One very accurate depiction of Rimicaris hybisae.
Andrew is a post-doctoral researcher in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
David is a graduate student in Florida. He studies the ecology and conservation of sharks. 
Amy is a graduate student in North Carolina studying local ecological knowledge within small scale fisheries. 
Chuck is a graduate student in North Carolina focusing on apex predators and how they interact with fisheries. 
Lyndell is a graduate student in North Carolina, studying the feeding ecology of cownose rays. 
Iris is a graduate student in Washington studying habitat use and feeding habits of juvenile Pacific salmon and herring in Puget Sound. 
Michael is a graduate student in Maryland investigating the visual systems of mantis shrimp. |
One of the great traditions among deep-sea scientists is the shrinking of polystyrene cups by sending them down to our research sites. Polystyrene (or Styrofoam) is mostly empty space. When sent to the bottom of the sea, the massive pressure (an additional atmosphere for every 10 meters depths) squeezes the air out of these empty spaces reducing the cups–or, in some more dramatic examples, mannequin heads and prop skulls a la Hamlet–to a fraction of their former size. With a little bit of creative doodling during down time, we end up with a nice illustration of this physical phenomenon that is undoubtedly an insufficient gift for our loved ones, of whom we’ve abandoned to spend 30+ days mucking about on a boat*. Fortunately, on my last expedition, I had the wherewithal to get before and after photographs of each cup the went over the side. So, for your enjoyment, for the next few weeks I’ll be posting some of my favorite shrunken cups. Enjoy!  Welcome to the Cayman Abyss! *Though, it could be worse. Rumor has it one group of researchers was so confident in their ability to deploy and recover remote deep-sea landers, that they all affixed their wedding rings to the deepest rig before sending it over. Fortunately, it returned, rings unscathed.
In a world where PhD students begin bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but often graduate unemployed, I’ve come to reflect upon this advice a bit more. I’ve had 5 years of support, essentially as an employee, and am now on my own to find my path in the world. But I didn’t saddle debt for my graduate education and could choose to parlay many of the skills learned (writing, teaching, project management) to any other career, should I choose. Compare this to other students, who saddle enormous debt for a master’s or doctorate expecting that this guarantees them a job able to pay off that debt. Thank goodness I listened over ziti that night. Continue reading Advice I Took For Granted For Grad School
 Eyeless shrimp, dancing anemones, and a garden of filamentous bacteria. I’m a pretty good writer, and I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful this is. Photo Credit: NERC Since I last updated the blog on our adventures exploring the Cayman Trough, we’ve had a steady stream media coverage, most of which has been excellent, some of which has been… strange. It’s been fascinating watching the articles come out, seeing what different media outlets consider the story, and, most important to me, getting a chance to share our adventure with a wide audience. Now that the #DeepestVents cruise is officially over (and we’re in transit to yet another, equally exciting bolt on cruise to investigate submerged lava flows off the island of Montserrat), I thought it would be a good opportunity to reflect on the cruise, the story, and how the media shaped it. Andrew is currently at sea exploring the world’s deepest hydrothermal vents aboard the RRS James Cook. You can follow along with the adventure at the cruise blog–Into the Cayman Abyss–and on twitter using the hashtag #DeepestVents. Below is a cross post of his first entry Confessions of a Benthic Mercenary – It’s all about connectivity.
The international and interconnected network of deep-sea scientists is how I now find myself, as an American, sailing aboard a British ship, in a role that could best be described as a Benthic Mercenary.  The R/V Cape Hatteras. Photo by Andrew David Thaler.
