Booms that go boom, a deep-sea mining spiral, dying to go green, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: January 7, 2019

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

• The US Government enters it’s third week of shutdown over Trump’s Border Wall. Democrats in the House passing funding bills identical to the one unanimously passed by the Senate. Despite that, McConnell won’t let those funding bills come to a vote in his Senate. The Republicans own this travesty.
• ‘Appalling’ toilets and rule-breaking as US shutdown hits national parks.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• How a Seaweed-Eating Microbe Could Help Fight Plastic Pollution
• Apple finally admits what we basically all knew: being able to repair electronics is bad for the iPhone’s bottom line and that’s really bad news for the environments. Tim Cook to Investors: People Bought Fewer New iPhones Because They Repaired Their Old Ones.
• Snow at sea is lovely.

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

• For Nautilus Minerals, the debt comes due.
• The Big Boom. This week in giant floating ocean plastic collectors:
  • Structural Issue Forces U-Shaped Ocean Cleanup System to Leave Great Pacific Garbage Patch, But Return Planned for 2019
  • The Continued Boondoggle of the Ocean Cleanup
• Fishing village hit by chemical leak
• The Roast. This week in climate change and global warming:
  • Antarctic Sea Ice Is In Record-Low Territory Again, and Nobody Knows Why
  • Why the science of extreme weather attribution matters
• Where do sharks give birth off East Coast? The answers may change your vacation plans
• The Blubber Sandwich. Bad news, Good news, Uncertain news for marine mammals:
  • Manatee Deaths In 2018 Approach All-Time High
  • First Right Whale Calf in Two Years Spotted Off Florida Coast
  • How Japan’s return to commercial whaling could actually kill the industry and save whales
• Chinese Fish Carrier Aground on Deserted Island in the Marshall Islands (reminder, the US Coast Guard is not being paid).

• Dredging Starts at UK Port That May Be Used in No-Deal Brexit
• The Stories Whale Lice Tell. Humpbacks can’t tell you who they hang out with. But their lice can.
• I Dug a Green Grave and Learned the Truth About the Dirty Death Industry.

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

• Holmberg and friends (2019) Ocean acidification alters morphology of all otolith types in Clark’s anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii). DOI: 10.7717/peerj.6152.
• Santon and friends (2018) Active sensing with light improves predator detection in a diurnal fish. DOI: 10.1101/324202.
• Vered and friends (2019) Using solitary ascidians to assess microplastic and phthalate plasticizers pollution among marine biota: A case study of the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.12.013.

And while you’re here:

• I built an open-source robot that steps your steps when the steps you stepped weren’t counted by your step counter: Frequently Asked Questions

• Florida releases draft land-based shark fishing regulations
• To tweet to whom – a tweeting guide for marine scientists
• All the slime that sticks, we print: 2018 in Hagfish Research

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