Science – Page 46 – Southern Fried Science

An 8th grade WhySharksMatter gets career advice

July 2, 2012 David Shiffman 3 Comments

Science

A few weeks ago, I went home to Pittsburgh to surprise my mom for Mother’s Day. While there, I had the unenviable task of emptying out my childhood bedroom in preparation for my parents moving to a smaller place. I was apparently a bit of a pack rat growing up- while cleaning the room, I found every birthday card I had received and every test I had taken from elementary school through high school. I also found the results of my 8th grade career aptitude test, taken in 1999.

Based on my skills and interests, the “Career Futures” computer had recommended three potential careers for me: high school science teacher, military officer specializing in intelligence gathering, and marine biologist. Some of you may also know that three years later, my high school guidance counselor half-jokingly recommended that I consider a career as the leader of a cult, but that’s a story for another time.

While taking a break from cleaning out my room, I looked over the full reports for each career choice. The description of the career of a marine biologist was of particular interest, since that’s what I actually ended up doing with my life (I am definitely not secretly working as a military intelligence officer, nothing to see here, move along).

World Oceans Day #OceanFacts

June 26, 2012 David Shiffman

Science

On World Oceans Day, I asked the online marine science and conservation community to tweet their favorite facts about the ocean using the hashtag #OceanFacts . Dozens of people joined the discussion, and more than 300 #OceanFacts were contributed. These tweets cover a variety of topics, from marine invertebrates, fish, sharks, and marine mammals to facts about the ocean itself and conservation policy. The discussion also inspired a great deal of humorous posts, including an entire spinoff #OceanFibs hashtag. Some of my favorite #OceanFacts tweets are saved in the Storify below.

What shark finning means (and doesn’t mean): a primer and quiz

June 18, 2012June 26, 2012 David Shiffman 82 Comments

Conservation, Science

Shark finning, one of the most wasteful, unsustainable, and inhumane methods of gathering food in the history of human civilization, has rightly become a hot topic in the marine conservation movement. However, there is a great deal of confusion among activists concerning this problem and the best way to solve it. Those of you who follow me on twitter have seen me point out numerous recent anti-finning “awareness campaigns” which feature photographs of sharks that have not actually been finned.

Shark finning does not mean removing the fins from a shark. This is really important and seems to be a source of some confusion- not every shark fin for sale in markets is the result of shark finning! Shark finning means removing the fins from a shark while still on the fishing vessel and dumping the rest of the shark overboard. This is a problem because its wasteful (less than 10% of the weight of a shark is used), because its easy to quickly overfish a population even from a small boat (fins don’t take up a lot of space on board), and because its almost impossible for managers to know how many of each species were harvested. As stated above, this practice is also shockingly inhumane, as the sharks are often still alive when they are dumped overboard.

Understanding Sea Level Rise: Why a linear extrapolation is the least reasonable predictor of future changes

June 14, 2012June 18, 2012 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

Conservation, Science

The Division of Coastal Management shall be the only State agency authorized to develop rates of sea-level rise and shall do so only at the request of the Commission. These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.

source (emphasis mine)

This is the text of the notorious, anti-science, anti-coastal community bill that was originally floated in the North Carolina state senate. A revised version of that bill is now under review, with new language that now mandates that:

The Commission and the Division of Coastal Management may collaborate with other State agencies, boards, commissions, other public entities, or institutions when defining sea-level rise or developing rates of sea-level rise. These rates shall be determined using statistically significant, peer-reviewed historical data generated using generally accepted scientific and statistical techniques. Historic rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise unless such rates are from statistically significant, peer-reviewed data and are consistent with historic trends.

source (emphasis mine)

While this new language is almost certainly an improvement over the old bill, which was heavily supported by a lobbying group for coastal developers and heavily opposed by organizations that actually care what happens to the Carolina coastline and its historic communities, it is still problematic. By problematic, I mean wrong. And by wrong I mean that by refusing to allow accelerated estimates of sea level rise, it explicitly ignores all the best available science and contradicts 130 millenia of historic precedent.

Medusa: Scientists document rarely seen deepwater sharks using baited video cameras

June 14, 2012June 14, 2012 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Science

The deep sea is one of the largest, least explored, and most unique ecosystems on the planet. An enormous variety of weird and wonderful creatures make the deep sea their home, including many species of sharks. A new project, headed up by our friends at the Cape Eleuthera Institute, hopes to learn more about these sharks.

According to Edd Brooks, CEI’s shark research and conservation program manager,

“About half of all known species of sharks make this cold, dark high pressure environment their home, and new deep water species are being described all the time. The issue we are currently facing is that basic information about the taxonomy, biology and ecology of these animals is virtually non-existent, yet they are already being harvested by commercial fisheries. The little we do know about deep water species is worrying, in that they are thought to be more sensitive to fishing pressure than all other fish – and look what we have managed to do their more robust shallow water cousins already. The worry is that in some areas, we are already be losing species before they can be described taxonomically.”

Kangaroo court: an unjust criminal justice system for animals in National Parks?

June 12, 2012June 12, 2012 David Shiffman 6 Comments

Conservation, Science

On August 25th of last year, a man was brutally killed while vacationing in Montana. An expert forensics team was called in to the scene of the crime, and quickly determined from blood patterns next to a half-eaten PowerBar that the victim had been surprised and attacked from behind while taking a break from a hike. His badly damaged body was found partially buried nearby, with wounds indicating that he tried to fight back against his attacker.

