Andrew Thaler

Seasteading, ivory diving, seabed mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 5, 2017

June 5, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

We Should All Care About Sea Grant. Despite being one of the most bipartisan research programs in the United States, with a huge return on investment for coastal communities and businesses, Sea Grant is under attack from the current administration. Read the latest at Deep Sea News: Pam DiBona: #IAmSeaGrant.
27 National Monuments are under review by the Department of the Interior. Our Nation Monuments are our National Treasures. Don’t let them be sold to the highest bidder! Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Seasteading. Ok, we’re not actually obsessed with Seasteading. What we are obsessed with are the increasingly convoluted proposals to create floating nations at sea (heck, I even wrote a novel or two about that). Fresh from the New Republic: Libertarians Seek a Home on the High Seas.

Ocean/Policy superstar Miriam Goldstein reminded me that China Mieville wrote an absolutely brutal takedown of the degraded imagination of the libertarian seasteaders several years back.

#IAmSeaGrant, Octopus Beats Dolphins, Deep-sea Mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 29, 2017

May 29, 2017May 29, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

#IAmSeaGrant. Despite being one of the most bipartisan research programs in the United States, with a huge return on investment for coastal communities and businesses, Sea Grant is under attack from the current administration. Deep Sea News has been collecting stories from marine researchers who’ve benefited from Sea Grant programs: Ben Wetherill, Nyssa Silbiger, and Christy Bowles.
27 National Monuments are under review by the Department of the Interior. Our Nation Monuments are our National Treasures. Don’t let them be sold to the highest bidder! Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Zach Weinersmith has perfectly capture the essence of what it is to be a marine biologist in the United States right now. Pure. Abyssal. Horror.

The Deep Sea News crew is at sea, and Dr. Craig and his team did a hilarious, fascinating, informative Ask Me Anything over at Reddit. Worth reading the whole thread, even though it’s done for now.

Parasitic barnacles, a code of conduct for marine conservation, #BillMeetScienceTwitter, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 22, 2017.

May 22, 2017May 22, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

27 National Monuments are under review by the Department of the Interior. Our Nation Monuments are our National Treasures. Don’t let them be sold to the highest bidder! Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This parasitic barnacle, Sacculina carcini, replacing the reproductive organs of a crab.

Hat tip to Tommy Leung, who’s twitter feed is a gold mine of fantastic parasites and where to find them.
#BillMeetScienceTwitter. What started as an inquiry into whether science celebrities really engage with practicing scientists on a regular basic morphed into the best way to find new scientists to follow on Twitter. I’m curating a massive list of all the self-identified Ocean Scientists that participated.

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

Deep-sea mining is gearing up on the high seas, and international regulations is still lagging far behind technology: The Wild West of Deep-Sea Mining.
oceanbites rolls out an excellent overview of the different kinds of robots used in conducting deep-sea research.
Beyond drug lords and conservationists: Who is missing in the coverage of the vaquita’s demise? from the legendary team at Deep Sea News.
Henderson Island is isolated and uninhabited, so why are all its beaches so completely covered in garbage? Spoilers: It’s because the planet is an interconnected global system with impacts felt far beyond the source of insult.
Bone-eating snot flower worm will never not be my favorite common name. Tiny Zombie Worms Are the Beavers of the Deep.
The history of the entire world, in one entertaining YouTube video (via Vox):

Are Ships The Careless Giants Of The Sea? Yes, but they don’t have to be.
Trump’s EPA Greenlights a Nasty Chemical. A Month Later, It Poisons a Bunch of Farmworkers.
Trump country is flooding, and climate ideas are shifting.
The Ocean as the New Frontier of Climate Action.
The Antarctic Peninsula is 3 degrees warming than is used to be, and that means plants are growing and Antarctica is getting greener.
The long history of ocean drilling and scientific discovery.
A tiny anchovy could be a silver bullet for malnutrition in Peru—if only we would let it: The Fish that Smells like Money.
I talk alot about e-waste and disposable electronics, which is why I’m excited to see modular, open-source smartphone projects finally start to mature. The ZeroPhone looks like on of the most promising additions to this space.
Skeptic Magazine has a pseudoscience problems. Unfortunately, this time it’s the skeptics promoting some pretty eyebrow-raising junk science. I went a little deeper into this on Twitter.

Bony-eared assfish, shark swarms, ocean plastics, and more! The Monday Morning Salvage: May 15, 2017

May 15, 2017May 14, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

This is you last day to submit public comments in defense of the Environmental Protection Agency! The time to save the EPA is now! If you don’t know quite what to say, I’ve prepared a script for you.
27 National Monuments are under review by the Department of the Interior. Our Nation Monuments are our National Treasures. Don’t let them be sold to the highest bidder! Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This bony-eared assfish, courtesy of Sheldon Comics. Go show the some love on Twitter and Patreon.

“You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks… exit the water in a calm manner.” When paddleboarding, this is not what you want to hear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5SPMrmRMjE

But, of course: The Viral Video of 15 Sharks Circling Near Surfers in California Shows a Much Bigger Problem.

