Foghorn (A Call to Action!)
- It’s time for Africosh! The annual Africa Open Science and Hardware Summit Heads is in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania this year!
- LUMCON is hiring! They’re looking for two exceptional coastal and marine science faculty hires in any discipline. And they have the best “come work for us” video!
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Hakai Magazine is my jam this month.
- How an Epidemic Exposed the Ecological Importance of Sea Stars: The near eradication of British Columbia’s sea stars demonstrated the dynamic role they play in regulating kelp forests.
- How to Dismantle a Blue Whale: In Chile, a team of volunteers confronts stench and gore to ensure a new life for a dead whale. [Warning: Link contains graphic pictures of whale evisceration]
- I’ve been following this project for almost 2 years. Awesome to see how far they’ve come. NinjaPCR is a WiFi enabled, Opensource DNA Amplifier and Thermocycler for Polymerase Chain Reaction developed by 2 hackers in Tokyo.
- Plastic wrap made from shellfish and plants is completely compostable.
Hagfish (just Hagfish)
- Yes, people do eat hagfish. Yum! Snake-like creature writhes, squirms on grill.
- Hagfish are the emissaries of love, not war. Stop it. Synthetic ‘Slime’ To Help US Navy Trap Enemy Ships.
The Gam (conversations from the ocean-podcasting world)
Jetsam (what we’re reading from around the web)
We’re trying something a little different this week, with a couple of large categories to cover big, frequent themes as well as your regular link round up.
- Hawaiian Corals Are Adapting to Warmer Waters, But It May Not Be Enough.
- The cataclysmic cost of Trump’s ‘war on oceans’.
- War on Sharks: How rogue fishing fleets plunder the ocean’s top predator
Courtesy of the Ecuadorian Navy
- How DNA Sequencing Is Revealing New Insights About Ocean Health.
- Even wolves aren’t safe from those deadly coastal elites. Some of the Pacific Northwest’s Wolves Have Coastal Genes.
- The Fossil Fuel Propaganda Machine Is Still Playing the Victim.
- From oceanbites: Who Governs the Ocean Around Antarctica?
- Take only selfies, don’t even leave footprints. Social Media Might Not Ruin Nature, After All.
- That’s going to be a pretty big no. If vaquitas disappear they can be cloned, says environment chief.
- NOAA’s First All-Female Hurricane Hunter Crew Flew Fearlessly Into Hurricane Hector.
- Tanker Owners are Scrapping the Most Ships in Decades.
- It’s Tough Being a Right Whale These Days: Life can be hell for giants of the deep—but does it have to be?
- Gold Rush – deep-sea mining in review:
- Experts come up with plan for protecting deep-sea life from mining.
- The Interminable Debate Around Deep Sea Mining Regulations.
- Hurry Up and Wait: Big Decisions on Seabed Mining Remain Unresolved.
- Murky waters: Deep-sea miners say they offer a clean, ethical way to harvest precious metals for a low-carbon future. Environmentalists aren’t convinced.
- The Bloat – everything terrible happening to marine mammals this week:
- The stunning, devastating, weekslong journey of an orca and her dead calf.
- A giant blue whale washed up dead on a beach in Japan — and it’s the country’s first ever sighting of the animal.
- WTF?! Animals Keep Secretly Dying At This Mysterious Marine Park.
- Seriously, WTAF?! A Pregnant Dolphin. A Fatal Gunshot. A Disturbing Trend.
- Conservationists Slam Porpoises’ Relocation to Aquariums.
- Whale rescued from Indian Shores beach dies during rehab.
- Landlubbers – the conservation struggles of our terrestrial peers:
- We’re finally starting to see critical coverage of The Ocean Cleanup: Device to clean-up Great Pacific Garbage Patch could harm wildlife, warn conservationists.
- A ‘Shipwreck’ Hotel Has Opened on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast.
- Native Hawaiians Turn to Ancient Traditions to Save Their Reefs.
- What’s the Most Surprising Thing You’ve Ever Found Washed Up on the Beach? Comment below!
Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)
- Watson (2018) “Winners” and “losers” in the Anthropocene: Understanding adaptation through phenotypic plasticity. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.13108.
- Fallon and friends (2018) Designing an experimental approach to simulate the mining process of
seafloor sulphide ore deposits. DOI: 10.1080/03717453.2017.1306248. - Bucciarelli and friends (2018) Assessing effects of non‐native crayfish on mosquito survival. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13198.
- Gammon and friends (2018) The physiological response of the deep-sea coral Solenosmilia variabilis to ocean acidification. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5236.
- Washburn and friends (2018) Macrobenthic infaunal communities associated with deep‐sea hydrocarbon seeps in the northern Gulf of Mexico. DOI: 10.1111/maec.12508.
- Yeo and friends (2018) Assessment of the Mineral Resource Potential of Atlantic Ferromanganese Crusts Based on Their Growth History, Microstructure, and Texture. DOI: 10.3390/min8080327.
- Laming and friends (2018) Lifecycle ecology of deep-sea chemosymbiotic mussels: a review. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00282.
Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)
- It’s been close to a year now, but I’m still slowly making my way through the new translation of Homer’s Odyssey. It’s pretty fantastic.
Feel free to share your own Foghorns, Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Shipping News, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. If you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to our Patreon campaign. For just $5 per month, you can support the SFS Writers Fund, which helps compensate your favorite ocean science and conservation bloggers for their efforts.
