The hunt for Soviet submarines, a 5-foot-long shipworm, the impossibilities of deep-sea mining, and more! Massive Monday Morning Salvage: March 5, 2018.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

• Subscribe to the Chesapeake Bay Journal (it’s free)! The venerable grey lady of the Bay survived the EPA’s attempt to defund them. Consider sending a few dollars to the journal, too. If you’re filing MD taxes this year, you can earmark some of you return to Chesapeake Bay programs.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• The secret on the ocean floor: the wild, weird origin of the modern deep-sea mining industry, complete with spies, Soviet submarines, and Howard Hughes. How much is real? How much is emergent from this first fake venture? If you only read one thing about deep-sea mining, read this.

We really misled a lot of people and it’s surprising that the story held together for so long”

source.

• As biodiversity declines, so does public attention. We need to push back against this trend.
• After Centuries of Searching, Scientists Finally Find the Mysterious Giant Shipworm Alive!

Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)

• This week in Deep-sea mining:
  • Can India mine deep-sea resources without disturbing the Indian Ocean seabed ecosystem?
  • Papua New Guinea’s losses from Solwara 1 currently over 350 million kina.
  • Environmental safeguards being ignored for deep sea mining.
  • Nautilus Minerals says it doesn’t know very much at all.
• Reminder, all these pushes for more and more resources are driven by our love affair with disposable technology. To Keep Making Phones, Apple and Samsung Must Grapple With the World’s Dirtiest Industry.
• This week in ocean plastics: Seals, Large Percentage of Deep-Sea Fish Contaminated by Microplastics.
• Baby Dumbo Octopus Alert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ_x_DFqTGM

• This week in ocean robots:
  • How lasers and robo-feeders are transforming fish farming.
  • Whale of a Journey: Robot Searches for Elusive Humpbacks on High Seas.

• Chief Mate Goes Missing from Anchored Bulk Carrier in Puget Sound.
• SeaWorld losses widen for the year as CEO Manby departs.
• Devil in the Data: Study Uncovers Sharp Decline in Global Fish Catches.
• Why don’t you see people-sized salmon anymore?

• Things thaw apart:
  • New Maps Show Us Where Antarctica Is Shrinking Fastest.
  • How warming weather will open the mercury bank in Alaska.
  • Bering Sea Ice Is Disappearing When it Should Still Be Growing.
• Famously Skinny Corinth Canal Shut Due to Rockfall.

• This week in decolonizing science:
  • It’s Time for Scientists to Learn From the Communities They Study.
  • When Scientists “Discover” What Indigenous People Have Known For Centuries.
• New fish found in deep-sea haul from ‘frontier’ voyage to Australia’s eastern abyss.
• The Ocean’s ‘Twilight Zone’ Faces Fishing Threat.

• A staggering number of golf balls wind up in the ocean. What happens to them?
• Future for Right Whales Grows Even More Bleak.
• Petri’s dish vs. Winogradsky’s column – shifting boundaries between purity and mixture of microbes.
• Ticks got ticks to bite ’em, ad infinitum. Tick Bites Tick: A Rare Case of Hard-Tick Hyperparasitism.

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

• Niner and friends (2018) Deep-Sea Mining With No Net Loss of Biodiversity—An Impossible Aim. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00053.
• Bober and friends (2018) Does the Mid-Atlantic Ridge affect the distribution of abyssal benthic crustaceans across the Atlantic Ocean? DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2018.02.007.
• Du Preez and Fisher (2018) Long-Term Stability of Back-Arc Basin Hydrothermal Vents. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00054.
• Mullineaux and friends (2018) Exploring the Ecology of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents in a Metacommunity Framework. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00049.
• Shea and friends (2018) Dumbo octopod hatchling provides insight into early cirrate life cycle. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.032 .
• Martínez-Laiz and friends (2018) Marine exotic isopods from the Iberian Peninsula and nearby waters. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4408.
• Wieczorek and friends (2018) Frequency of Microplastics in Mesopelagic Fishes from the Northwest Atlantic. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00039.

Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)

• Fantastic article from Ayana Johnson: The Shuri Effect: A Generation of Black Scientists?
• These stories have been winding through the skeptic communities for years, but Krauss and his goonies have been suing people into silence. He Became A Celebrity For Putting Science Before God. Now Lawrence Krauss Faces Allegations Of Sexual Misconduct.
• Science Moms: navigating work and life.
• Here’s How The Scientists Running for Office Are Doing.
• Answers on grant proposals if nonprofits were brutally honest with funders.

Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)

Some ocean classics from Arthur C. Clarke in honor of awesome, real, deep sea spy stories:

• One of my favorites: The Ghost from the Grand Banks.
• Whale herding in the future: The Deep Range.
• And this looks like a really nice little anthology of some of Clarke’s lesser-known works about humanity, nature, and technology: Selected Works of Arthur C. Clarke: The Deep Range, The Trigger, The Ghost from the Grand Banks, Richter 10.

Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)

• 5 fantastic nautical science fiction novels.
• On spending a month publishing science fiction from our Ocean Future.
• How I talk about science in fiction.

Feel free to share your own Foghorns, Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Shipping News, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. If you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to our Patreon campaign. For just $5 per month, you can support the SFS Writers Fund, which helps compensate your favorite ocean science and conservation bloggers for their efforts.