#SciFund is a month-and-a-half long initiative to raise funds for a variety of scientific research projects. Project leaders post a project description and an appeal for funds, and members of the public are invited to make small donations to projects that they deem worthy. Donations come with rewards such as access to project logs, images from fieldwork, your name in the acknowledgements of publications, among other possibilities. Many of these projects are marine or conservation themed. Over the next week, we’ll highlight some of our favorites. Please take a look at these projects and, should you so desire, send some financial support their way. If you do make a donation, let them know how you found out about their project and leave a comment (anonymous if you’d like) on this post letting us know.
Doctor Zen is a biologist who studies brains and behavior using crustaceans. He is studying the invasive marbled crayfish, bizarre species of crayfish that are all female and reproduce asexually. There are no known wild populations, marbled crayfish are only known from the pet trade and invasive populations. Funding for this project will be used to collect slough crayfish, a closely related species, to be used to study the origins of asexual reproduction.
You can listen to a fascinating interview with Doctor Zen discussing some of his other research projects - Zen, Zombies, and, Ziplessness. Doctor Zen is also a veteran science blogger and writes at NeuroDojo, Marmorkrebs, and the incredibly valuable Better Posters blog. Head on over to Doctor Zen’s project page and take a look.
#SciFund is a month-and-a-half long initiative to raise funds for a variety of scientific research projects. Project leaders post a project description and an appeal for funds, and members of the public are invited to make small donations to projects that they deem worthy. Donations come with rewards such as access to project logs, images from fieldwork, your name in the acknowledgements of publications, among other possibilities. Many of these projects are marine or conservation themed. Over the next week, we’ll highlight some of our favorites. Please take a look at these projects and, should you so desire, send some financial support their way. If you do make a donation, let them know how you found out about their project and leave a comment (anonymous if you’d like) on this post letting us know.
This pilot study, led by an interdisciplinary team from the University of California and French Polynesia, will send a graduate student to the island of Moorea to interview stakeholders around the island in order to understand how residents understand and experience climate change. They will also produce a map of climate change “hotspots” areas that are exceptionally valuable and exceptionally vulnerable to climate change.
I like this project because it involves local researchers in French Polynesia, the support they’re asking for directly contributes to a graduate student’s thesis work, and they clearly have a vision for a much larger project that this will feed into. Go take a look at their project page and consider contributing to a worthy study.
#SciFund is a month-and-a-half long initiative to raise funds for a variety of scientific research projects. Project leaders post a project description and an appeal for funds, and members of the public are invited to make small donations to projects that they deem worthy. Donations come with rewards such as access to project logs, images from fieldwork, your name in the acknowledgements of publications, among other possibilities. Many of these projects are marine or conservation themed. Over the next week, we’ll highlight some of our favorites. Please take a look at these projects and, should you so desire, send some financial support their way. If you do make a donation, let them know how you found out about their project and leave a comment (anonymous if you’d like) on this post letting us know.
Dr. Robin Freeman is a post-doctoral researcher investigating the movement and behaviour of seabirds, including the Atlantic Puffin. Her project tracks the movement of migratory Atlantic puffins and she is interested in determining how stable puffin migratory tracks are over multiple years and what effect climate plays during their journeys. Funding for this project would be used to purchase and deploy tracking devices.
Last May, I attended the 2nd International Marine Conservation Congresss, an interdisciplinary conference that brought together scientists, NGOs, policymakers, and interested members of the general public. It was the largest professional meeting dedicated to saving the oceans in history, and it was an honor to be a part of it. In addition to seeing old friends and meeting some of my heroes, I took the opportunity to “live-Tweet” the talks I attended. Whenever a presenter made an important point, I summarized it in a Tweet, and, whenever possible, I included relevant hashtags (#Shark, #bycatch) and links to more information (either a website or published paper affiliated with the presenter, or one from a 3rd party working in the same field).
