Southern Fried Science

The Ocean belongs to everyone. Shouldn’t we all have access to the tools needed to study it?

August 12, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Oceanography for Everyone – The OpenCTD I believe that scientific research should have as few barriers to participation as possible. I believe that not only should the results of scientific research be freely available to the public, but that the tools–software, hardware, and expertise–of science should be made as accessible as possible. In many cases, … Read More “The Ocean belongs to everyone. Shouldn’t we all have access to the tools needed to study it?” »

A Shark Week 2013 retrospective…with memes!

August 12, 2013August 14, 2013 David Shiffman 7 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

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As Shark Week 2013 comes to a close, I wanted to take a look back at which part of my outreach strategy worked (and didn’t work), as well as what I liked and disliked about Shark Week as a whole. Ever since my “15 important shark conservation and management terms explained with memes” post, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to incorporate more internet humor into a blog post, so here goes…

While this Shark Week allowed scientists like myself to reach the public on a large scale, most of the content was...troubling. — While this Shark Week allowed scientists like myself to reach the public on a large scale, most of the content was…troubling.

DiveTracks: because we can’t talk underwater

August 6, 2013August 5, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Science

We’re happy to announce a new experiment in our ongoing effort with casual video adventures. We take short videos from one of our SCUBA diving adventures, watch them together, and do a running commentary about whatever issues, topics, and stories emerge during the video. There’s just two rules – neither of us can have watched … Read More “DiveTracks: because we can’t talk underwater” »

World’s largest group of shark scientists calls on AP and Reuters to resist using the phrase “shark attacks”

August 5, 2013 David Shiffman 7 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture

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The American Elasmobranch Society is the world's oldest and largest professional association of shark and ray scientists — The American Elasmobranch Society is the world’s oldest and largest professional association of shark and ray scientists

The American Elasmobranch Society, the world’s largest professional organization of shark and ray scientists, has issued a resolution calling on the Associated Press Stylebook and the Reuters Style Guide to retire the phrase “shark attack” in favor of a more accurate (and less inflammatory) wording that is scaled to represent real risk and outcomes. The AP Stylebook and Reuters Style Guides are reference guides for journalists and editors which focus on, among other things, reducing the usage of inaccurate and outdated terminology. The latest AP Stylebook, for example, had more than 90 new or updated entries which include encouraging journalists and editors to a stop using terms like “illegal immigrant“, “ethnic cleansing” and “homophobia”.

“Shark scientists in the United States and around the world have great respect for the integrity and reporting of the Associated Press and Reuters. We hope they will act on this recommendation and update their style guides to ensure that the public gets the most accurate information in the reporting of these incidents,” said Lara Ferry, President of the American Elasmobranch Society, who sent a formal letter to the AP Stylebook and Reuters Style Guide.

Currently, although “shark attack” is associated with an image of a large shark and a human fatality, the phrase is used by the media as a catch-all to describe any encounter between a human and a shark, even those that don’t result in any physical contact whatsoever. Fully 38% of reported “shark attacks” in New South Wales, Australia from 1970-2009 resulted in no injury whatsoever. This is misleading and facilitates a perception among the public that sharks are more dangerous than they really are, a perception which has negatively impacted shark conservation and management policy.

“The accuracy in media reporting of shark bites and different human-shark interactions is especially important during the kinds of tragic periods we have seen this summer. The public deserves the best information to make sure there is no confusion between very serious and fatal shark bites and minor incidents,” said Christopher Neff, a Ph.D. student at Sydney University.

In a recent paper, Neff and Bob Hueter of Mote Marine Lab proposed a scaled labeling typology to describe human-shark interactions. This typology covers the full range of these interactions, including:

Two weeks left to Support the OpenCTD and help us build an oceanographic tool for everyone!

