Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• Ruby Sea Dragons! For the First Time, a Ruby Sea Dragon has been filmed in the wild, and it is magnificent.

• Some SFS deep history: I got my start in marine science working in a seahorse lab. Seahorses are among my favorite animals.

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

• The archives from the voyage of the HMS Challenger are online! Get lost in them for day.
• A “phantom fleet” of Vietnamese fishing vessels are spreading across the Pacific. What in the world is going on with this new, blue threat?
• Trilobites laid eggs. What? You need me to give you even more context? Trilobites. Laid. Eggs.
• Oceanbites is all about killifishes and the virtues of genetic diversity, right now.
• Largest ever shark was doomed by its taste for dwarf whales. Look, Dave, sharks!

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

• Filer and Gabriel (2017) How could nautilus minerals get a social licence to operate the world’s first deep sea mine? Marine Policy. In Press.
• Fiore and friends (2017) Sponge exhalent seawater contains a unique chemical profile of dissolved organic matter. PeerJ. 5:e2870.
• Chichvarkhin A. (2017) Henricia djakonovi sp. nov. (Echinodermata, Echinasteridae): a new sea star species from the Sea of Japan. PeerJ. 5:e2863.
• Kelly and friends (2017) Genetic and Manual Survey Methods Yield Different and Complementary Views of an Ecosystem. Frontiers in Marine Science. 3:283.
• Gerringer and friends (2017) Comparative feeding ecology of abyssal and hadal fishes through stomach content and amino acid isotope analysis. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers. In Press.

Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)

• March by Congressman John Lewis. Congressman John Lewis, one of the leaders of the Civil Right Movement, is an American hero. In March, a three volume graphic novel, Lewis digs deep into both his personal history and the history and legacy of the movement. It’s a powerful, emotional read.
• This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century by  Mark and Paul Engler. This is an Uprising tackles the modern evolution of protest movements and tracks the structural framework for how social transformations occur.

Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)

Last January, we did an exercise in science fiction, publishing stories about the ocean future from 2041. Looking back, here are a few of my favorites that seem particularly relevant today:

• When we ate the rich.
• Welcome to the Future: Three Rules for Artificially Intelligent Underwater Robots.
• Technocracy and the Sea

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.