Southern Fried Science

World’s only giant squid pulls off greatest prank in history

April 1, 2013April 1, 2013 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Science

There is only one giant squid, her name is Ducky, and she’s orchestrated the greatest prank in history.

No, I don’t mean that there’s only one species of giant squid, Architeuthis dux, as was recently revealed by marine science rising star Inger Winkelmann, although it’s true. I mean that there is only one individual Archituethis dux, her name must naturally be Ducky, and, for the last 3 decades, she’s been messing with us.

Let us review the evidence:

15 important shark conservation and management terms explained with memes

April 1, 2013April 2, 2013 David Shiffman 9 Comments

Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

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If interested citizens want to get involved in conservation and management policy, it’s absolutely vital to use proper terminology. The policy world can be full of confusing jargon, but there are few ways to discredit yourself in the eyes of decision makers as quickly as using a critical term incorrectly. In fact, it isn’t uncommon for a decision maker’s response to a petition or public comment to consist entirely of correcting inaccurate terminology, if a response is issued at all. There are well over 100 acronyms and terms that I’ve seen regularly used, but in the interest of brevity, I’ve selected what I believe to be the 15 most important terms that I’ve seen people repeatedly use incorrectly.

For each term, I’ve provided a definition from a scientific paper or technical report whenever possible. I have also provided some additional explanation in my own words, and some assistance from familiar memes. Whenever possible, I’ve linked to blog posts, articles, or websites that provide even more information. Most of these terms are broadly applicable to fisheries management policy, but some are specific to shark fisheries. It is not my intention with this post to strongly advocate for or against any specific policy (I do plenty of that with other posts), but to make sure everyone is speaking the same language.

Sea Leveler Update

March 29, 2013October 28, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Earlier this week I launched the Sea Leveler, and open-source, arduino-powered, water level meter that measure the activity of tweets about #sealevelrise on twitter. Not surprisingly, the first full week of trial revealed a few bugs in the machine. The first thing you’ll notice is that, in addition to recording tweets about sea level rise, … Read More “Sea Leveler Update” »

Advice I Took For Granted For Grad School

March 28, 2013 Bluegrass Blue Crab 8 Comments

Uncategorized

Over dinner one cold winter night my last year as an undergraduate, my advisor casually mentioned that unless I was offered a stipend, it wasn’t really an acceptance into graduate school. This was specific to my case to a certain degree – looking for a PhD program in the environmental sciences – but his words stayed with me. When it came time to choose schools, the 5 years of funding Duke offered me made a large part of my decision as to which graduate school I attended.

In a world where PhD students begin bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but often graduate unemployed, I’ve come to reflect upon this advice a bit more. I’ve had 5 years of support, essentially as an employee, and am now on my own to find my path in the world. But I didn’t saddle debt for my graduate education and could choose to parlay many of the skills learned (writing, teaching, project management) to any other career, should I choose. Compare this to other students, who saddle enormous debt for a master’s or doctorate expecting that this guarantees them a job able to pay off that debt. Thank goodness I listened over ziti that night.

Of Fin-Body Ratios and Smooth Dogfish -UPDATED

March 27, 2013October 28, 2013 Chuck Bangley 4 Comments

Conservation

As you may have noticed from the previous post, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is proposing draft addendum to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for coastal sharks to bring it in line with the current Federal regulations. These regulations are based on the Shark Conservation Act of 2010, which required all sharks fished in US waters to be landed with fins still attached… with the exception of a familiar yet under-studied species known as Mustelus canis, the smooth dogfish. These sharks can still be finned in Federal waters as long as the weight of fins does not exceed 12% of the weight of the finless carcasses. This exception was glaring not just because it singled out one species with a relatively limited range compared to other species in the fishery, but also brought out that seemingly absurd 12% fin-body weight ratio. The addendum is open for public comment until March 28th at 5 pm. With any luck, this post will help clarify some of the issues involved.

