Science – Page 76 – Southern Fried Science

Who should you be following for oil spill news?

May 28, 2010May 30, 2010 Andrew Thaler 11 Comments

Update: we’ve promoted this post to a full page on the blog. Please go here for the most up-to-date version. The comment thread will remain active here.

Second Friday at Sea

May 28, 2010May 29, 2010 Bluegrass Blue Crab 1 Comment

Science

My day began with a balancing contest on the stern deck – who could stand on one foot the longest? It was an official welcoming to the world of those with sea legs. The rest of the day blended in with yesterday, when we ran our second diel experiment – nothing new there from the science end.

We pulled up our incubation/grazing experiment to look at the effect of grazers. We had dropped 96 bottles, each a different manipulated community, overboard. Turns out something got hungry and took a bite of the net bag that was holding the bottles underwater. We’d like to think shark, but that’s entirely our imaginations run wild. We spent the entirety of the day after lunch filling up large plastic carboys with water from the Sargasso – a prized medium for phytoplankton researchers. The water out here, though a classic mix of sea elements is very “clean”, meaning it has extremely low levels of organic matter, trace metals, or really any nutrients at all. It’s what makes the waters out here such a beautiful blue and is the reason we haven’t seen much life outside of the phytoplankton in our tubes the entire trip.

One week left: time to get to work!

May 27, 2010May 26, 2010 Bluegrass Blue Crab

Science

rosette — Same boat, different cruise. Recovery of the CTD

A stormy beginning makes for a busy end. We spent the day prepping for a couple of experiments that will happen tomorrow while we’re all awake for the second round of the diel experiment. We sent a go-flow, typically used to collect data on trace minerals in the water, overboard to gracefully collect and filter seawater to be used for growth medium in an incubation experiment. It’s hard to think about treating seawater nicely, but apparently the go-flow apparatus is designed to not split any cells upon entry or exit. This ensures that the phytoplankton we’re trying to grow and measure will have the most realistic experience in their little containers as possible tomorrow.

Project S – The creation of the Rimicanoe

May 26, 2010May 27, 2010 Andrew Thaler 6 Comments

Science

Rimicaris exoculata, the eyeless vent shrimp is an iconic member of hydrothermal vent communities on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The shrimp is characterized by a lack of eyes, an enlarged carapace, chemoautotrophic symbionts that they farm in their gills, and, most curiously, large photoreceptors on the top of its carapace. A solution to the mysterious eyespots was first hypothesized by Cindy Lee Van Dover, who inferred that Rimicaris exoculata can “see” low-level light produced by hydrothermal vent effluent.

Iconic, novel, biologically fascinating; of all the adjectives I can think of to describe Rimicaris exoculata, the one that jumps immediately to mind is sort-of-canoe-shaped. In fact, it’s so sort-of-canoe-shaped that this hydrothermal vent shrimp needs to have a canoe made in its image.

Presenting the grand unveiling of Project S – the Rimicanoe (sensu strictissimo Rimicaris exocu-yacht-a)!

Project S revealed! The <i>Rimicanoe</i> — Project S revealed! The Rimicanoe!

Elasmobranch diversity

May 26, 2010May 26, 2010 David Shiffman 4 Comments

Science

Three weeks ago, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources COASTSPAN survey started it’s 2010 season. I was thrilled- it had been far too long since I was out on a boat catching sharks. The weather report looked good, and our scheduled sample site was only a few miles from where we set the DNR record for most sharks caught in a day (248). On paper, it looked like it was going to be a pretty good day. As it turned out, it was a great day. As we hauled in the first set of the first day of the season, something in the net caught my eye. Despite sampling in this exact location a dozen times before, despite years of working with sharks and two decades of loving sharks, we caught a species that I had never seen before. The smooth dogfish pup, only a few weeks old, made his species the fiftieth I have ever seen. In honor of this occasion, here is a brief excerpt from my upcoming shark conservation book, including pictures of me with some of the 50 species I’ve encountered. Enjoy!

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And sense achieved a great victory – 85 years after Scopes

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010 Andrew Thaler

Science

85 years ago today John Scopes was indicted for violating the Butler Law – a law that made it illegal to teach evolution in Tennessee. The Scopes Trial, engineered by several parties to bring attention to both Dayton, Tennessee and the controversial anti-evolution laws, left a lasting mark on America’s legal system and the public perception of science. It was the bombastic firebrand H. L. Menken, one of the architects of the trial, that summerised best the spirit of the Monkey Trail:

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

Aftermath by H. L. Mencken

Are sandbar sharks more like bowhead whales or cod?

May 24, 2010December 20, 2011 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Conservation, Science

At first glance, the question posed in the title seems silly. Both cod and sandbar sharks are fish, therefore they must be more similar to each other than either are to bowhead whales (which are mammals). However, a recent conservation genetics paper has demonstrated that one aspect of a sandbar shark’s life history is more similar to that of bowhead whales: both sandbar sharks and bowhead whales have an effective size that is very similar to their census size.

Day 5: Storm with no rain

May 24, 2010 Bluegrass Blue Crab

Science

We’d all been staring at the weather forecast in disbelief for the last couple of days. We had plenty of warning it was coming, but even in the midst of a storm, I don’t believe it’s happening. Why? Because it’s sunny out. However, there are gale force winds outside causing 12-14 foot swells and rocking the boat every which way.

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Unguided deep-sea research is essential for national and global security

May 24, 2010January 14, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Conservation, Science

This Sunday on NPR I heard the following paraphrased comment: “The ROV pilots have never had to deal with anything like this before, no one has trained for the kinds of maneuvers needed to close to well.” I’ve known many ROV pilots. They are all incredibly skilled, know how to handle their robots, and generally have many years of experience working in industrial settings.

But commercial ROV work tends to be monotonous. Many pilots I know spend the vast majority of their time inspecting pipelines and oil rigs, flying over long tracks of seafloor with little to no variation, looking for any signs of damage. When their skills are put to the test, it’s often the same repetitive motion, over and over. Even training simulations to prepare them for catastrophes cannot predict the infinite variations that could occur as an oil-rig collapses. It’s impossible to train for everything.

Until you throw a biologist into the mix.

Bio ex machina – Craig Venter unveils synthetic life

May 24, 2010 Andrew Thaler

Science