Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
- One week left! The OpenCTD and Oceanography for Everyone has been selected as a finalist in National Geographic’s Chasing Genius Challenge! Please help me win the People’s Choice award by voting for the OpenCTD. Visit http://www.natgeochasinggenius.com/video/776, create or sign into your Chasing Genius account, and click the yellow star to vote on my video. You can vote once per day until September 15.
- “Everyone is homeless. We can’t help each other because everyone needs help.” Ayana Johnson is working to raise funds (and the Waitt Foundation is matching donations, to help the people of Barbuda, where almost every structure on the island was leveled.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Yes, I would like to pet a giant isopod, thank you.
- We have a new expedition planned to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Join us: Marine Ecology and Underwater Robotics in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
- The Manatee Sheriff sends Manatee officers to rescue stranded manatees in Manatee County.
Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)
- Two Historic Shipwrecks Discovered in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary: Vessels Believed to be Steamer Choctaw and Wooden Bulk Freighter Ohio.
- Too cool! Scientists are preparing to freeze the research vessel Polarstern in sea ice near the North Pole.
- What We Know about the Indisputable Climate Change–Hurricane Connection.
- Dr. Chris Mah explains how Pacific Northwest starfish got their names!
- More from Mah: Can Technology Bring the Deep-Sea to You?
- Hurricane Harvey and the Houston flood: Did Humans Make it Worse? (Part 1: Climate Change).
- Hurricane Harvey and the Houston Flood: Did Humans Make it Worse? (Part 2: Urbanization).
- Seabed Mining: The 30 People Who Could Decide the Fate of the Deep Ocean.
- The Wreck of the Titanic is slowly rotting away, eaten by microbes and the unyielding march of time. The Second Slow Death Of The Titanic.
- Those 3% of scientific papers that deny climate change? A review found them all flawed. Check out the research paper in Lagan, below.
- Swordfish heat their eyes for the hunt. Neat!
- Tests show billions of people globally are drinking water contaminated by plastic particles, with 83% of samples found to be polluted: Plastic fibres found in tap water around the world, study reveals.
- Yeah, this is really not good. 240-year-old nautical maps show coral loss is much worse than we knew.
- Up Against the Wall: The U.S.-Mexico borderlands contain some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in either country. Trump’s wall would imperil all of it.
- The Willamette Week is not messing around: Idiot With Fireworks Starts Columbia River Gorge Fire That Strands 150 Hikers and Threatens Town of Cascade Locks.
Police continue to ask Oregonians to not ruin the state’s most beautiful places by lighting bottle rockets and flares in the woods like a bunch of assholes.
Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)
- Benestad and friends (2017) Learning from mistakes in climate research. DOI:10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5.
- Levin and friends (2017) Adding the third dimension to marine conservation. DOI: 10.1111/conl.12408.
- McMunn (2017) A time-sorting pitfall trap and temperature datalogger for the sampling of surface-active arthropods. DOI: 10.1016/j.ohx.2017.02.001.
- Naim and friends (2017) Fungi found in Mediterranean and North Sea sponges: how specific are they? DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3722.
- Mazor and friends (2017) Trawl exposure and protection of seabed fauna at large spatial scales. DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12622.
Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)
- Another promising scientific career ruined by a mediocre gasbag: She Was a Rising Star at a Major University. Then a Lecherous Professor Made Her Life Hell.
- Nature did not do itself any favors when it published their uncritical editorial on public monuments. It would not have passed peer-review. Nature’s Disastrous ‘Whitewashing’ Editorial.
- German universities plan for life without Elsevier. Related: Sci-Hub Moves to the Center of the Ecosystem.
- I’m sure this will end well: EPA now requires political aide’s sign-off for agency awards, grant applications.
Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)
- Sea Stories: A Butterflyfish’s Journey to Find Delicious Food via Deep Sea News.
- The 3 best ocean books for toddlers, as selected by a very ocean-savvy toddler.
Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)
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 my Patreon campaign to help us keep the servers humming and support other innovative ocean science and conservation initiatives.