Boaty McBoatface triumphs, Narluga ascends, Sharks decline, too many bro-authors, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: June 24, 2019

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

In every issue of the Monday Morning Salvage, we try to highlight 2 to 5 papers from the scientific literature. In doing so, we attempt to provide a broad and diverse cross-section of the diversity of people conducting scientific research. However, our priority is in highlighting papers of particular interest to ocean science, and occasionally that means that we end up recommending papers that are exclusively authored by men. A new paper by Salerno and friends highlights the extreme extent to which papers led by men excludes women co-authors.

To do our small part to push back against this phenomenon, we are adopting a new style guide for paper citations. Conventionally, at Southern Fried Science, we use the colloquial “and friends” instead of “et al.” to make paper citations more approachable and less jargon-y. Going forward, in cases where a paper contains only male co-authors, we will instead replace “et al.” with “and some other dudes“.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• It is the hero we deserve. Boaty McBoatface Just Helped Solve a Deep-Sea Mystery.

• Shark populations in NC coastal waters are down, despite uninformed opinions based on absolutely nothing.
• It may be formed from rock and plastic, but ‘plasticrust’ is by far the most Metal name they could have come up with. A Strange New Blend of Rock and Plastic Is Forming on a Portuguese Island.

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

• Narluga is the new boss for Super Wario Land. This Bizarre Whale Is a Beluga-Narwhal Hybrid: A new study documents what may be the first-known evidence of breeding between the two species.
• This week in our creeping, inevitable doom:
  • Study Warns We Could Melt the Entire Greenland Ice Sheet if We Don’t Change Course.
  • Cold War Spy Satellite Reveals Just How Fast the Himalayas Are Losing Ice.
  • And, for funsies, Watch: Amazing Time-Lapse Shows the World’s Biggest Nuclear Icebreakers.

• Authorities Find 16.5 Tons of Cocaine on Ship at Port of Philadelphia.
• NOAA launches federal investigation into Gulf dolphin deaths.
• One of seven orcas captured using nets and explosives then sold to aquariums, Lolita lives out her days being forced to perform tricks twice a day for visitors. ‘We’re coming to liberate her’: The fight to free killer whale held captive for 50 years.
• Researchers Discover Giant Freshwater Aquifer off U.S. East Coast.
• Clean Energy Becomes Dominant Power Source in U.K.
• Iran Exposes Oil’s Sea Change in the Persian Gulf.

The Gam (ocean podcasts we love)

• The history of overfishing in China.

 

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

• Salerno and friends (2019) Male principal investigators (almost) don’t publish with women in ecology and zoology. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218598.
• Myers and friends (2019) Ropeless fishing to prevent large whale entanglements: Ropeless Consortium report. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2019.103587.
• Bird and friends (2019) Early human settlement of Sahul was not an accident. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-42946-9.
• Fournier and friends (2019) Unpaid work and access to science professions. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217032.

Feel free to share your own Foghorns, Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Shipping News, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. If you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to our Patreon campaign. For just $5 per month, you can support the SFS Writers Fund, which helps compensate your favorite ocean science and conservation bloggers for their efforts.