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Hagfish, chill Puffins, swamp monsters, the mining boat floats, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 2, 2018

Posted on April 2, 2018March 31, 2018 By Andrew Thaler
Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

  • Want to help stem the tide of misinformation online and off? Do you have it all figured out and just need resources to implement your world-saving solution? The Rita Allen Foundation is looking for Solutions to Curb the Spread of Misinformation.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

  • Hagfish. Tough. Lovable. Slimy. But not too slimy. Hagfish Take Weeks to Recover from Sliming Someone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmaal7Hf0WA

  • Kevin D’Angelo integrated the OpenCTD with a new protocol for detecting salinity using the gold pins of a microUSB controller and I am blown away! Outstanding work.
  • This is a puffin wearing sunglasses for science.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

  • Installed as a beacon of hope for a hurricane-racked island, the statue had to be moved multiple times due to the eroding coast: Our Lady of the Sea by Russel Arnott.
  • Russell also created these outstanding posters to warn us away from Louisiana’s famed and fearsome swamp ghosts:
Beware the Feu Follet, by Russell Arnott

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

  • This week in Deep-sea mining (and boy was it a big week!)
    • The boat floats and we’ve just crossed the last hurdle. It’s coming for Solwara 1: First Deep Sea Mining Production Vessel Launched in China.
    • Cook Islands one step closer to mining sea floor (original source, which was down at time of posting).
    • Deep sea mining decisions: Approaching the point of no return.
    • World’s First Deepsea Mining Support Vessel Launched.
  • Yet another response to that New York Times editorial: To Save the World’s Coral Reefs, Bigger – and Smaller – Are Better.
  • This week in Whales:
    • So, You Want to Live in the Water? A Tale of Why Aquatic Mammals are So Big.
    • It turns out A Deeper Sea is more accurate than we thought: The Great Dolphin-Human War Is Inching Closer.
    • Everything Is Going Wrong for North Atlantic Right Whales This Year.
Photo: AP
  • This Badass Woman Explores the Deep Sea to Help Us Save It.
  • By imagining ships as migratory animals, scientists have a new way of thinking about how invasive species get around: The Migration of the Supertankers.
  • Fish Crossing Genetic Borders as Oceans Warm.
An American lobster hides among the kelp in the Eastern Shore archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. Nick Hawkins
  • These are a few of my favorite things: Here’s What Protects Shipwrecks From Looters and Hacks.

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

  • Carminati and friends (2017) Conduino: Affordable and high-resolution multichannel water conductivity sensor using micro USB connectors. DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2017.05.184.
  • Bonsell and Dunton (2018) Long-term patterns of benthic irradiance and kelp production in the central Beaufort sea reveal implications of warming for Arctic inner shelves. DOI: 10.1016/j.pocean.2018.02.016.
    • It’s Christina’s first published thesis chapter! Go congratulate her!
  • Gearty and friends (2018) Energetic tradeoffs control the size distribution of aquatic mammals. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712629115.
  • Hartwell and friends (2018) Clusters of deep-sea egg-brooding octopods associated with warm fluid discharge: an ill-fated fragment of a larger, discrete population? DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr.2018.03.011.
  • Hui and friends (2018) Adaptation to the deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps: insights from the transcriptomes of Alvinocaris longirostris in both environments. DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr.2018.03.014.
  • Loss and Marra (2018) Merchants of doubt in the free‐ranging cat conflict. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13085.

Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)

  • The Special Challenges of Being Both a Scientist and a Mom.
  • There is Shit Going On but it’s not my story to tell.

Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)

  • I’m currently still working my way through both The Odyssey as translated by Emily Wilson and the sublimely weird A Deeper Sea by Alexander Jablokov. You really do need to read them both.

Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)

  • Sailing by Starlight: the lost art of celestial navigation.
  • Gliding on starlight: Celestial Navigation for Martian Explorers.

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.

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Related

Tags: arctic cats celestial navigation cold seeps cook islands coral deep-sea mining dolphin dolphin-human war Feu Follet genetics hacking hagfish hydrothermal vents kelp LUMCON mammals misinformation moms MPAs octopuses open source OpenCTD puffin right whales shipwrecks size vanuatu

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