Reviews and Interviews | Southern Fried Science

“The Shark is Broken” is a Broadway-loving shark scientist’s dream come true

A new Broadway show based on the making of Jaws, co-written by and starring Robert Shaw’s son, is some of the most fun I’ve had at the theater in years.

Wearing my finest elasmo-swag to the theater

“Jaws” changed the world, with scientific, cultural, and political impacts that continue to this day. Jaws made the world terrified of sharks, contributing to the current ongoing shark conservation crisis. (Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, was so troubled by this that he dedicated the last years of his life to saving sharks.) The Hooper character, the first time a scientist was the hero of a major movie, inspired a generation to become marine biologists. The public policy literature refers to “the Jaws effect,” which describes how fictional portrayal of real-world issues influences how citizens feel about those issues (and the mayor of Jaws is still used in political analogies about doing nothing in response to a crisis or prioritizing the economy over safety, with then-PM Boris Johnson calling that character his hero). In short, my professional world is very, very different because of this movie, and I think it’s fair to say that few other movies have had anywhere close to this level of broad and long-lasting impact.

Me in front of the set, the interior of the Orca.
(The barrel you can see poking out is one of the real ones used in the original film)

So when I heard that a show about the making of Jaws was coming to Broadway, I knew I had to get there. And that was before I learned that it was co-written by Jaws star Robert Shaw’s son Ian, who plays his father, and before it started getting stellar reviews.

Oh Hell No: Ten Years of SharkNado

Posted on August 16 by David Shiffman

Summer 2023 marks an important cultural milestone. That’s right, it has now been ten years since the release of SharkNado, which became a full-blown franchise with six movies, tens of millions in ad revenue and merchandise sales, real-world references in the floor of Congress, and near-universal awareness- all things that are otherwise unheard of for made-for-tv SyFy channel movies.

Me attending the tenth anniversary theaterical re-release, August 2023

“It’s been incredible gift to be able to share something this fun and silly with so many people over all this time,” Thunder Levin, the writer of the SharkNado franchise, told me in an interview. “It’s been extraordinary how many different people seem to have embraced it. I get to interact with fans who come from all walks of life, I even get to argue with shark scientists!”

SharkNado has always had it’s thumb on the pulse of pop culture

The Bad Shark Movies genre is rich and storied, but none of the others have had anywhere near the cultural impact or legacy of SharkNado. I’d like to try and explain what made the SharkNado movies special, and explore what that means for cinema, for sharks, and for me.

Shark Week 2019 reviews and thoughts

Posted on December 24, 2019 by David Shiffman

I wasn’t able to watch live this year, but I DVR-ed all 18 specials and watched them eventually! Here are my reviews, ratings, and thoughts. I did not watch the feature-length movie, which they claim is the first fictional entertainment content they’ve ever produced… causing me to stare in megalodon. Overall, this was not a strong year for science, facts, or diversity (of either sharks or shark researchers).

As a reminder, I grade on the following aspects of a show: is there actual science or natural history educational content / is there made up nonsense, are actual credentialed experts with relevant expertise featured or are they self-proclaimed “shark experts” who say wrong nonsense all the time, what species are featured (with bonus points for species we rarely or never see), and do they feature diverse experts or just the same white men (reminder: my field is more than 50% women)? It’s not a perfect rubric, but it’s better than this actual system for ranking shark news introduced this year in “sharks gone wild 2:”

Rankings appear in no particular order, if you care about the order the shows actually aired in please see this Discovery press release.

Finding the best dirt-cheap, field-tough 3D printer for science and conservation work: six months later.

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

Four years ago, I had the chance to lead a research cruise on Lake Superior to explore the potential of low-cost, open-source tools for marine field work. This was the proving ground for the OpenCTD, the Niskin3D, the OpenROV 2.7, and the idea that, rather than packing cases and case of gear, we could put everything we needed on a flash drive and print it at sea.

During that cruise, as my trusty Printrbot, was churning out Niskin bottles, we caught a wave and the 3D printer was thrown to the ground. I came down hours later to find it upside down on the floor of a retrofitted fish hold, happily chugging along. I picked it up, put it back on the counter, and went back to sleep. The print didn’t even fail.

That is the kind of beast we need.

Over the years, whenever someone asked me what the best 3D Printer for field work was, the answer was always the same: The Printrbot Simple Metal. But Printrbot is gone (for now) and we needed a replacement.

Half a year ago, we completed an exhaustive review of the cheapest 3D-printers on the market, with an eye towards low-cost, robust tools that would endure the rigors of field work without blowing our grant budget. We wanted 3D printers that were workhorses. They didn’t have to be pretty, they didn’t have to produce perfect prints, they just had to spit out strong serviceable parts with minimal fuss. They had to be reasonably portable. And they had to be able to take a beating and keep on printing.

We never found a replacement for the absolute tank that is the Printrbot Simple Metal, but after months of testing, settled on a pair of good alternatives (notably for a fraction of the cost of the Printrbot when it was still in production): for those who need big build volumes, the Creality Ender-3. For those who need portability above all, the Monoprice Mini-Delta.

But that was six months ago. I promised to put these two machines into heavy use. After several hundred hours of printing, we’re ready to update our review of both machines.

Executive Summary. My recommendation still stands, both both printers need a few modifications before you can call them the ultimate field machine.

Book review: “Shark Research: Emerging Technologies and Applications for the Field and Laboratory”

Posted on June 7, 2019 by David Shiffman

Editors: Jeffrey C. Carrier, Michael R. Heithaus, Colin A. Simpfendorfer. CRC Press, available here.

