Blogging – Page 18 – Southern Fried Science

The Invisible Disability: The diabetic academic manifesto

December 19, 2013January 19, 2020 Bluegrass Blue Crab 2 Comments

Whenever I fill out a job application, there are those little demographic questions at the end and I’m always a bit stymied. They ask if I have a disability that should be taken into account. I don’t, but in the world of academia I feel like I should say yes. I’m diabetic and due to constant fear I keep wearing diabetic socks for men so as to prevent foot complications and my post-PhD it’s starting to become a tangible hindrance for the first time in my life.

Ever the optimist, I tend to dismiss the cases in which the fact that I have a chronic disease directs my decisions. But lately, the cases have piled up to the point I need a cathartic moment to vent. And while a personal subject, I hope my thoughts can be either enlightening or instructive to those thinking about personal health in the ivory tower. Because that’s part of the problem – something held close because it’s personal keeps the issue out of public discourse, which is precisely where solutions might someday emerge.

10 fish weirder than the fish in the 10 weirdest fish in the world list

December 18, 2013December 19, 2013 Guest Writer 8 Comments

Blogging, Science

Sarah Keartes is a science blogger studying marine biology and journalism at the University of Oregon. A self-proclaimed Attenborough wannabe, and all-around shark junkie, she is dedicated to exploring new tools to promote ocean outreach through science communication.

Second string. Almost famous. Runner up. We’ve all been there—bowed out gracefully and stuffed down the BAMF within. I’m talking the missed, the forgotten, the less-than-top dogs (or in this case, fish). Such was the fate of these ten water-dwellers, left looking up at the podium of last month’s “Top Ten Weirdest Fish in the World” list.

Just keep swimming my finned-friends, I’ve got you covered. They may not be the blobbiest, the toothiest, or the most menacing—but for these creatures, weird comes naturally. In their honor, it’s time for round two: the top ten weirder than the weirdest fish in the world list.

On the clarity of animals: the art and science of clearing and staining

December 17, 2013December 18, 2013 Guest Writer 5 Comments

Blogging, Science

Dr. Adam Summers is trained as an engineer and mathematician, he turned to biology to satisfy a deep need to interact with nature. His research applies simple physics and engineering principles to animals to understand the evolution of complex behaviors like feeding, movement and reproduction. The images shown here are the raw material that underlies his research. He is a professor at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Labs, author of more than 90 papers, and was the scientific consultant on Finding Nemo. He is obsessed with fishes and has recently come to realize that the tools and aims of science, art and poetry are more congruent than he had supposed. All the cleared and stained fishes can be seen at http://www.picturingscience.com (Editor’s note: Adam was also featured in Gizmodo this week)

In my work I apply simple Newtonian physics and a bit of engineering to problems of how animals do those amazing things. The source of questions is the natural world and there is no better skill set in my business than that of the natural historian. A keen eye for what is going on around you, and a willingness to document it, is a powerful engine for generating great questions. Proposing answers to those questions almost always involves understanding the shape of the underlying system. So, the second most important set of tools I have are anatomical. Key insights are found in a deep understanding of the skeletal system and its associated soft tissue. A common tool in my lab is clearing and staining, which results in an entire specimen that has its mineralized tissue stained red and cartilage a deep blue.

A Guide to Tweeting at Scientific Meetings for Social Media Veterans

December 13, 2013December 13, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Blogging, Science

A year ago, David Shiffman published How to live-tweet a conference: A guide for conference organizers and twitter users, an informative and exhaustive guide to using twitter to help promote scientific conferences. Since then, I’m certain you’ve internalized his lessons and become a veteran of the science twitterverse. Now that you’re among the top twitter users in your field, it’s time to address how that changes the way you use twitter to interact with your peers.

How do you know if you’re a twitter veteran? There’s no real, concrete rule but, being that this is a guide for scientists, let’s say that a veteran twitter has significantly more followers than the average twitter user attending the conference. If you sampled the number of followers that each conference attendee on twitter had, you would fall outside of the 95% confidence interval. For a huge tech conference, this might mean you have hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers. For a small, regional conference in a relatively narrow field, this could be a couple of hundred followers.