A Call to Action: Preventing a Potential Setback in U.S. Atlantic Shark Finning Policy

March 27, 2013October 27, 2013 Guest Writer 12 Comments

Conservation

Sonja Fordham President, Shark Advocates International — Sonja Fordham
President, Shark Advocates International

Sonja Fordham founded Shark Advocates International as a project of The Ocean Foundation in 2010 based on her two decades of shark conservation experience at Ocean Conservancy. She is Deputy Chair of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group and Conservation Committee Chair for the American Elasmobranch Society, has co-authored numerous publications on shark fisheries management, and serves on most of the U.S. federal and state government advisory panels relevant to sharks and rays. Her awards include the U.S. Department of Commerce Environmental Hero Award, the Peter Benchley Shark Conservation Award, and the IUCN Harry Messel Award for Conservation Leadership.

After many months of intense attention to advances in international shark conservation policy through CITES and the European Parliament, it’s time to refocus on sharks in my backyard. A potentially terrible shark policy precedent has been brewing through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), and threatens to weaken that body’s coast-wide ban on finning (slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea) smoothhounds and other sharks. Help from the concerned public is needed in the final few days of the official public comment for this proposal!

Meet Sea Leveler: the open source water level gauge that wants you to talk about #sealevelrise

March 26, 2013March 14, 2022 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

Science

The Sea Leveler, an open source water level gauge that measures activity on twitter. — The Sea Leveler, an open source, arduino-powered, water level gauge that measures activity on twitter.

Two weeks ago, a machine was left on the “free” table at my lab that surprised me–a beautiful stainless steel mechanical water level gauge, on of those old ones with a flywheel in the back that drives the mechanism. Seeing this made me realize that there must be thousands of old scientific devices rusting away in laboratories across the country, obsolete but too well-build to just be thrown out. Then, I thought, there must be some way to take these old tools, some of them elegant, hand crafted works of industrial art, and give them a second life. For Science Online Oceans, I proposed a section on “Hacking the Ocean” developing low-cost, DIY instrumentation to make oceanography accessible to a broader community, but could that work the other way? Can we harness that same maker mentality to take abandoned scientific instrumentation and turn them into tools for education and outreach, or create art through instrumentation?

So I built the Sea Leveler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI6p5QxTDEU

Thank you notes from DonorsChoose Science Bloggers Challenge teachers

March 21, 2013 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Uncategorized

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Last fall, we invited you to support ocean science education in classrooms around the country as part of the DonorsChoose Science Bloggers for Students Challenge. In total, 347 donors to the 2012 Science Bloggers for Students Challenge raised over $29,711 and helped 26,955 students! Team Ocean and Geobloggers, which Southern Fried Science was proudly a part of, raised the most money: $6,894! Team Scientopia Bloggers was a close second with $6,876 raised, and no other team raised over $4,000.

Within Team Ocean and Geobloggers, Southern Fried Science readers raised the 2nd most money, $1,603, and helped 1,903 students! 15 of the projects we supported were fully funded. I’ve been receiving thank-you notes from teachers, along with photos of students utilizing the completed projects. I’d like to share some of them with you.

Watch these giant deep-sea isopods go about their day

March 20, 2013March 20, 2013 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Science

You know the good stuff is going to keep rolling in from my research cruise to Mid-Cayman Spreading Center. At the end of JC82, we had the opportunity to join a bolt-on cruise to explore the seabed around Montserrat. During a biological survey of the surrounding abyssal plain, we twice stumbled on a giant deep-sea isopods hanging out on the sea floor, doing their isopod thing. This was my first opportunity to observe a giant deep-sea isopod (Bathynomus giganteus*) alive and in the wild. My previous experiences have been limited to well preserved specimens.

Giant isopod behavior is not something that falls within my expertise. Like Craig McClain at Deep Sea News, I’m fascinated by the evolution of their large body size and how a relatively abundant population of such giants can be supported in the food limited deep benthos. But giant isopods are not common in my study area and what little I know of their behavior comes from the very few videos available, mostly of them scavenging on baited camera traps. So I was pretty surprised when the ROV Isis came across this delightful giant maintaining its burrow.

httpv://youtu.be/5B2uT_Vp-UY

This isn’t the first time Bathynomus burrowing has been observed; the behavior is actually fairly well documented (at least, well-documented for deep-sea species). But as fascinating as watching a 20+ centimeter-long roly-poly digging it’s hole 800 meters deep on the seafloor near one of the most active volcanoes in the Caribbean is, what we found next was even more amazing: