Author: Andrew Thaler

Marine science and conservation. Deep-sea ecology. Population genetics. Underwater robots. Open-source instrumentation. The deep sea is Earth's last great wilderness.

Alien Invaders: coral pathogens

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Science

The following is a repost from the old Southern Fried Science WordPress blog. The original can be found here.

It was a story that could very easily have been written as science fiction. Gorgonian (sea fan) corals of the Florida coast were turning black and dying. The infectious culprit was something no one working on the reefs had encountered before. It was totally alien. The black rot spread across the Caribbean, decimating coral populations. By the time the contagion had been deduced, more than 50% of total sea fan tissue had been eradicated in the Florida Keys. It was one of the worst coral epidemics in recent history.

The culprit was indeed an alien, though certainly not extra-terrestrial. In fact, it was very terrestrial. Aspergillus sydowii, a globally distributed saprophytic soil fungus was the nightmare creature. Aspergillus causes a variety of diseases in humans and birds, but had not previously been recognized as a marine pathogen.

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Check out the two newest blogs in our network

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on Check out the two newest blogs in our network
Uncategorized

Over the last week or so, we’ve been expanding the blogs covered under the .southernfriedscience domain. Check out our newest additions – Ya Like Dags, covering all things dogfish related, and Mammoth Tales, discussing the history and science of the noble mammoth. And don’t forget to visit our new mainpage, The Gam, where posts from … Read More “Check out the two newest blogs in our network” »

Heroes and Villains

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on Heroes and Villains
Popular Culture

The following is a repost from the old Southern Fried Science WordPress blog. The original can be found here.

I finally got the chance to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog last week. After watching and enjoying, I started thinking about something. We have our heroes, the stalwart defenders of whatever, mostly absolute in their righteousness; often torn by by their duties, their beliefs, their past; sometimes high and noble, sometimes darker and more base; but almost always connected in some primal way to our own sense of self. We love our hero’s because we see some of who we could be in them.

But then there are the villains. Sometimes twisted by a painful life, torn by lost loves, driven by revenge, and corrupted by power. Often they are deeper, more complex than the heroes; capable of great evil, but sometimes redemption. We hate them, fear them, sometimes empathize with their plight. They are what we could become, if we allow ourselves to fall from grace. Most of them have PhD’s.

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Visiting Bonehenge

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 2 Comments on Visiting Bonehenge
Science

The following is a repost from the old Southern Fried Science WordPress blog. The original can be found here.

Keith Rittmaster presenting spermaceti oil to my Southern Fried Students

I finally had the chance to visit the the legendary Bonehenge. For those of you who aren’t longtime followers of this blog, Bonehenge is Keith Rittmaster’s vision to rearticulate a Sperm Whale skeleton and put it on display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. We blogged about Bonehenge last year, and raised $200 for the project this summer.

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