Welcome back! We missed a week while I was traveling across the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and Guam, so dig in and enjoy!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• The Mariana Trench!

• It’s the deepest place on the planet and we’ve been all hands on deck sharing the latest science from the bottom of the ocean with our friends in Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam. Check out our expedition on OpenExplorer for a blow by blow of the 12-day adventure. Visit the Friends of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument Facebook page for more exciting stories from the field. We even got some nice coverage in the local press: Marine scientists talks about Marianas Trench at Rotary and Marianas Trench Marine National Monument to be discussed on ‘Your Humanities Half-Hour’.
• The Guam Daily Post has my favorite coverage of this adventure: With the help of a tiny robot, scientists deepen support for a Mariana Trench sanctuary.

Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)

• More Trench! Scientists have identified that mysterious, metallic sound coming from the Mariana Trench and we’ve never heard anything like it.
• Last of the Guinea Marsh Watermen. An utterly fascinating look at a slowly dying fishing community right down the road from my old farm.
• Deep-Sea Ghost Shark Filmed Alive In Ocean For First Time, and you’ll never believe what the funny retractable appendage on its head is. Spoiler: it’s genitals.
• With the help of OpenROV, a new marine protected area appears in Mexico: Building New Marine Protected Areas with Fishermen and Underwater Drones.
• Big wave story is big. Our friends at Deep Sea News always have the biggest stories.

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

• David’s thesis is finally out! Read it, read his overview of it, or read his tweets. Or listen to him talk about his work on Speak Up for the Blue Podcast.
• Strehlow and friends (2016) Using a thermistor flowmeter with attached video camera for monitoring sponge excurrent speed and oscular behaviour. PeerJ. 4:e2761.
• Guardiola and friends (2016) Spatio-temporal monitoring of deep-sea communities using metabarcoding of sediment DNA and RNA. PeerJ 4:e2807.

Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)

• Kersey wrote a book! Read Kersey’s book, and find out the one simple trick to dominating grad school applications (spoilers: there’s no one simple trick for anything, ever).
• Hook Jaw #1. Great white sharks, Somali pirates, sarcastic, grizzled marine biologist and plucky, naive Navy frogmen. It’s almost like this comic book was written for Southern Fried Science. 10 out of 10, would read again.

Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)

• Moana has had me thinking about celestial navigation all week. Check out this classic bit of Southern Fried Science on how to navigate via the stars, on Mars.

Feel free to share your own Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. And, of as always, if you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to my Patreon campaign to help us keep the servers humming.