Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
This piece originally appeared as a letter to the editor in our local paper, the Star Democrat. Walking through the Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery in the heart of St. Michaels, you might notice something that we don’t see very often: tiny tombstones. A daughter who lived two weeks before passing in 1901. A brother and … Read More “The Truth about Vaccines is Written in Stone” »
One day, 5 to 20 million years ago, a tongue-eating isopod parasitized some unknown Miocene fish, embedding itself in the fish’s mouth where wit would grow and consume scraps as its host feed. That partnership lasted until the fish, itself, became food, likely eaten by an ancestral sea turtle. And that’s where a million-year old … Read More “A tongue-eating isopod takes a 5-million+ year journey through fossilized feces” »
In an Executive Action entitled Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness, the President declared that: “The U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf … Read More “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Experts respond to Executive Order renaming a subsection of the Gulf of Mexico” »
It is day two of the Trump Administration. Yesterday saw a flurry of Executive Actions targeting immigration, climate change, energy, and social and justice issues. Trump also issued an executive order to overrule Trump’s Supreme Court’s upholding of Trump’s TikTok ban. In a sea of disinformation fueled by both propaganda, the reaction economy of social … Read More “How Donald Trump’s Day 1 Executive Actions Impact the Ocean” »
Last year, I published a woodworking year in review which you all seemed to really enjoy. 2024 was a relatively slow year for woodworking. With a laser focus on getting the OpenCTD project across the finish line, I ended up doing far more work on electronics and sensors than on wood. Fortunately, with my massive … Read More “Canoe racks, goat shacks, and chicken scratch: My 2024 woodworking year in review.” »
The march towards deep-sea mining is a slow and stately trudge through a complex international negotiation. The real progress isn’t made in flashy headlines or overhyped announcements, but in painstaking deliberations and incremental progress in the mining code and the environmental and financial regimes. In as much as 2024 was a fairly standard year in … Read More “Deep-sea Mining: What went down in 2024?” »
At the beginning of 2024, I made a commitment to make it the year of the OpenCTD. A CTD is an oceanographic instrument that measures salinity, temperature, and depth. It is an essential tool in the conduct and marine scientific research. Access to CTDs often present a barrier to communities and knowledge seekers interested in … Read More “Open-source science hardware for an Open Ocean: Reflecting on the Year of the OpenCTD” »
After a two and a half year slumber, we brought Southern Fried Science back into the blogging world in a big way. Last year, we published 96 posts, ranging from weird rants about epoxy river tables to long reflections on my reality TV past, to dressing up as a shark and going to a birthday … Read More “Bringing Ocean Blogging Back! What you read on Southern Fried Science in 2024” »
It’s January 1, 2025. David Shiffman and I have been writing on this old blog for 17 years To mark the milestone, we’ve decided to switch things up. Today, David Shiffman is writing about conservation and biodiversity in the the deep sea. Today Andrew D Thaler is writing about the perception of sharks in the … Read More “Happy New Year from Southern Fried Science!” »
The year was 1916, the First World War raged, Woodrow Wilson was in a desperate three-way race for reelection, and sharks were about to experience a shift in public perception that would endure into the next millennium. Prior to 1916, sharks weren’t regarded as particularly dangerous in the United States. A 1915 letter in the … Read More “How the summer of sharks reshaped our understanding of US presidential elections.” »
