Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
Are we really doing this again? Already?
Yes, Animal Planet apparently just re-aired the pair of fake mermaid documentaries. Judging by the search terms coming in, people still have the same questions: “Is Mermaids: the New Evidence Fake?” – YES; “Is Paul Robertson a real marine biologist – NO; and finally, a question that is actually interesting, “What is the Bloop?”
Read More “We know what the Bloop is and it’s not mermaids” »
Early this month, I completed and self-published my first science fiction novel through Amazon’s Kindle Direct publishing service (and, a few days later, as a paperback through Createspace). The ideas for the book were conceived over a long week in August, while vacationing with my parents at a rental house in St. Michaels, Maryland. Wandering through the low-lying eastern shore towns started me thinking about the kinds of stories we would tell hundreds of years from now. Thus, the central conceit of Fleet — that it was not a tale of environmental devastation but of people living their lives in a post-sea-level-rise world — surfaced.
Writing Fleet was a marathon. All told, from the first day that I started outlining characters and deciding what the central story of Fleet — uncovering a human disaster caused by desperation and betrayal, then buried at sea — to the day I hit publish on the Amazon server, Fleet took a little over 3 and a half months, during which time I was also moving across the country, finishing several scientific manuscripts, and looking for a job.
Having now had a few weeks to decompress, I think it’s a good time to reflect on the book, what I tried to accomplish, and where it goes from here.
Read More “A scientist writes science fiction – thoughts on self-publishing my first novel” »
A year ago, David Shiffman published How to live-tweet a conference: A guide for conference organizers and twitter users, an informative and exhaustive guide to using twitter to help promote scientific conferences. Since then, I’m certain you’ve internalized his lessons and become a veteran of the science twitterverse. Now that you’re among the top twitter users in your field, it’s time to address how that changes the way you use twitter to interact with your peers.
How do you know if you’re a twitter veteran? There’s no real, concrete rule but, being that this is a guide for scientists, let’s say that a veteran twitter has significantly more followers than the average twitter user attending the conference. If you sampled the number of followers that each conference attendee on twitter had, you would fall outside of the 95% confidence interval. For a huge tech conference, this might mean you have hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers. For a small, regional conference in a relatively narrow field, this could be a couple of hundred followers.
Read More “A Guide to Tweeting at Scientific Meetings for Social Media Veterans” »
Are you ready to join the crew of Miss Amy? Come explore a future ocean in my maritime science fiction adventure! Fleet: The Complete Collection (Amazon eBook) Fleet: The Complete Collection (Amazon paperback) Fleet: The Complete Collection (Createspace paperback)
With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, we have entered the season for charitable giving. In America alone, there are thousands of ocean conservation organization that rely on donations and grants for their continued operation. Rather than list out our favorites, which tend to get quite a bit of promotion through Southern Fried Science’s various platforms, this year, I am inviting representatives from any ocean conservation organization to promote themselves in the comment thread. So, if your NGO is doing an end of the year fund raiser, if you have an “adopt-a-critter” programs going for the holidays, or if you just want to get the word out about your organization, feel free to leave a comment and let us know a bit about you organization and its goals.
Southern Fried Science has a large, dedicated, and ocean literate audience. Let us know what you’re up to. I promise it will be worth your time.
Much of the media coverage of the life of Paul Walker, who died tragically this past weekend at age 40, has focused on his successful film career. A rare celebrity who even the gossip-obsessed never heard a bad word about , Walker was beloved by his colleagues. However, he once noted that “I’m an actor, that’s my job but it’s … Read More “Rest in peace, “ocean addict” Paul Walker” »
Fleet: The Complete Collection “The sea is big. The sea is cruel. She takes more than she gives. That’s how it’s always been.” The world has changed. Coastal cities lie abandoned as the encroaching sea rises, drowning and reshaping the land. Violent plagues, impervious to antibiotics, sweep across the planet, erasing entire communities in a … Read More “The last climate change refugees fight for survival in this grim view of our future ocean – Fleet: The Complete Collection” »
Happy Thanksgiving Holiday. After hopefully stuffing your bellies with delicious food yesterday, take a moment to quench your curiosity with this addition of FSF!
If you thought that knowledge of the human anatomy was exhaustive, you would be wrong. Orthopedic surgeons, Steven Claes and Johan Bellemans, at the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, recently discovered a previously undescribed ligament in the human knee now known as the anterolateral ligament (ALL). Knowing that I have one more extra anatomical structure in my body than was previously known for some reason makes me feel all warm and cozy inside… or that is the post holiday ‘spirit’ still coursing through my veins. 😉
Read More “Fun Science Friday – New Human Body Part Discovered” »
Today marks the end of Geoff Johns’ 25-issue run as lead writer for Aquaman. It is not hyperbole to say that he revitalized the king of Atlantis and helped cast off the stigma of the Superfriends. Aquaman was no longer a one-trick hero floundering about for relevance, trying to find his plaice in the DC Universe. Johns’ Aquaman had depth. The characters were compelling, the stories engaging. And, after more than 2 years, it was clear that this new Aquaman wasn’t just a fluke.
All puns are most definitely intended.
In honor of Johns’ 25 issue run, it’s time to plumb the depths of his ultimate issue and do what I do best: over-analyze a comic book and dredge up as much tenuous symbolism as possible. This is Southern Fried Science and I’m talking about Aquaman, what else would you expect?
The anglerfish symbolize Aquaman’s relationship with Mera
Here we find Aquaman diving deep into the Trench, searching for an army of lost Atlanteans to command. During the course of his dive, we discover that, though Aquaman is fighting to reclaim Atlantis, his one overarching goal is to find his wife, Mera. It is not a coincidence that we see him surrounded by deep-sea anglerfish — Melanocetus johnsonii to be precise. In many ways, the life-history of the anglerfish mimics Aquaman’s relationship to Mera.
Read More “A deep-sea ecologist over-analyzes Aquaman #25” »
Just in time for your Thanksgiving travels, Fleet: Horizon, the dramatic conclusion to the Fleet serial, has arrived a few days early! Head on over to the Amazon Kindle Store and check it out! As always, if you’re new to Fleet, please visit my Amazon author’s page to find the previous 3 installments. Enjoy! Previous … Read More “Fleet: Horizon has arrived!” »
