Science – Page 79 – Southern Fried Science

10 reasons why marine mammals aren’t as cute as you think they are

April 8, 2010October 31, 2013 David Shiffman 44 Comments

Science

When people learn that I’m a marine biologist, they often assume I got into this career because I want to be a dolphin trainer. The general public seems to believe that marine mammals are cute and cuddly and innocent, but sharks are cruel and evil and bad. In reality, nature is an amoral place- our morality is, by necessity, anthropocentric and doesn’t really relate to the wild behavior of animals. If this wasn’t the case, though, here are ten reasons why marine mammals aren’t as cute and cuddly and innocent as people sometimes think they are.

Reader mail: Sustainable shark finning?

April 5, 2010April 5, 2010 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Conservation, Science

Our latest reader mail comes from my friend Mike, who writes for the conservative political blog SaveTheGop. Though we don’t agree on much, he’s usually a reasonable guy. His question concerns a post I recently wrote about Hawaii’s proposed bill to ban the sale of shark fins within their state.

WhySharksMatter’s 2nd PCR

April 5, 2010April 5, 2010 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Science

After the failure of my first PCR, we tried again. This one is more successful. Of my 7 samples, 5 amplified. We aren’t sure why the other two didn’t, so I’m going to try to re-extract DNA from them and try a few different primers with them this week.

Read More “WhySharksMatter’s 2nd PCR” »

An update on WhySharksMatter’s first PCR

March 31, 2010April 4, 2010 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Science

I know that many of you have been losing sleep over the questionable quality of my first PCR and gel. Well, the mystery has been solved! My lab partner made the gel with DI water instead of with TAE/agarose solution. Not only is that an easily fixable problem for the future… it’s something that, for … Read More “An update on WhySharksMatter’s first PCR” »

WhySharksMatter in College of Charleston magazine

March 30, 2010April 4, 2010 David Shiffman

Conservation, Science

The most recent issue of the College of Charleston magazine came out this week, and it features an article about sharks by yours truly! Check it out below. Suggestions and critiques are appreciated. I know it’s hard to read- here is a link to the online article.

Crowdsourcing ConGen – Populations in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

March 27, 2010April 4, 2010 Andrew Thaler

Conservation, Science

This post is part of the Crowdsourcing ConGen project. Crowdsourcing is the process of opening up a resource to a community for input and contributions. Throughout the coming year I’ll be posting manageable pieces of this document for the audience of Southern Fried Science to read and review. Please visit the main post for an overview.

“I have never done anything useful. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.” ~ Godfrey Harold Hardy

The simplest model for a population is one in which the frequencies of alleles and genotypes remains constant from generation to generation. Under this model, there are no outside forces influencing selection, there is no tendency for any allele or genotype to be favored over any other, diploid alleles will recombine randomly in accordance with Mendelian inheritance. A population that behaves this way is said to be in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. This almost never happens.

Kary Mullis’ Eureka Moment

March 26, 2010April 4, 2010 Andrew Thaler

Science

In honor of Dave’s first PCR result (or lack thereof), here’s Dr. Kary Mullis discussing the discovery of the polymerase chain reaction. ~Southern Fried Scientist

WhySharksMatter’s first PCR!

March 25, 2010April 21, 2010 David Shiffman 10 Comments

Science

As promised, here are the results of my first ever PCR. Here is some background:

I am going to be running some population genetics on sandbar shark DNA with the intention of comparing subpopulations from South Carolina with those from Virginia.

I am in the very early stages- seeing which primers work for PCR. Four primers each were tested- called A, B, C and D- on three shark DNA samples and a negative control. Ignore the samples on the bottom, they are from another student’s project. The four samples in the upper right are my negative controls.

The PCR was run yesterday (my first PCR), and I ran the gel today (my first gel).

It seems to me that Primer A is successfully copying my DNA during PCR, while B, C, and D are not.

Reader Mail: Aquariums, seafood, and my shark documentary

March 24, 2010April 4, 2010 David Shiffman 2 Comments

Science

I am pleased to present the first in a new series of posts here at Southern Fried Science- reader mail. If a reader has a question for us, shoot us an e-mail with the subject “reader mail” and we may answer it for you on the blog. Our first questions are about my new shark conservation documentary:

Read More “Reader Mail: Aquariums, seafood, and my shark documentary” »

The Growing Consensus of Global Draining

March 21, 2010March 20, 2010 Andrew Thaler 13 Comments

Science

Since my initial post of the new phenomenon of Global Draining, there has been an outpouring of support and a trickle of criticism (mostly stemming from hydrologists in the pockets of Big Flood Insurance). Dr. M of Deep Sea News kicked it of with an advanced mathematical model of the effects of Global Draining. Micheal Bok from the blog, Arthropoda, chimed in with his personal observation of Global Draining. Jeff Ives has been tweeting his thoughts on the big drain over the last month @thejives.

But my detractors have raised valid criticisms. Primarily that my original study covered too short a time frame and was biased to only a small period of the tidal cycle. To remedy these concerns, I have conducted a new study, tracking the draining of the sea over an 8 days period, by measuring the maximum high tide of each day. The results are shocking.