In a period where science funding for oceanographic research is at an all time low, the decommissioning of the Cape Hatteras represents a significant loss to America’s research capacity. The Hatteras is the only regional class research vessel on the eastern seaboard south of Delaware. She served a region ranging from the mid-Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico and as far east as Bermuda. She can handle equipment as simple as a box core or trawl or as sophisticated as the ROV Nereus. In my time at Duke, I participated in two cruises aboard the Hatteras. One is described in my most personal blog post: The Importance of Failure in Graduate Student Training. My co-blogger, Amy, dedicated an entire series to her adventures aboard the Cape Hatteras in the Sargasso Sea. The Hatteras is only one of several research vessels that have been decommissioned in recent years. She joins the R/V Seward-Johnson (and the Johnson Sea Links), the R/V Point Lobos, the R/V Zephyr, the Albatross IV, and numerous coastal and near-shore research vessels. While new, privately funded ships, like the R/V Falcor, have recently entered service, the loss of so many publicly funded vessels is a major blow to scientific research. The folks at Deep Sea News put out a call for an oceanic equivalent of NASA to meet the United States scientific needs. The Hatteras was more than just another research vessel, she was a home to many and a symbol of pride for Carteret County. It is estimated that she contributed more than $4 million a year to North Carolina’s economy. Beyond that, she was a friend. This morning, the Beaufort community came together to welcome the Hatteras back from her final voyage.
Often, new students think that any stipend is too good to be true. After all, someone is paying you to go to school! Because of this confusing situation, graduate students may be uncomfortable talking about their stipend or discussing financial issues with their peers and mentors. But that stipend is central to your success as a happy, healthy, successful graduate student for one very simple reason: Graduate school is a job, and you should expect to be paid for your work. Continue reading Surviving Grad School: What to expect from your stipend
Both the articles continue to perpetrate the canard that there is a deep chasm between the human-occupied submersible (HOV) and remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) communities. The reality is that deep-sea scientists use a variety of tools, from mechanical samplers to autonomous robots, to study and understand the deep. The choice comes down to which tool is most efficient, least expensive, and currently available. Absent a sea change, ROV’s will continue to be the workhorses of deep-sea research. And that is a good thing. I sang the praise of my robot underlings the last time this debate breached the public consciousness. I also discussed why basic deep-sea research and training highly skilled ROV pilots is a matter of national security.
Ah, graduate school. For approximately 5 years you will live awash in the intellectual stimulation that comes with the pursuit of knowledge. You will learn more than you ever have before. Now at the forefront of the human data engine, you are not just being taught, but pushing the limits of human understanding imperceptibly, but significantly, further. In the immortal words of my own Ph.D. advisor: “Andrew, get a life.” And that’s the problem. Because, while you’re doing all this discovering at the brink of discovery, you also have a life, and lives need to be maintained by a steady influx of cash, food, sleep, recreation, and numerous other non-thesis-related distractions. These “distractions” are actually essential to your well-being and contribute meaningfully to your productivity. But, while there are many guides to how to manage a dissertation, there are relatively few that discuss how to survive the graduate student lifestyle. I’m here to help. The arc of my graduate school career is pretty well documented in this blog. Suffice to say, it has been a bumpy ride, with plenty of highs and lows. So, for 2013, I’m launching “Surviving Grad School: A Practical Guide to an Impractical Lifestyle”, a series about the other half of a graduate student career. I’ll focus on some of the gorier details, including managing your finances, what to expect from a student contract, how to take care of yourself, and how to navigate towards that mysterious island known as the Work-Life Balance. Obviously my advice is based on my own experience and will not universally apply to all grad students. It is necessarily biased towards life science in the United States with a strong field component, and it is a male view of the world from a fairly privileged background. Still, I hope you’ll find something of value in these posts. First up on the docket is perhaps the most important and most difficult challenge facing graduate students — dealing with your finances. Check back this month for advice on what to expect from your stipend, managing your finances, building credit, dealing with travel and field expenses, and taking care of taxes.  Plastic consumables from a molecular lab. Photo by Andrew David Thaler. To complement my post earlier today on the need for best practice guidelines to minimize plastic waste in a conservation genetics lab, I asked my labmates to save all of their consumables from a day of molecular benchwork. The above picture (Sharpie for scale) is the result. All told, we produced about 1/2 kilogram of plastic (it’s hard to get a precise weight, since many of the tubes still contain liquid). With only 3 people working a the bench, this was a relatively light day. |
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