag that came ashore in Espiritu Santo Bay, inside Matagorda Is. and I’d love to get it back. It was on . . . → Read More: DSN community, I need your help

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4:05 PM | Don’t try to learn marine taxonomy from SpongeBob SquarePants

At some point someone had sent me this video as a joke – according the SpongeBob SquarePants, this is what nematodes do in the deep sea: Video embedding was disabled by YouTube, so click here to watch the video. (And if you’re really lazy, here is a screenshot): Nematodes according to SpongeBob – AVERT YOUR . . . → Read More: Don’t try to learn marine taxonomy from SpongeBob SquarePants