Andrew Thaler

#JacquesWeek returns! Falling glaciers, fish that don’t eat plastic, sharks and the women who study them, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 16, 2018

July 16, 2018July 15, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Jacques Week is coming! Have no fear. Our annual answer to Shark Week’s ocean madness will be back for a forth season!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Saving the Vaquita was always about understanding human cultures and how social structures intersect with the ecosystem. Investigation reveals illegal trade cartels decimating vaquita porpoises.

Fishermen with an illegal haul of totoaba. Image courtesy of Elephant Action League.

Keep beating this drum until it sinks in: Plastic Straw Bans Leave Out People With Disabilities.
Climate change may be a boon for archaeology: Scorching Heat Wave Reveals Signs of Ancient Civilization in the UK.

Valuing the deep sea, send @mcmsharksxx to Antarctica, deep-sea mining takes a dive, explore Kiribati, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 9, 2018

July 9, 2018July 9, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Melissa Márquez is fundraising to participate in a women-in-science leadership retreat that culminates in a 2.5 week trip to Antarctica. Help her out! Or back her Patreon!
The scandal-plagued, utterly ineffective, Scott Pruitt is out, just days after an American patriot told him exactly how she felt about him in a restaurant. Good.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Investing in indigenous communities is most efficient way to protect forests, report finds. This should surprise no one but it often does.
Explore the deep waters around Kiribati with OpenExplorer!

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Virtual Reality Preserves Disappearing Land: Coastal communities are capturing their cultures and landscapes in virtual reality before sea level rise steals them for good.
Where Did the Oil Go In the Gulf of Mexico? a storymap.

Voyaging canoes, failed sea-steading sea states, breaching ocean plastic, deep-sea mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 2, 2018

July 2, 2018July 1, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

This year’s Jairo Mora Sandoval Award for Courage in Conservation goes to Patima Tungpuchayakul! Between August 2014 and October 2016, Patima helped rescue 3,000 trafficked fish workers stranded on remote islands in Indonesian waters by the Thai fishing industry from their slavery. Read more about Patima’s tireless work to liberate enslaved peoples in the fishing industry.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Atlas Obscura is on a roll this week with some seriously fabulous ocean coverage, including my new favs:

The Canoe That Changed Hawai‘i: How Hōkūleʻa and its amazing voyage across the Pacific helped kickstart a Hawaiian cultural renaissance.
Abalonia: The Island Nation That Never Was.

The wreck of the Jalisco. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Whale made from 5 tons of plastic waste breaches Bruges Canal.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Stitching Hope for the Coast – Christmas trees provide coastal optimism by the incredible Dr. Guertin.

A new disaster in Ocean Policy, follow the International Marine Conservation Congress at #IMCC5, shallow vents, deep mining, cotton candy lobsters, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 25, 2018

June 25, 2018June 24, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

We have a new National Ocean Policy and it is exactly as bad as you would expect. I’m at the International Marine Conservation Congress (the largest ocean conservation meeting in the world) and not a single ocean professional from anywhere on the political spectrum thinks this new Ocean Policy is a good idea.
Follow along with the International Marine Conservation Congress on Instagram, Oceansocial.us, and Twitter.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Smoking Ocean Vents Found in Surprisingly Shallow Water.

https://vimeo.com/276100766

How Does a German Chemical Company Have a Patent on Sperm Whales?

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

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Denies Insider Trading in Short Sale of Russia-Linked Shipping Company. And then: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Short Sale of Kremlin-Linked Shipping Firm Navigator Holdings Wins Ethics Approval. This seems fine and normal and on the level.

Shrinking Islands, shrieking dolphins, little hobbit shrimp, boat knives, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 18, 2018

June 18, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

We owe the next generation a better world than we’re giving them. Call your representatives. Demand they stop separating children from their parents at the border. The ACLU has a script to use.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Dispatch from Tangier, the Sinking Island in the Chesapeake.

A combination of storm-driven erosion and sea-level rise, which are both increasing as climate change advances, may soon swallow the island entirely.Photograph by Gordon Campbell / At Altitude Gallery

A normal call.

The call of a dolphin that would rather not get eaten.

The Levee (A featured project that emerged from Oceandotcomm)

Our Speak Up for the Blue rundown continues!

Things that go “POP!” in the deep: crushed cups, whole cans, and seafloor spam.

June 13, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Science

This week, two questions echoed through the hallowed halls of Deep-sea Science. It began, as things these days tend to begin, with a tweet. Dr. Diva Amon challenged deep-sea researchers to show off their shrunken cups from the bottom of the abyss. And we obliged, oh but did we oblige.

