Southern Fried Science

28 fallacies about the Fukushima nuclear disaster’s effect on the US West Coast

October 29, 2013November 4, 2013 Andrew Thaler 51 Comments

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is back in the news, with recent reports of continued leaks. Coming on the heels of these new reports is a viral blog post entitled 28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima. The article is a paranoid, poorly reasoned attempt to link the tragedy of the Fukushima disaster to just about every environmental issue facing the US west coast in the last few months. At its best, it’s an illogical piece of post-modern absurdism. At its worst, its empirically false and intentionally misleading, rife with out-of-context quotes and cherry-picked data. The author had 28 chances to make a single reasonable point, and every single one rang hollow.

Of course it went viral.

Shut the Box – a short story from the fleet

October 28, 2013 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

Popular Culture

Fleet is a dystopian maritime adventure in which sea level rise and disease has driven the last survivors of the human race to sea. I’m releasing the story in serials — 3 chapters on the first Monday of each month — on Amazon. Loyal readers who can’t wait for the next installment can slate their thirst with a series of short stories set in the world of Fleet that will be published on Southern Fried Science every few weeks. Please enjoy the third of these distractions, Shut the Box, where we get to learn a little more about a few of my favorite captains and some of the tangled history of the fleet.

“Who gets the first roll?” Captain Binnacle asked as she carried four very full glasses of Gill’s special reserve into the lounge.

“Captain’s prerogative, dear.” Captain Grease-pen was sprawled across the long couch that ran the length of Shellfish Lover’s main room.

“Very well, Windlass, you’re up!” She passed the glasses to her three guests. It was a quiet mid-week night in the fleet, and the four women were gathered for their regular game of shut-the-box. With fuel rations in full effect, it seemed like they were gathering for drinks every night.

Check out the cover for Fleet: Dereliction, part 3 of my maritime science fiction serial!

October 28, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Popular Culture

Fleet: Dereliction premiers next Monday! With the fleet split in two and its most valuable ship stolen, the Admiral has to deal with the fallout from the first mutiny in recent memory. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Reach, the trio of mutineers finally discover the dark secret behind a mysterious shipwreck.

This has been my favorite installment to write. You’re going to finally learn the truth about several characters. Motivations will be revealed. Most importantly, the story that’s been hinted out throughout the last two installments will finally be told. This was also may favorite cover to design. There’s a great story behind that image, which I can’t tell yet as it might give away some of the plot.

Welcome to a shiny new Southern Fried Science

October 28, 2013October 28, 2013 Andrew Thaler 6 Comments

Blogging

For almost all of our five year run, Southern Fried Science has had the same three column, blue-background scheme. It’s finally time for the old blog to get a new coat of paint. Welcome to the new, improved Southern Fried Science! We’ve stripped away the bells and whistles that began multiplying on the sidebars in … Read More “Welcome to a shiny new Southern Fried Science” »

Happy Fun Science Friday – First Venomous Crustacean

October 25, 2013October 28, 2013 Kersey Sturdivant 4 Comments

Science

Happy Fun Science Friday everyone! After a busy semester I hope to get into the regular groove of Fun Science Friday posts.

This week I bring you the first and only known venomous crustacean, the remipede Speleonectes tulumensis.

These crustaceans were first discovered in the 1980s and suspected to be venomous after documentation that behind their jaws, they had a pair of sharp, hollow-tipped fangs that were connected to glands. This was a strong indication that the fangs were being used to inject a chemical into prey, though it was never proven…. Until now! Step forward Bjorn von Reumont, from the Natural History Museum in London, whose team thoroughly described the fangs and characterized the cocktail of toxins in the venom of S. tulumensis.

CNN is airing “Blackfish” Thursday at 9. Watch with us and join the live twitter chat!

October 23, 2013October 27, 2013 David Shiffman 2 Comments

On Thursday, October 24th at 9:00 P.M. eastern time, CNN will be airing Blackfish, the critically-acclaimed documentary about orca whale captivity and SeaWorld. Be sure to check out Southern Fried Science’s review (and fact-check) of the film. Blackfish will be followed by a live debate at 11:00 hosted by Anderson Cooper. The debate will feature … Read More “CNN is airing “Blackfish” Thursday at 9. Watch with us and join the live twitter chat!” »

How to #DrownYourTown: a step by step guide to modeling sea level rise in Google Earth

October 18, 2013November 1, 2013 Andrew Thaler 4 Comments

#DrownYourTown

We’ve reached the point in the program where requests for #DrownYourTown are coming in faster than I can process. That’s great! It means people are really connecting with the #DrownYourTown hashtag as a way to bring the concept (if not the specific details) of sea level rise home. The response has been greater than I ever imagined!

So, rather than leave people high and dry (we wouldn’t want that, would we), here is a step by step guide to simulating sea level rise anywhere in the world using Google Earth and a little geographic wizardry. The best part? It can all be done with completely free software.

1. Download Google Earth — you can find it here. Take some time to play around with it. Google packed this free package with some awesome features.

Welcome back, U.S. government science and environment agencies!

October 17, 2013October 27, 2013 David Shiffman

On October 17th, after a 16 day shutdown, the U.S. government re-opened. Here are what the twitter accounts from U.S. science and environment agencies had to say on their first day back. I’ll continue to update this throughout the day as more twitter accounts come back online

#DrownYourTown: Exploring Sea Level Rise through real-time, interactive, GIS modeling

October 16, 2013November 1, 2013 Andrew Thaler 4 Comments

#DrownYourTown, Science

UPDATE: These posts, and the hashtag are getting a lot of attention, so I’d like to reiterate, Caveat Tweetor (twitter beware) — these models are being generated on the fly as request come in. They are not validated and there are many variables that influence sea level rise which are not taken into account. This is a fun way to visualize potential sea level rise but it would be inadvisable to use it for real estate speculation.

This afternoon, I took to twitter to try out a novel outreach initiative — getting people to think about sea level rise by asking them to drown their home towns. With Google Earth and a “Sea Level” image layer booted up, I was poised for 2 hours of intense map manipulation. The requests came in fast, and ranged from the expected coastal cities with a couple meters of sea level rise all the way to the radical (yes, we flooded Reno, Nevada). After 120 minutes, I had produced models at 52 locations and interacted with more than 400 people. I was also completely exhausted. Here, for your enjoyment, is the complete collection of #DrownYourTown models from the initial 2-hour marathon.

Science in the Fleet: What would your hometown look like with 80 meters Sea Level Rise

October 16, 2013April 29, 2014 Andrew Thaler 33 Comments

#DrownYourTown, Popular Culture

The central conceit in the world of Fleet–my dystopian maritime science fiction serial adventure–is that sea level has risen 80 meters, an extreme maximum projection under global climate change prediction (INSERT LINK TO USGS DATA HERE AFTER SHUTDOWN ENDS – UPDATE: Oh, neat, we have a federal government again. Here’s the source). Since 80 meters is pretty hard to visualize, I turned to Google Earth to help me simulate what our world would look like under those conditions, starting with my new residence in San Francisco:

Oh, but we’re not done yet.