August 5, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Science

Wow! Since we launched the OpenCTD we’ve raised nearly $4,000 to help develop an oceanographic tool the anyone can build. But $4,000 is only 40% of our funding goal, and we’ve got 12 days left to fund the rest of the project. If you believe in open source oceanography, think to tools of scientific research … Read More “Two weeks left to Support the OpenCTD and help us build an oceanographic tool for everyone!” »

So, Manta Rays Aren’t a Thing Anymore…

July 29, 2013October 28, 2013 Guest Writer 21 Comments

Science

Neil Aschliman is an Assistant Professor of Biology at St. Ambrose University by day, a freelance artist by night. He earned his PhD in Biology from FSU by recovering the “Tree of Life” for rays, skates and their relatives, and is broadly trained in vertebrate biology and evolution. His personal website can be found at www.iceandshadows.com.

So mantas aren’t a thing anymore… – paraphrase, David Shiffman’s liveblog of my talk at the recent meeting of the American Elasmobranch Society.

Wow, is that going to require some explanation! Did I steal these guys away under cover of night? Did they pull a “so long, and thanks for all the fish” on us? No, this is a story about the power of naming, and one that may have serious implications for the conservation of these amazing animals and their close relatives.

Human beings love to name things. We do it vigorously and redundantly: a single fish species may be christened with a dozen or more common names by people in different geographic areas, times, or even marketing departments! It helps to have an international-standard system of naming animals to give this enterprise some consistency. It doesn’t matter if you know it as Chilean Sea Bass or the Patagonian Toothfish, people worldwide will be happy to confirm for you that Dissostichus eleginoides is indeed one ugly customer.

This system of precise identification in which scientists apply a formal code to name organisms is called binominal nomenclature (“two-part name”). This is often incorrectly called “binomial” nomenclature (“two number,” a mathematical expression), even by professionals! The first part of the name is the genus, which can apply to between one and many species that are closely related and resemble each other. The second part of the name is the specific epithet, which applies to one and only one species. These names are usually derived from Greek and Latin. For example, Batrachognathus volans translates as “flying frog-jawed” one, an apt appellation for an odd pterosaur from the Late Jurassic.

Tweets from the Society for Conservation Biology: Very Large Marine Protected Areas Symposium

July 29, 2013 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Conservation

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The Society for Conservation Biology’s International Congress for Conservation Biology took place from July 21-25th in Baltimore, Maryland. Over 1,500 scientists and conservationists from more than 60 countries participated. Below are selected tweets from the symposium on very large marine protected areas.

Tweets from the Society for Conservation Biology: Marine conservation sessions

July 29, 2013 David Shiffman

Conservation

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The Society for Conservation Biology’s International Congress for Conservation Biology took place from July 21-25th in Baltimore, MD. Over 1,500 scientists and conservationists from more than 60 countries participated. Below are selected tweets from marine conservation (and related) sessions. Talks are in no particular chronological order.

Tweets from the Society for Conservation Biology: Student Networking Workshop

July 29, 2013 David Shiffman

Science

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The Society for Conservation Biology’s International Congress for Conservation Biology took place July 21-25 in Baltimore, MD. Over 1,500 scientists and conservationists from more than 60 countries participated. Below are selected tweets from the student networking workshop, in which experienced professionals gave students their networking advice.

What does an OpenCTD mean to marine ecologists?

July 26, 2013July 25, 2013 Kersey Sturdivant 1 Comment

Science

The OpenCTD–a conductivity-temperature-depth (or CTD) sonde is considered the ‘work-horse’ of oceanography. Three relatively simple probes constitute the CTD and allow researchers to make basic water quality measurements. These fundamental measurements are the foundation upon which marine science is built. As was aptly stated by Dr. Thaler, “Rare is the scientific expedition–whether it be coastal work in shallow estuaries or journeys to the deepest ocean trenches–that doesn’t begin with the humble CTD cast.” CTD’s are commercially produced by a number of companies, but the associated cost of purchasing one of these instruments (ranging from $5,000 to $25,000) is an unacceptable barrier of entry into marine science. Thus the OpenCTD project—an attempt to construct a low-cost CTD that is scientifically applicable—was born.. Our goal is to produce free blue-prints, instructions, and schematics for the physical construction and calibration of a low-cost, open-source CTD. The final cost of the device will be low enough (~$200) to be readily accessible to those interested in constructing one, regardless of financial limits.