Concurrently, though unrelated, Angelo Villagomez announced out symposium on Human Impacts in the Deep Sea and shared several image of the garbage that finds its way to the ocean floor. Cans of cheap beer and pristine Spam littered the deepest reaches of the Mariana Trench, where they will lie forever as they are slowly buried in sediment.

And thus we found ourselves awash in to variations on the same theme: Why did that ocean thing get crushed? and Why didn’t that ocean thing get crushed?

Cinnamon-flavored hagfish, how to open a coconut, hunted by sperm whales, speaking up for the blue, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 11, 2018.

June 11, 2018June 10, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Great ocean outreach webinar: Bless your coast: communicating acidification with lessons learned in the Southeast. Tune in June 13th at 1 PM EDT!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Another entry into the “A Deeper Sea” keeps coming true file: Sperm whales are tracking fishing boats and stealing their fish.
I’m bummed to be missing Dinacon, but they’re putting out some awesome videos. Ever wonder how to crack open a coconut?

Join in on an oceanographic cruise already underway! Follow along with the Porcupine Abyssal Plain Observatory.
Introducing #OceanX and #Alucia2, a bold new initiative to explore the ocean and bring it back to the world! Yes please!

Hacking Extinction, fishing for hagfish, itchy crabs, clam cavalcades, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 4, 2018

June 4, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Hacking extinction. Conservation X Labs is looking for bold ideas for technological solutions to conservation challenges. Up to $90,000 in grant awards to bring your prototype to life! Applications open until June 30.
NOAA is looking for Science Communication specialists! Job call is open until June 7.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

These clams.

Project Azorian: The story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. Straight from the CIA to you, some details redacted. Still one of the wildest and weirdest ocean stories in the history of the United States.
The Alongside Wildlife Foundation has awarded its first set of grants! What a great group of people and projects.
This crab has an itch that it just can’t scratch.

Summer Science Outreach Challenge: Write an OpEd.

May 30, 2018 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Uncategorized

If you’ve been following along with our weekly round-up of ocean news, the Monday Morning Salvage (and, if not, why aren’t you reading the Monday Morning Salvage? It’s your one stop shop for the latest and greatest in ocean science and conservation news!) you probably noticed that we called for scientists and conservation professionals to write OpEds or Letters to the Editor this May. We heard from several folks that they submitted articles, though we haven’t heard back that any have been published yet (please leave a link in the comments if yours have). So, we’re extending the challenge and asking science and conservation professionals to take a stand for something you care about and submit a letter or article to your local paper.

**Simone Giertz** builds the best robots on the internet.

Why? A recent study with a large sample size, published this year, demonstrated that OpEds can play a significant in shaping people’s opinions about political and social issues. Though this CATO Institute funded study has a distinctively libertarian slant in the issues they chose to use as treatments, the results are reasonably compelling. Not only did OpEds influence how readers felt about an issue, but regardless of political group, exposure to an OpEd made the reader more likely to agree with the author’s position.

“We find limited evidence of treatment effect heterogeneity by party identification: Democrats, Republicans, and independents all appear to move in the predicted direction by similar magnitudes… Despite large differences in demographics and initial political beliefs, we find that op-eds were persuasive to both the mass public and elites, but marginally more persuasive among the mass public.”

source.

Two new writers, the net that never stops killing, how not to launch a boat, the Blackfish Effect, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 28, 2018

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Muster (updates from the blog)

Southern Fried Science has a fresh, new, mobile friendly look! Let us know what you think in the comments.
We welcomed two new writers in as many months! Please give a huge welcome to Angelo Villagomez and Rachel Pendergrass. Check out their first articles:
- The ‘Pluto Moment’ for Marine Protected Areas.
- Defining Your Audience (Or How To Plan The Worst Birthday Ever).
Spotted in the Chesapeake: We met a friendly Northern Water Snake swimming around the Bay this weekend. Northern Water Snakes are common and completely harmless. If you see one, just say “Hi” and let them be.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Yale study: Newspaper op-eds change minds and The Long-lasting Effects of Newspaper Op-Eds on Public Opinion. Scientists and conservationists, this summer, make an effort to publish a Letter to the Editor or OpEd in your local paper. If you’ve done so, please leave a link to it in the comments.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

A Single Discarded Fishing Net Can Keep Killing for Centuries.

“One old gill net found wedged between rocks off the coast of the San Juan Islands reportedly sat atop a pile of marine bird and mammal bones that was three feet deep.”

source.

This Woods Hole robot submarine found a 300-year-old Spanish galleon that may contain billions in treasure.

It’s been far, far too long since we had a really good boat launch fail. Don’t worry, the crane operator bailed out before the flip and is fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcZ8-MtcZrE