Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
In case anyone was under the impression that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is over just because the well has been closed, it isn’t.
We continue to maintain our Gulf of Mexico Oilspill Page and will soon be adding a post-spill section to cover the ongoing effort in the Gulf.
Overfishing is most often implicated as the cause of decreasing fish stocks and that makes a lot of logical sense if you’ve ever seen a large commercial trawler unload its catch. But there very well might be another force at work in the precipitous decline in fish stocks worldwide: pollution. The basic premise is that it takes resources to deal with pollutants that normally would be given to growth and reproduction. Through polluting the ocean, we have selected for the fish individuals that can most effectively divert those resources, inadvertently also selecting for smaller fish that reproduce less. That has huge implications for the fish’s population dynamics and potentially total fish stock. More details below the fold…
Read More “A recipe for the evolution of smaller fish stocks?” »
The stereotype of a scientific diagram is a complex, dry, boring graph. While many earn this reputation, a few make can make people do a double-take. Most of these explain research methods involving live animal test subjects. A few of my favorites are shown below.
It is important to note that these images do not show animal abuse of any kind. All of the experimental procedures shown below were approved by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees because they are the best way to answer important questions about these animals. They were carried out by highly respected professional scientists, and some led to breakthroughs that change how we think about the natural world. They also happen to be quite funny if you view them out of context.
Read More “Great diagrams of science: What are they doing to those animals?” »
Humans, we are fragile creatures. We bend and break and tear. Lacking a rigid exoskeleton, dense armored plates, calcium carbonate shells, our skin becomes our first line of defense against a hostile, machete-filled world. Fortunately, while we do break, we can also heal ourselves through a wonderfully complex system of self-repair.
As stated earlier, this is not a medical blog and we have limited experience discussing medicine. For more detailed and experienced medical blogging, please check out two of my favorite medical blogs, Science-based Medicine and White Coat Underground. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be liveblogging my body’s own healing process as I recover from a machete blow to the head.
The physiology of wound healing and scar formation in the human body is a complicated and fascinating.
Read More “The Way We Heal – the biology of scar formation” »
Those of you following me on twitter have probably heard that I had a little accident this weekend. And by “little accident”, I mean I got hit in the head with a machete. And by “got hit in the head” I really mean hit myself in the head while clearing brush. This has afforded me two opportunities: the first was the chance to see my own skull (how often does that happen?) and the second was the chance to document the healing process.
We don’t do a lot of medical blogging, primarily because we’re not in a medical field. There are excellent resources out there if you’re interested in medical blogging – Science-based Medicine and White Coat Underground are my favorite.
Below the fold are some rather tame pictures (but perhaps disturbing if you don’t like a little gore) of my head, post stitches. Sadly I was not in the right mindset to get a good picture of the injury before repair.
National Geographic’s Great Migrations, a seven part series which premieres November 7th, calls itself a collection of “the most moving stories on Earth”. It focuses on some amazing animals from around the world and the incredible journeys they take to survive. This series was a massive undertaking, with the National Geographic crew spending 2 years traveling more than 420,000 miles over 20 countries. The end result is visually spectacular, full of fascinating science and rich in never-before-told stories of animal behavior. The series itself is an great educational resource, and the website has plenty to offer teachers (particularly the Science page and the Teacher Resources page).
While many of the best-known migrations involve land animals or birds, some marine migrations are also pretty darn great.
All bow before the mighty Wall-of-Shiffman!
Earth is facing a biodiversity crisis so severe that many conservation scientists refer to it as a mass extinction event. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a professional network of 11,000 volunteer scientists belonging to more than 1,000 government and NGO agencies in 160 countries, evaluates species worldwide and determines their risk of extinction. This Red List, which ranks species in increasing risk of extinction – Least Concern, Near Threatened, Conservation Dependent, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild, and Extinct – is described as “the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of plant and animal species”.
Statistics from the Red List are terrifying. One fifth of all evaluated vertebrate species are threatened with extinction, including 12% of birds, 21% of mammals, 30% of amphibians, and 26% of fish. On average, fifty species of amphibians, birds, and mammals move measurably closer to extinction each year. One fifth of the world’s plant species are in danger of extinction. Critical habitat-builders, including 33% of reef building coral species and 14% of seagrass species are in very big trouble.
Read More “Back from the Brink: Victories in Conservation” »
The following photos are from a massive fish kill in a river close to la Guillec, France. According to Dr. Sophie Plouviez, the die-off affected not only fish, but nearly all of the benthic invertebrates in the river. The cause of the die-off has yet to be determined. We are trying to locate the source of the images, and will continue to update as more information become available.
In this week’s Shark Science Monday, University of Tromsø Norwegian Polar Institute researcher Lisa-Marie LeClerc discusses her research on the feeding habits of the Greenland Shark. As always, feel free to ask questions of our interview subject in the comments below. ~WhySharksMatt