Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
In this week’s edition of Shark Science Monday, Nick Dulvy, co-chair of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group, discusses how researchers determine the conservation status of shark species. If you have a question for Nick, leave it below and I’ll make sure he sees it.
Introduction
Who are our readers? That is the question we wanted to answer at the beginning of this year. Are you scientists, students, or interested laypeople? Where are you from? What do you like and what don’t you like? Is anybody out there?
So last month we launched a survey to help us find out.
Read More “Reader Survey: Who reads Southern Fried Science?” »
Tomorrow a bill will be introduced into the NC House that allows the use of terminal groins to protect private property along the coast, overturning the 1979 ban on hardened structures along the coast. Although NC would join all of the other eastern seaboard states in allowing such protections, the bill, if passed, would also end a long history of attempting to maintain a natural coastline. This natural coastline is why the Outer Banks have become such a popular tourist destination, bringing millions into the state economy each year.
So why might North Carolina leaders turn their back on historical decisions? This year’s General Assembly is under a new majority – for the first time since 1898, led by Republicans. Rising populations along the coast are using this as an opportunity to demand more permanent solutions to shoreline erosion. Previous strategies of beach restoration, inlet channel realignment, and sandbagging are no longer adequate to coastal property owners. However, though terminal groins may seem like an easy solution, they are not as simple as they seem at first glance. It’s these nuances that make them a really bad idea, both for maritime ecology we’ve worked so hard to protect and for the wallets of North Carolinian taxpayers.
Hark! A noise in the hold like a cough do you Imagine ghosts aboard? Or men, lying in the darkness.
The high seas are a black hole for ocean conservation. They lie beyond the jurisdiction of any single country and are largely open for unregulated exploitation. Even as we begin moving towards a pragmatic high seas conservation framework, we should keep in mind that many territorial waters are still left unprotected and open to illegal … Read More “Weekly dose of TED – Kristina Gjerde: Making law on the high seas” »
According to the National Science Foundation, social scientists might be useful in a multitude of new ways, especially in long-term research. Following on the heels of astronomy and astrophysics, NSF recently sought suggestions for planning the research agenda of social scientists for the next decade. Working on a relatively short time frame, there were three guiding principles for setting this new agenda:
– “big underlying questions” that thus far have been underappreciated
– capacity issues: which stages of the educational process need the most help?
– infrastructure issues, eg. setting up longitudinal surveys on important topics
In response to this challenge, a team at Harvard came up with the “top ten social science research issues“, recently published in Nature. A few of us sitting on the social-ecological divide have noted that there is a distinct lack of environmental issues in the list. In all fairness, the original challenge emphasized that existing research programs would be supported and showcased recent funding for the social aspects of environmental issues as a prime example of ways this research is already headed in a favorable direction. The more optimistic of this bunch note that each of the ten social issues is actually intricately linked with the need for a healthy environment and therefore the environmental link is an underlying grand challenge, if you will.
I have a confession to make. Targeted advertising works. There I was, planning out a long trip to India, thinking, I need some new pants. I get progressively wider with each passing year, and I was not looking forward to flying for 36 hours in a pair of 32-inch pants on a 34-inch waist. And then, like a primal scream from the ether, on the sidebar of The Thoughtful Animal, was an ad for Scott E Vest travel clothes. And, in my shame, I clicked it.
I’ve found that I enjoy certain types of music more when I don’t listen to the words too closely. However, a mild addiction to karaoke and a lifelong inability to “just let it go” has made it impossible for me to avoid knowing the lyrics.
We’ve been known to criticize how science is portrayed in movies and television shows here on Southern Fried Science. Pop music is far from innocent when it comes to scientific misunderstandings, and it seems only fair that I criticize that genre as well. Here are some recent examples that have been driving me crazy.
The wet, temperate understory of a longleaf pine savanna, is not the first place one would thing to search for some of nature’s most fearsome predators. These maritime ecosystems stretch down the Atlantic seaboard, from southern Virginia to northern Georgia, but are most common in North and South Carolina. Boomerang-shaped bays, called Carolina bays, formed behind ancient sand dunes, provide the foundation for these biodiversity rich regions. More than 50 endangered species are native to the Carolina lonfleaf pine savannas, including the Cape Fear Threetoothed land snail and the iconic Red-cockaded Woodpecker, but among the most evocative inhabitants of these pocosin wild-lands are the many-jawed monsters of the the understory – the Venus Flytrap.
Read More “Biodiversity Wednesday: Flesh eaters of the Savanna” »
From the Guardian: Japan has temporarily suspended its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic after anti-whaling activists obstructed its fleet’s mother ship. Officials in Tokyo have conceded that this year’s mission, which had again been the target of international criticism, had not gone as well as hoped and the fleet may be called home early, … Read More “Japan temporarily suspends Antarctic whale hunt” »