I can’t imagine a more useful introductory reference guide for new or prospective graduate students starting their career in marine biology than “Shark Research: Emerging Technologies and Applications for the Field And Laboratory”. This book is designed for people who have little to no familiarity with a research discipline but are about to start working in that discipline, a large and important audience that is often ignored by books and review papers geared towards people who are already experts. So many graduate students are told to learn a new research method by reading technical literature that assumes they already know this stuff, resulting in stress and frustration.

The Quest for the best tough 3D Printer for under $200: Our final recommendations

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

You thought we were done, here. You were wrong. After extensively reviewing 5 3D printers for sale under $200 and picking the best from the reviews, we went back to our two favorites and put them through their paces, abusing both for an extra month to make sure that when I say this is the best printer for field work, I mean it.

These printers have been dragged around, beaten up, put in the hands of children and child-like adults, and run through the wringer to ensure that they stand up to the kind of abuse you might expect from the field. Now we’re really ready to make the call and tell you which are the best dirt-cheap, field-ready 3D printers.

At last, a $200 3D Printer that might actually hold up to a field season. The Creality Ender-3 (review).

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

[NOTE: Please see our update regarding this printer: Finding the best dirt-cheap, field-tough 3D printer for science and conservation work: six months later.]

Somewhere between the Prusa printers with their paired z-axis motors and the cantilever systems with a gantry arm spanning the x- or y-axis with only a single point of support, lies printers like the Creality Ender-3. Where a more conventional 3D printer uses rails and linear bearings to drive the axes, these printers forgo the standard model.

You won’t find a single linear bearing on the Creality Ender-3 or it’s clones. Instead, rubber rollers pass through v-slot grooves in extruded aluminum, removing the need for complex gantry systems.

This is an incredibly robust method for cutting costs, but it is not a compromise. Roller and v-slot printers can be just as precise as their rail and bearing counterparts, and the mandated all aluminum construction makes them strong and durable.

For a general-use field-ready 3D printer, you could not do much better than the Creality Ender-3.

I built the cheapest 3D printer available online so that you don’t have to: iNSTONE Desktop DIY (review)

Posted on March 14, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

How cheap can a 3D printer be and still function? Although they seemed plucked out of science fiction, there’s not really that much to these machines. A few stepper motors, some switches, a control board, a heating element, and a nozzle are really all you need. It’s the software, and the expiration of a bunch of patents, that kicked the 3D printing revolution into high gear.

Is it possible to assemble the right collection of components to make a functional 3D printer for less than $100? iNSTONE thinks you can, and they are not wrong.

Behold, the iNSTONE Desktop DIY.

This is the best printer you could build for $99. It’s terrible. I love it. You absolutely should not buy it.

The ongoing search for an inexpensive, field-ready 3D printer: Monoprice Select Mini (review)

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

Monoprice, the king of rebadged 3D printers, has two entries in the sub-$200 printer category. We already dug into the guts of the Mini Delta, a great little delta-style printer, and now it’s time for the Monoprice Select Mini! This is a pretty standard cantilever printer, with the x-axis tied to the print bed and an y-axis connected by a single support to a moving gantry. It’s basic, but solid, with a bare-bones set of features that gets the job done.

The Monoprice Select Mini is currently for sale on Amazon for $189. I got mine in white because every other printer manufacturer has decided that you can have whatever color you want as long at it’s matte black.

There is also a Select Mini Pro which, since this review series started, has been discounted to $199. It does look like it has some nice features that make it wort the extra $11, including an automatic bed leveler, magnetic build plate, and touch screen. The budget for this series is blown, but if Monoprice wants to send us one *hint hint* I’ll be happy to put it through the wringer.

Monoprice is a rebadger, as we explained in the Delta review, and this printer is identical to the Malyan M200, which itself seems to be an improvement on the Infitary R100.

This is the only printer in our series with steel construction, so I have high hopes that it will stand up to the abuse I’m about to heap upon it.

For an explanation of our testing protocols, please see: We’re gonna beat the heck out of these machines: The search for the best dirt-cheap 3D printer for fieldwork.

The search for an inexpensive, field-ready 3D printer continues: Anet A6 (review)

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Andrew Thaler

One of the reasons 3D printing exploded seemingly overnight a decade ago has a lot to do with the RepRap project, an initiative to build a fully open-source and largely 3D-printable 3D-printer. The idea of a machine that could replicate itself was pulled straight from the pages of science fiction, and yet, here were machines–janky, kludgey, barely functional, machines–assembled from parts clearly fabricated by those same machines. They were conceptually impressive, but not a particularly awe-inspiring sight to behold.

And then came Josef Průša and the Prusa Mendel.

Affectionately known as the Ford Model T of the 3D printing world, the Prusa Mendel was the first of the open-source 3D printers that was designed to be easily mass produced. It looked good and it ran great. Released under an open-source license, it was replicated and iterated on a massive scale. That didn’t prevent Průša from building a successful company. The current Prusa i3 MK2 is among the most successful desktop 3D printers in the world, and certainly one of the best.

There are a lot of Prusa i3 clones.

Clocking in at $197.69, the Anet A6 is the most expensive printer in this review series. It’s also the biggest, with a massive 220mm by 220mm by 250mm build area. It’s an upgraded version of the popular Anet A8, with a larger build volume and a better user interface, but not much else. From reviews, this printer seemed like a solid representation of what you can get at the top end of the menagerie of sub-$200 Prusa i3 clones. It (and its smaller A8 brother) certainly have the fan-base and hacking community to support its reputation.

This acrylic-framed beast ships as a kit, so expect to spend half a day putting this printer together.

If you’re going off of dollar per cubic millimeter, this is the best bang for you buck by a wide margin. And that’s about the extent of the good things I have to say about this machine.

For an explanation of our testing protocols, please see: We’re gonna beat the heck out of these machines: The search for the best dirt-cheap 3D printer for fieldwork.