This weekend I assembled a small team of marine and environmental scientists, including a molecular ecologist, a human geographer with experience in environmental justice, a political ecologist with experience in common-pool resource theory, and a veteran of the US Commission on Ocean Policy with extensive experience in marine spatial planning, to test out the new expansion for Settlers of Catan, Catan: Oilsprings. Settlers of Catan is a popular and expansive board game that focuses on resource management, development, and trading. Oilsprings is designed to add an element of “Tragedy of the Commons” to the game by introducing a new resource, oil, which allows rapid development, but at a cost that affects all players.
My lab, the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami, will be hosting a series of Twitter teach-ins on marine biology and conservation topics. Each teach-in will cover a topic in a series of Tweets, including links to photos and videos, as well as NGO reports, blog posts, and scientific papers which people can read to find more information. I will RT important points from my Twitter account (@WhySharksMatter), but the teach-in itself will take place from the RJ Dunlap program’s Twitter account (@RJ_Dunlap) and include hashtag #RJDTeachIn.
I encourage anyone interested in participating in the teach-in to follow (and encourage your friends, colleagues, and Twitter followers to follow) @RJ_Dunlap. I also encourage people to RT important points for their own followers.
Each teach-in will take approximately 20-30 minutes. Following each teach-in, there will be an opportunity for anyone to ask us questions. We will answer any question that people ask us.
The topic of the first RJD teach-in, which will take place Monday at 1:00 EST, will be overfishing. Future topics will include invasive species,bycatch, seafood sustanability, marine protected areas, shark biology and conservation, sea turtle biology and conservation, ecotourism, and more- stay tuned! Additionally, if you have a topic you’d like to hear more about, let us know in the comments section of this post and we may host a teach-in about it.
The mission of the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program is to “advance STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) literacy and marine conservation by combining cutting edge research and outreach activities”, and we hope that these Twitter teach-ins will help us to advance that mission. I hope that you’ll follow along with the first teach-in Monday at 1 EST, and I hope that you’ll encourage your followers to do the same.
The bliggityblogsphere has been abuzz with recent finding by the Berkeley Earth Project that independently confirm that global climate change is real. From the BBC:
The Earth’s surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the “Climategate” affair has concluded.
The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa.
If you haven’t seen the excellent post on Mountain Beltway - Words matter – you should head over there and take a look. The post brought up some interesting ideas about word choice, and how the common definition of a word may convey a different meaning than the scientific definition. For science communicators, this may lead to confusion and misunderstanding between you and your audience.
I presented this table to my Science and Nature Writing class this morning and asked my students to come up with other terms that may also have multiple, opposing meanings. This impressive list is what they produced:
There are obviously hundreds, if not thousands of other terms that could fit this list. So, in the spirit of collaboration and crowdsourcing, I’ve created a public Google Docs spreadsheet as a repository of confusing scientific terms. Feel free to add as you see fit, but do not delete anything. Feel free to add additional “Better Choices”. Please stick to words that clearly have multiple meanings, and not just difficult scientific concepts.
ScienceLIVE will be featured noted marine biologists Dr. John Bruno and Dr. Mark Eakin who will be discussing the state and future of coral reefs. From the website:
Coral reefs from Australia to the Gulf of Mexico are some of the planet’s most vibrant ecosystems. They’re also among the most threatened habitats in oceans today. Over recent decades, a strong community of researchers and concerned citizens alike has dedicated themselves to investigating the dangers facing reefs and to developing solutions for their ongoing survival. From rising ocean temperatures to overfishing, what are the biggest dangers facing coral reefs today? What can scientists and the public do to protect these rich habitats? And how can we restore lost diversity to reefs around the world?
Sea level rise. Desertification. Ocean acidification. Climategate. Permafrost. Greenland ice sheet. Hockey stick. The language of global climate change can be overwhelming. Every year, as we learn more about the ways that human activity fundamentally alter global processes, the subject becomes even broader and more complicated. Fortunately, world renowned oceanographer Orrin Pilkey and his son, Keith Pilkey, have produced a comprehensive and readable primer on global climate change. The strength of Global Climate Change: A Primer can be broken into three sections – the content, the conflict, and the illustrations.
Andrew is a post-doctoral researcher in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
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