Uncategorized – Page 5 – Southern Fried Science

Book review: “Shark Research: Emerging Technologies and Applications for the Field and Laboratory”

June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 David Shiffman

Reviews and Interviews, Science, Uncategorized

Editors: Jeffrey C. Carrier, Michael R. Heithaus, Colin A. Simpfendorfer. CRC Press, available here.

I can’t imagine a more useful introductory reference guide for new or prospective graduate students starting their career in marine biology than “Shark Research: Emerging Technologies and Applications for the Field And Laboratory”. This book is designed for people who have little to no familiarity with a research discipline but are about to start working in that discipline, a large and important audience that is often ignored by books and review papers geared towards people who are already experts. So many graduate students are told to learn a new research method by reading technical literature that assumes they already know this stuff, resulting in stress and frustration.

I spent 50 days working out in Virtual Reality and everything went better than expected.

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 Andrew Thaler

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For the last several years, I’ve been working off the weight gained and fitness lost from a decade of grad school, post-doctoral research, job hunting, and, ultimately, launching my own company. The gym, to put it mildly, had not been a priority. Running and weight training went a long way towards getting me back to where I wanted to be, but I had hit a plateau. Every spring and summer I’d make incremental improvements, every winter, I’d fall back into old habits. It was a sustainable situation, but not fantastic.

Last summer, I set a goal for myself. While the weather was just on the wrong side of that threshold that makes running something I’m willing to do first thing in the morning, I would instead swap out my sneakers for an Oculus Rift, and spend an hour, four or five days a week, playing fitness-oriented virtual reality games, for fifty sessions. That schedule would get me through the winter and hopefully keep me more active than I otherwise would.

To better illustrate this plan, I made a GIF, just for you:

Yes, it’s me. Yes, we put googly eyes on the Oculus.

Unsurprisingly, the science behind Virtual Reality and exercise is still in its infancy.

New paper: feeding ecology of South Florida sharks

March 29, 2019April 1, 2019 David Shiffman

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We have a new paper out today in the journal Aquatic Ecology! Read it here, open access copy here. This is the last paper from my Ph.D. dissertation, and coauthors include my Ph.D. advisor Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, Ph.D. committee member Dr. Mike Heithaus, and colleague Dr. Les Kaufman. It’s called “Intraspecific Differences in Relative Isotopic Niche Area and Overlap of Co-occurring Sharks,” which I think rolls right off the tongue and would make a pretty sweet band name. This research was crowdfunded by the SciFund challenge a few years ago, so thanks again for your support! I want to tell you a little bit about what we did and what we found!

All the times gender bias has reared its ugly head

March 28, 2019March 28, 2019 Bluegrass Blue Crab 2 Comments

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Maybe it’s because I’m actually intimidating, but I for the most part consider myself fairly lucky as a woman in science. I’ve been fortunate enough to escape the horror stories of exploitation and sexual harassment that fill many of my colleagues’ journals. Yet, the recent story about the lack of medium-sized spacesuits – and the social media chatter about lack of women’s field gear – hit a nerve. It made me question my perceived luck.

I also remembered reading other women’s long list of times gender bias reared its ugly head in a career perfectly devoid of major sexual misconduct. I bet I could write that, I thought to myself. I wonder how long the list would be. So here goes, starting with the most egregious:

30 Earth Month Heroes

March 28, 2019March 28, 2019 Angelo Villagomez 2 Comments

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Earth Day is April 22, which makes next month Earth Month. I’d like to invite you to participate in a Twitter hashtag campaign for the entire month. The purpose of this campaign is to bring some attention and praise to the people who are doing great conservation work. I’m calling the campaign #30EarthMonthHeroes. Participation is … Read More “30 Earth Month Heroes” »

With no Blue Book for program guidance, Congress will hold its first hearing on Defunding NOAA, today.

March 27, 2019March 27, 2019 Andrew Thaler

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At 10:15 AM, the House Appropriations Committee will meet to discuss The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2020, an aggressively uninspired document that fundamentally dismantles America’s premier ocean and climate research agency and will cause immeasurable destruction to out coastal communities and economies. You can watch the hearing live, here: … Read More “With no Blue Book for program guidance, Congress will hold its first hearing on Defunding NOAA, today.” »

Commerce Unveils a Budget to Decimate NOAA

March 26, 2019March 26, 2019 Andrew Thaler

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Late yesterday afternoon, the Department of Commerce unveiled its long awaited budget proposal. Designed in large part to free up funding for President Trump’s ill-conceived, wasteful, and wildly unpopular wall on the Southern Border, it includes cuts to NOAA programs so deep that America’s coastal communities and coastal economies will take generations to recover. Read … Read More “Commerce Unveils a Budget to Decimate NOAA” »

Trump’s 2020 Budget will be a Disaster for America’s Coastal Economies

March 19, 2019March 20, 2019 Andrew Thaler

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Yesterday the Trump Administration unveiled its proposed budget for fiscal year 2020. This budget contains steep cuts research, education, and social services in order to fund the construction of the border wall. Chief among the cuts is an unprecedented reduction in funding for NOAA, which functionally disbands several core research programs within Ocean Services. From A Budget for a Better America:

“The Budget also proposes to eliminate funding for several lower priority NOAA grant and education programs, including Sea Grant, Coastal Zone Management Grants, and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.”
A Budget for a Better America, page 21

Rumblings on the hill suggest that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross plans to unveil his own plan to drastically reduce the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and permanently hamstring NOAA in furtherance of the Administration’s goal to find funding to construct a wall on the US southern border.

These cuts include zeroing out the budget for the following agencies and programs:

NOAA SeaGrant
NOAA Coastal Zone Management Program
National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)
Pacific Salmon Restoration Program
Potentially at least one fisheries laboratory

These cuts would be catastrophic America’s Coastal Communities and Economies, especially in places like North Carolina, Maryland, and Louisiana.

Decoding the Superpowers of the Great White Shark

February 25, 2019February 26, 2019 Chuck Bangley

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Sharks are often thought of in terms of superlatives, and perhaps no species has racked up as many “mosts” as the Great White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias. This is the star of “Jaws” after all, and probably the species most people who aren’t devoted to being familiar with fish visualize when they hear the word “shark.” Thanks to new research by Marra and friends (2019), we’re becoming familiar with the White Shark on the most basic level of all: the genetic level.

Not every species has had its entire genome decoded, and the White Shark is one of only a handful shark species to get this level of attention. The Whale Shark and the Elephant Shark (actually a species of chimera) have also had their genetic codes mapped, providing a couple of fairly closely-related species for comparison. By comparing the full genome of the White Shark with these other shark species and other vertebrates, the authors were able to identify specific mutations that have stood the tests of time and natural selection. Many of these genes are associated with the very traits that have made sharks such incredible survivors for going on 450 million years.