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.

What can we do with an OpenCTD – high resolution hurricane monitoring

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
The Open CTD Project

Last Friday we launched Oceanography for Everyone–The OpenCTD, a crowdfunding project to develop a low-cost, open-source CTD. This project won’t succeed without your help. To demonstrate how valuable a device like the OpenCTD is, for the next several weeks I’ll be presenting various projects that could be accomplished with access to low-cost CTD’s. First up … Read More “What can we do with an OpenCTD – high resolution hurricane monitoring” »

Oceanography for Everyone – Help us build a CTD!

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on Oceanography for Everyone – Help us build a CTD!
Science, The Open CTD Project

Head over to our Rockethub Page for more information! Conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD). With these three measurements, marine scientists can unlock ocean patterns hidden beneath the waves. The ocean is not uniform, it its filled with swirling eddies, temperature boundaries, layers of high and low salinity, changing densities, and many other physical characteristics. To … Read More “Oceanography for Everyone – Help us build a CTD!” »

The Sex Lives of Spoonworms: 10 marine animals with parasitic, dwarf, and otherwise reduced males

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 8 Comments on The Sex Lives of Spoonworms: 10 marine animals with parasitic, dwarf, and otherwise reduced males
Science

Earlier this week, Fox News commentator and all-around terrific guy* Erick Erickson, while discussing a recent Pew Study that revealed that women were the sole breadwinners in 40% of US households that contain children, had this to say:

“I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology—when you look at the natural world—the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complementary role.”

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I’m not sure where Erickson got his science education from, but it’s pretty clear he should have spent a little more time shopping around on the free market, because he sure is wrong. How wrong? I managed to assemble this list of 10 marine species with dwarf, parasitic, or otherwise reduced males (including an entire female-only class) while waiting for my toast**. So have a seat and let me show you how much weirder and more wonderful the world is than Erickson’s Disney-esque misinterpretation of biology.

1. Anglerfish

The deep-sea Anglerfish is among the most common examples of parasitic males in the marine world. Anglerfish comprise a variety of taxa in the order Lophiiformes. Almost all (females) possess a specialized appendage that acts as a lure to attract unwary prey. Life in the deep sea is rough–even though it is the largest and most diverse ecosystem on Earth, biomass is fairly low–so finding a mate is a struggle for these slow swimming fishes. The solution: carry your partner with you.

Male anglerfish are tiny, often less than 5% the size of the female, but they possess powerful olfactory receptors, allowing them to seek out females. Once a mate is located, the male anglerfish latches on to her abdomen, fuses his circulatory system with hers, and is then slowly digested until there’s nothing left but a sac of gonads surrounded by basic life-supporting tissues. Female anglerfish are not monogamous, either. At any given time she could be covered by a half-dozen parasitic males. Kinky.

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Mermaids: The New Evidence is a Fake Documentary

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 19 Comments on Mermaids: The New Evidence is a Fake Documentary
Science

Last year, David and several other marine science bloggers debunked Animal Planet’s amazingly fraudulent mermaid foc-u-mentary (yes, I’m coining that term for fake documentaries that show absolute disdain for their audience. It’s not satire. It’s not parody. It’s a giant middle finger to the public). No need to retread old ground–read the original coverage: Mermaids … Read More “Mermaids: The New Evidence is a Fake Documentary” »

Update on Kiera Wilmot: All charges dropped, now going to space camp

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 1 Comment on Update on Kiera Wilmot: All charges dropped, now going to space camp
Science

Three weeks ago we reported on Kiera Wilmot, a high school student who was threatened with expulsion and arrest for a science experiment gone bad. I asked my followers to tweet about their own, personal experiences with accidental explosions in the name of science. Since then, Wilmot’s story along with the response from scientists, has … Read More “Update on Kiera Wilmot: All charges dropped, now going to space camp” »

Making Your Donations Count: 5 simple guidelines for selecting conservation organizations to support

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 5 Comments on Making Your Donations Count: 5 simple guidelines for selecting conservation organizations to support
Conservation

headshot-thalerSMALLEvery year, the number of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s for short) committed to reducing climate change, saving the ocean, developing alternative energy sources, cutting down plastic use, not cutting down forests, or myriad other worthy causes, grows. Many of these organizations are staffed by committed, hard-working environmentally minded advocates struggling to make a difference. But, with so many NGO’s out there, and more being founded, how are concerned citizens expected to know which NGO’s are effective, which best match their ideals, and, most important, which NGO’s are worthy of their donations (either of money of of volunteer time). To alleviate this problem, I’ve assembled a set of 5 relatively simple guidelines to help you evaluate and select a conservation NGO that fits your values and gets the job done.

1. Determine how well the NGO incorporates local and indigenous stakeholder groups into their programs.

I’ve started here because this is the most difficult to assess but, by far, the most important. The most successful NGO’s seek out local stakeholders for consultation. The very best include local stakeholders among their employees, at high management positions. The reasons for this should be obvious: local stakeholders are familiar with the political and social climate of the region in which they’re working. They have personal connections to key decision makers in the community. Stakeholders are more sympathetic to a conservation message when that message is being delivered by respected members of their community, rather than purely by outsiders. Without local support, many conservation initiatives are doomed to failure.

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On stifling scientific curiosity, in the most egregious way possible.

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 7 Comments on On stifling scientific curiosity, in the most egregious way possible.
Science

headshot-thalerSMALLNo doubt you’ve seen the recent news reports of a Florida high school student, by all accounts a model student with a clean disciplinary record, who was not only expelled, but arrested on felony charges, for conducting a relatively innocuous scientific experiment. I don’ t need to rehash the details, Danielle Lee has a good summary, with relevant links, over at Scientific American–Florida teen charged with felony for trying science.

Without a doubt this story is about race as well as the egregious over-reaction of the school administrators. Zero tolerance policies, like the one that forced Kiera Wilmot’s expulsion from Bartow High School, disproportionately affect students of color and Florida has the largest School-to-Prison Pipeline in the country. The punishment is consistent with systemic marginalization of minority students in American public schools. This is not the case of a student willfully endangering her classmates or school. This is a case of an intelligent, curious student performing a perfectly mundane act of independent inquiry, an inquiry that happens in innumerable variations in schools throughout the country. Educators know how to respond to inquisitive (even recklessly inquisitive) students, and that response is never prison.

Science is messy. Science in messiest when we just start learning how to turn our curiosity into something testable. For many people, high school is the time when we learn to harness that curiosity.  Many young scientists have a brush with danger due to a combination of curiosity and experimentation. High school programs should be nurturing that curiosity and fostering responsible experimentation, not punishing it. I asked my twitter followers, many of whom are practicing scientists, whether they, during high school, had accidentally caused an explosion in the course of scientific curiosity:

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