A search of the area resulted in locating hair, which was soon found to belong to a suspect in another local killing from a few weeks prior to this attack. Footprints found at the scene were the same size as those of the suspect in the earlier killing as well. DNA samples were taken for future analysis. The suspect and her two small children were taken into custody.

The case was rapidly brought not before a jury of the suspect’s peers, but before a panel of local experts, including members of the forensics team that investigated the case. The suspect was found guilty even before all of the samples from the crime scene had been processed. The penalty was death for the suspect and life imprisonment for her children. The accused was not represented by a lawyer, no appeals were permitted, and she was dead within a few weeks of the attack on the unfortunate tourist. Once the DNA evidence had been processed, the detection of another suspect at the scene of the crime raised some doubt that the correct individual had been taken into custody, but it was too late to stop the execution.

How could such a trial happen in the United States of America in the 21st century? We are a nation of laws! We pride ourselves on suspects being innocent until proven guilty! The answer is simple. The now-executed suspect in this series of grisly deaths was, in fact, a grizzly herself- a grizzly bear. The series of attacks has focused public attention not just on the dangers associated with hiking in areas where large wild predators live, but on the bizarre system of pseudo-justice used by the National Parks Service to determine what to do with animals that kill or injure humans.

Carnivorous plants respond to increased soil nitrogen, eco-news websites completely miss the point

June 10, 2012 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Science

Flowers of a venus flytrap. Photo by Andrew David Thaler.

Late last week, inspired by our newly flowering Venus Flytraps, I posted pictures of Amy and my carnivorous plant collection on twitter and on the Southern Fried Science Facebook page. After David’s recent post on a nurse shark that underwent major dietary changes following traumatic surgery and captivity, our wonderful readers must have been on high alert for trophic shifts following anthropogenic disturbance-type articles (or, more casually, “stuff that eats stuff now eats different stuff”), because this morning my inbox was filled with links to variations on the following article: Pollution makes carnivorous plants go vegetarian. Whenever human activity alters trophic interactions, there is potential for major ecological changes in an ecosystem. While ecosystems are dynamic, shape by continuous variation in community structure and resource and habitat variability, rapid changes can result in total collapse or permanent shifts to functional states.

Unfortunately, these “eating different stuff” articles rarely reflect the deep and nuance ecologic reality of trophic interactions and instead capitalize on the narrative of “even animals are going veggie to save the planet!” Allow me to revel in my cultural roots with a hearty “Oy vey!”

Climbing Mount Chernobyl: a repost for World Ocean Day

June 8, 2012June 10, 2012 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

Conservation, Science

Originally published on August 30th, 2011, Climbing Mount Chernobyl is one of my personal favorite posts. It feels appropriate to re-post it today for World Ocean Day.

Mermaids do not exist, and five other important things people should, but do not, know about the ocean

June 5, 2012September 2, 2013 David Shiffman 12 Comments

Science

MermenLubok — Mermaids depicted by a Russian folk artist. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons via New York Public Library

Last week, Animal Planet aired a fictional mockumentary about mermaids. From an educational perspective, it was a disaster that was rightfully described as “the rotting carcass of science television” by Brian Switek. As Dr. M on Deep Sea News pointed out, one of the troubling results of this TV special was the discovery that some people believe that mermaids are real.

When I pointed out on Facebook and twitter that mermaids do not exist and that I hoped none of my friends believe otherwise, it inspired a long and interesting discussion. Someone asked why it matters if people believe in mermaids, as they felt that a sense of whimsy among the public is a good thing. Someone pointed out that scientists are discovering amazing new species all the time. More than a few people said “anything is possible.”

Sure, scientists discover new species all the time, but while finding a new species of monkey, orchid, or jellyfish can be interesting, it is not proof that “anything is possible” and it is not the same thing as finding a species of talking, thinking humanoids with fish tails on the lower half of their bodies. There’s a big and important difference between enjoying fantasy novels and wishing that certain fantastical creatures exist (i.e. having a sense of whimsy) and genuinely believing that those creatures really do exist.

These people don’t believe that in the vast and unexplored ocean, there may be some bizarre undiscovered species still out there. They believe that talking, thinking humanoids with fish tails on the lower half of their bodies exist and are acknowledged as existing by the scientific community. This displays a troubling lack of awareness of reality that likely is not limited to a belief in mermaids. For the benefit of those who have paid so little attention to what’s going on in the real world that they believe mermaids exist, here are five other things that you should, but likely do not, know about the oceans.

North Carolina’s attempted ban on sea level rise is a boon for Global Draining researchers

May 31, 2012May 31, 2012 Andrew Thaler 4 Comments

Science

News broke yesterday that NC-20, a lobbying group for coastal development that, among other things, thinks property owners should be allowed to dump chemical waste directly into our watersheds, is sponsoring legislation that would outlaw outlaw sea level rise. Ignoring the fact that you can’t actually sue the ocean, what they’re actually promoting is a law that would prevent the state from using any sea surface model that extrapolates future ocean trends using anything but a linear regression. Essentially, they’re making it illegal for the state to anticipate future changes to the coastline, plan and prepare for potential flooding, or restrict development on transient barrier islands.