Rest in peace, “ocean addict” Paul Walker

December 2, 2013 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Blogging

Much of the media coverage of the life of Paul Walker, who died tragically this past weekend at age 40, has focused on his successful film career. A rare celebrity who even the gossip-obsessed never heard a bad word about , Walker was beloved by his colleagues. However, he once noted that “I’m an actor, that’s my job but it’s … Read More “Rest in peace, “ocean addict” Paul Walker” »

Fun Science Friday – New Human Body Part Discovered

November 29, 2013November 29, 2013 Kersey Sturdivant

Blogging

Happy Thanksgiving Holiday. After hopefully stuffing your bellies with delicious food yesterday, take a moment to quench your curiosity with this addition of FSF!

If you thought that knowledge of the human anatomy was exhaustive, you would be wrong. Orthopedic surgeons, Steven Claes and Johan Bellemans, at the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, recently discovered a previously undescribed ligament in the human knee now known as the anterolateral ligament (ALL). Knowing that I have one more extra anatomical structure in my body than was previously known for some reason makes me feel all warm and cozy inside… or that is the post holiday ‘spirit’ still coursing through my veins. 😉

Welcome to a shiny new Southern Fried Science

October 28, 2013October 28, 2013 Andrew Thaler 6 Comments

Blogging

For almost all of our five year run, Southern Fried Science has had the same three column, blue-background scheme. It’s finally time for the old blog to get a new coat of paint. Welcome to the new, improved Southern Fried Science! We’ve stripped away the bells and whistles that began multiplying on the sidebars in … Read More “Welcome to a shiny new Southern Fried Science” »

If you aren’t following Sizing Ocean Giants, I don’t even want to know you

October 15, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Blogging

Earlier this semester, Dr. Craig McClain, of NESCENT and Deep Sea News fame, launched the Sizing Ocean Giants project. His crack team of exceptional undergraduates will be conducting “outresearch” — a research adventure in which outreach is an integrated component of their research, rather than a secondary tag-along. They are 10 articles deep into the … Read More “If you aren’t following Sizing Ocean Giants, I don’t even want to know you” »

Your Ocean Science Shutdown Open Thread

September 30, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler 6 Comments

Blogging

Are you an ocean scientist suffering from government shutdown? Are you furloughed for the foreseeable future? Do you have friends, colleagues, co-workers, collaborators, rivals, or sworn enemies feeling the sting? You better believe we do to. Here’s your open thread to talk about how the government shutdown is affecting you and affecting the ocean. Here … Read More “Your Ocean Science Shutdown Open Thread” »

An apology for my post on activists’ response to hotel guests eating a shark

September 30, 2013October 27, 2013 David Shiffman 7 Comments

Blogging

davesquare

Last week, in response to a viral image of hotel guests eating a shark, I wrote a post explaining why I felt that the response from many in the activism community was disproportionate to the degree of the problem represented by that photo (and how other more serious problems got much less attention). Based on feedback I received from people who have read the post, the points I was trying to make were lost among my exasperated, and sometimes hostile, tone. This is my fault as a writer and not yours as a reader. I am writing this follow-up post to both briefly explain what I was trying to say and to apologize for not saying it well. Additionally, like all blog posts, this represented a personal opinion and not any sort of official consensus statement from the scientific community, though I often consult with leaders of the scientific community when writing posts.

This was the first blog post in a very long time that I wrote in the proverbial “heat of the moment,” in the midst of a long argument with activists on Facebook and twitter. The discussion went way outside of the boundaries of polite conversation, and I received numerous personal attacks and a few threats. The hotel owners and the people who ate the shark in the photo also received plenty of threats, though all of the threatening tweets seem to have now been deleted. In short, I was exasperated. I was in “argument mode” and not “educator mode”.

This was also the first blog post in a very long time that I published the day it was written. I normally like to leave a post alone for a day or two after writing it before looking it over again. I will often have other Southern Fried Science writers or scientific colleagues read posts before I publish them. That did not happen in this case. I say all of this not to excuse my error, but to explain it.

Additionally, I was not saying that people eating a large Threatened species is totally insignificant. Many shark populations are being overfished, which is a big problem, and consumption is part of that problem. The point I tried to make was that he level of attention that this incident received was disproportionate to the level of threat it represented, that other issues that are much more serious get much less attention, and that some of the tactics that activists used in this case were inappropriate and even harmful.

People felt that I was mocking, belittling, or insulting activists who felt that a photo of resort guests eating a shark represented a major conservation issue. That was not my intent and I truly apologize for presenting myself in that way.