The Old Man and the Deep Sea

May 9, 2017May 9, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Uncategorized

Torben Wolff, legendary deep-sea scientist and last surviving member of the Galathea II expedition, which plumbed the Philippine Trench and recovered biological material from more than 10,000 meters for the first time in history, died in his sleep on May 2, 2017. He was 97. Torben will be remembered for his monumental contributions to deep-sea oceanography, … Read More “The Old Man and the Deep Sea” »

Terraforming Mars on Earth, giant larvaceans, conservation jobs, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 8, 2017

May 8, 2017May 8, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

The time to save the EPA is now! The EPA is seeking public input on the new administrations approach to environmental regulations. They are required to seek public input. They are required to respond to public input. Go tell them how you feel. Public comments close May 15. Here’s the docket with instructions on how to comment: Evaluation of Existing Regulations. We’ve even prepared a script for you.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

On a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, a terraforming project a century-and-a-half in the making is underway. A 150-year-old experiment on the remote Ascension Island may help us green Mars. Can it also help us save Earth?

Seabirds on Ascension Island. Photo by Clare Fieseler.

It also happens to be longtime friend of Southern Fried Science Clare Fieseler’s first major story for National Geographic, so go follow her on twitter.

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

Women have a crucial—yet often overlooked—role in fisheries. The Invisible Fishing Fleet by Ilima Loomis at Hakai Magazine.
“What do you do when you’re a graduate student and you’ve been sexually assaulted by the PI of a very exciting paleoanthropological site?” An incredibly powerful piece by Holly Dunsworth: In case this helps you: This happened to me while I was trying to become a paleoanthropologist.
The general theme of this site appears to be ‘humans are terrible, robots are awesome’. Staying on brand: In a first, deep sea robots get a close look at giant larvaceans, a key player in the biological carbon pump.
Deep-sea mining is really heating up. Locals threaten armed campaign against PNG seabed mine.
In the Pacific Northwest, the diligence of citizen scientists is shedding light on the lives, and deaths, of seabirds. Drawing Meaning from Death, One Seabird at a Time by Larry Pynn at Hakai.
This is a pretty great demonstration of how statistics can be used to mislead: Generating Datasets with Varied Appearance and Identical Statistics through Simulated Annealing.

The time to defend the EPA is now!

May 1, 2017May 6, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Conservation

Executive Order 13777 created a Regulatory Reform Task Force to oversee the evaluation of existing regulations to make recommendations about potential repeal, replacement, or modification to the Environmental Protection Agency. The dissolution of the EPA would be catastrophic for this country. Fortunately, the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, and before any recommendations are formally issued, … Read More “The time to defend the EPA is now!” »

Climate change denial, open-science hardware, some missing pink dolphins, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 1, 2017

May 1, 2017April 30, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Are you represented by a climate change denier? Motherboard has put together this amazing guide to every climate change denier in congress. Check your state and give your congressperson a piece of your mind. Congressman Andy Harris may be sick of hearing from me, but I guarantee he’ll be gone from my district long before I am.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The Holy Grail of the portable hardware-hacking lab: A cordless soldering iron that actually works.

April 25, 2017April 25, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Reviews and Interviews

This is a mess. This isn’t even everything I brought for Make for the Planet.

All electronics kits are not created equal. Between the OpenROV, Oceanography for Everyone, and hack-a-thons around the world, my work has taken me out of the lab and into the field, fantail, and classroom to build instruments, hack oceanographic equipment, and train next generation of open-science oceanographers. This has placed a huge new demand on my standard kit, a collection of electronics and hardware tools and components that allow a creative maker to build anything, anywhere. Portability is key, but portability comes with it’s own challenges, especially for that most vital of electronics tools, the humble, powerful soldering iron.

A good soldering iron is absolutely critical to the kinds of projects and workshops I run. Without it, we can to the delicate electronics work necessary for getting a piece of equipment working in the field. But traveling with soldering irons is a nightmare. These high-wattage devices don’t always play nice with local electrical infrastructure. Even using the *right* power converters we’ve blown fuses and burned out power supplies. In the best case scenarios, the irons just don’t produce enough heat to get the job done. In remote regions, local options are often non-existent. When we go, we bring everything with us.

There are portable soldering irons, but they have their own problems. Gas-powered irons require a fuel source that may not be easily obtained and are not always welcome on flights. They also lack the fine control we need. Electric options tend to be of the “cold heat” variety, which is a poor tool for circuit board work and can generate a current that burns out components and shorts your project. Heat-based electric soldering irons are weak, short-lived, and often utterly ineffective. I resigned myself to lugging large soldering stations around the world, hoping for the best when it comes to finding an adequate power supply.

And then I discovered the Hakko FX-901.

Deep-sea Disco, Giant Icebergs, Pokémon Go, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: April 24, 2017

April 24, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Weekly Salvage

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Still time! The EPA is seeking public input on the new administrations approach to environmental regulations. They are required to seek public input. They are required to respond to public input. Go tell them how you feel. Public comments close May 15. Here’s the docket with instructions on how to comment: Evaluation of Existing Regulations.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

This deep-sea mining Disco video is something.

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