Science – Page 53 – Southern Fried Science

Western Australia’s sharks need your help!

October 23, 2011 David Shiffman 14 Comments

great-white-shark_559_600x450 — Great White Shark. Image courtesy animals.NationalGeographic.com

Last week, I wrote about three current shark conservation issues, including a proposed shark cull in Western Australia. Barbara Wueringer was able to deliver her letter to Western Australian government officials on Friday, and thanks to your help, it was signed by more than 100 scientists and conservationists from all over the world.

Yesterday, however, another swimmer was killed by a shark in Western Australian waters. George Thomas Wainwright, 32, was a native of Texas who had been working on a boat in Australia. This attack, which is the third in the last two months, has resulted in renewed calls for a “shark cull”. The proposed plan would involve both an attempt to kill the specific shark responsible for killing Mr. Wainwright and a more general killing of all the sharks in the area. It is believed that the shark that killed Mr. Wainwright was a great white shark, also known as a “white pointer” in Australia.

RJD Twitter teach-ins start Monday at 1 with overfishing

October 21, 2011 David Shiffman 3 Comments

Science

My lab, the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami, will be hosting a series of Twitter teach-ins on marine biology and conservation topics. Each teach-in will cover a topic in a series of Tweets, including links to photos and videos, as well as NGO reports, blog posts, and scientific papers which people … Read More “RJD Twitter teach-ins start Monday at 1 with overfishing” »

Climate change deniers continue to be wrong, science words with friends, and support science in the classroom

October 21, 2011October 21, 2011 Andrew Thaler 4 Comments

Science

The bliggityblogsphere has been abuzz with recent finding by the Berkeley Earth Project that independently confirm that global climate change is real. From the BBC:

The Earth’s surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the “Climategate” affair has concluded.

The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa.

source

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has a nice, in depth write-up, that provides some caveats missing from most of the press releases: New independent climate study confirms global warming is real.

Just enough about “Certainly More Than You Want to Know About The Fishes of The Pacific Coast” to pique your curiosity

October 14, 2011October 17, 2011 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

Science

There is a website floating around the interwebs entitled “So you want to be a marine biologist?” that most future marine biologists who came of age in the early 21st century have encountered. The sage page of advice is followed up with “So you want to be a marine biologist, the revenge“. Reading through these two essays, one might come to the conclusion that their author, Dr. Milton Love of the University of California, Santa Barbara, should compose a voluminous tome to the fishes of the Pacific coast. Which is exactly what he’s done. Welcome to Certainly More Than You Want to Know About The Fishes of The Pacific Coast: a postmodern experience.

Despite it’s self-aware title, this book is far more than just an exhaustive guide to the fishes of the Pacific, though it certainly is that. The highly detailed taxonomic descriptions are rich with humor and insight into the ecology, behavior, and physiology of, if not each species, than each genus or species complex. Interspersed among the taxa are descriptions of prominent Pacific researchers, anecdotes from a lifetime of work on the water, stories by people who lived, worked, and fished these species, and the occasional poem, song, or limerick. Somehow, these disparate units manage to complement each other in a way that makes you want to read what is essential a taxonomy textbook cover-to-cover.

Securing the Conservation of Sharks and Rays

October 10, 2011October 9, 2011 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Conservation, Science

At the 2nd International Marine Conservation Congress, Dr. Nick Dulvy and the IUCN Shark Specialist Group organized a special symposium called “Securing the Conservation of Sharks and Rays”. This symposium featured leading scientists, international policy experts, the founder of a creative non-profit, a National Geographic conservation photographer… and me. It was, without a doubt, the greatest professional honor of my (admittedly brief so far) career.

Misunderstood Marine Life # 1 – The five biggest myths about Marine Biologists

October 7, 2011November 10, 2011 Andrew Thaler 6 Comments

Popular Culture, Science

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the single most misunderstood marine creature that calls our oceans its home: the rare, elusive, often smelly, occasionally employable, Marine Biologist! For something so incredibly popular, articulate, good-looking, and revered, there sure are a lot of misconceptions about who marine biologists are and what they do. Myth … Read More “Misunderstood Marine Life # 1 – The five biggest myths about Marine Biologists” »

The Pacific Divided

October 7, 2011October 5, 2011 Bluegrass Blue Crab 2 Comments

Science

Challenge: find a map of the Pacific Ocean that includes both Japan and California. Or that focuses on any of the island nations in between.

One of the casualties of mapping a three-dimensional planet on two-dimensional paper is the part of the world that is split between the edges of the paper. Usually, this is the Pacific. As Sarah Palin made famous in the 2008 presidential campaign, as an Alaskan, she can see Russia from her house. While I admit that for Palin, this is an exaggeration, but for the residents of St. Lawrence Island, this view is a reality. In fact, they are as likely (if not more) to speak Russian than English and have the capability of kayaking to Russia if so desired. But your average world map makes that distance look infinite.

Misunderstood Marine Life # 3 – Cryptics and Cryptids

October 6, 2011October 6, 2011 Andrew Thaler

Science

In my mind, where I imagine people are so interested in what I do that they hang on every carefully chosen word I write, I imagine some unspecified mob of readers looking over my I *heart* cryptozoology post and going “Whoa now, pardner!” (yes, you all sound like cowboys in my mind) “You just said there was a difference between cryptozoology and real zoology, but you deal with cryptic species all the time! What’s up with that?”

HAMMERHEAD-5 — Cryptic hammerhead shark. Photo from http://www.physorg.com/news68994294.html

Does shark conservation result in more shark attacks?

October 6, 2011October 5, 2011 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Science

Meet Captain Bill Goldschmitt, an author, blogger, and commercial shark fisherman. Captain Bill is a passionate, opinionated, and influential man in the world of shark conservation and management. Unfortunately, the opinions that he chooses to passionately share are wildly incorrect. Captain Bill is a leading proponent of many ideas that have no basis in reality, including the notion that shark conservation efforts lead to an increased danger for humans from shark attacks.

He repeats this idea often on his blog. In recent months, he has written that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission has declared “open season” on Florida bathers by even considering new shark protection efforts, pleaded with Shark Week to focus more on how dangerous sharks are and less on their dwindling numbers and ecological importance, and compared shark conservationists to those who apologize for al-Qaeda terrorists.

I heart cryptozoology

October 6, 2011October 6, 2011 Andrew Thaler 5 Comments

Science

Cryptozoology, the study of animals whose existence is unproven, lies just south of the boundary between science and pseudoscience. Unlike most psuedoscientific movements, which require adherents to suspend disbelief and ignore the realities of physics, chemistry, medicine, and, well, reality, the foundational principals of cryptozoology – that there are remnant populations of thought-to-be-extinct species and that there are still large, charismatic animals that have not yet been discovered – are grounded in ecology. In deep-sea biology, we discover new species all of the time, some of which are far more fantastical than humans can imagine. Some times, we even discover once extinct species. So it is not much of a leap to go from exploratory zoology to cryptozoology.

Read More “I *heart* cryptozoology” »