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.

Blogging with integrity

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 4 Comments on Blogging with integrity
Uncategorized

I’m coming out of my self-imposed July Blog-cation to comment of the events that have transpired over the last two days. If you haven’t been keeping up, Orac at Respectful Insolence has the full story. Long story short – Science Blogs released a new blog, Frontiers in Food, sponsored by PepsiCo and written by PepsiCo employees. They did so without consulting with, or even informing their bloggers ahead of time. The Science Blogger community is largely outraged, and several notable bloggers have quit the network, citing their credibility being compromised.

Read More “Blogging with integrity” »

Bonehenge – Community action in science outreach

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.

spermwhalelyd501-135

If a 33.5 foot Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus) stranded on your beach, what would you do with it? Leave it to rot? Drag it out to sea? Blow it up? Keith Rittmaster of the North Carolina Maritime Museum decided to do one better.

This blog has never been known for heaping praise on marine mammals, but these creatures are the exception. Sperm whales are extremely strange animals. There are some fantastic online resources available that do a great job covering basic sperm whale biology, so I’d like to skip the intro and talk about some sperm whale features I find fascinating.

Read More “Bonehenge – Community action in science outreach” »

Welcome to the Fry-Off! Please take a moment to introduce yourselves!

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 19 Comments on Welcome to the Fry-Off! Please take a moment to introduce yourselves!
Uncategorized

So y’all know quite a bit about us, but we don’t know much about you. This thread is your chance to sit down and introduce yourselves to the rest of the Fry-Off. Last year we did a series of posts laying out our individual conservation philosophies: Southern Fried Scientist – The Data Speak, Bluegrass Blue … Read More “Welcome to the Fry-Off! Please take a moment to introduce yourselves!” »

Whale Quotas and Sea Shepherd

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 37 Comments on Whale Quotas and Sea Shepherd
Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

We sparked a good debate over the effectiveness of direct action conservation movements over at the post “Is Sea Shepherd really saving whales?” One of the most difficult questions raised was if Sea Shepherd wasn’t there, would the Japanese make their full quota? The data presented in that post was inconclusive, because the quota increase corresponded to the beginning of SSCS’s Southern Ocean campaign, so we have no time period in which the Japanese quota was increased while Sea Shepherd was absent.

Read More “Whale Quotas and Sea Shepherd” »

Top post for the month of June

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Uncategorized

How to build a canoe from scratch on a graduate student stipend Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Is Sea Shepherd really saving whales? Sea Shepherd and Whale Wars Check out “Expedition Great White” on the National Geographic Channel! Ethical Debate: Killing sharks for science? New Nicorette commercial perpetuates anti-shark stereotypes 10 … Read More “Top post for the month of June” »

Ghosts in the Molecular Machine

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 5 Comments on Ghosts in the Molecular Machine
Conservation, Science

ResearchBlogging.org

The extent of migration among populations drives population structure. With enough migration, populations become homogeneous and behave as a single larger population. As migration rates decrease, populations drift apart and become differentiated. By measuring the amount of differentiation, we can determine the extent of migration between them. But what happens when there are unsampled populations also exchanging migrants?

Read More “Ghosts in the Molecular Machine” »