Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
This audio clip provided by my housemate. You definitely want to listen to the entire clip to get the full effect. Enjoy. Manatees produce a variety of mechanical sounds Original file courtesy of Save the Manatee. ~Southern Fried Scientist
You live on a rural island. You poop. You flush. Does your island have a sewage treatment plant? Is your plant large enough to deal with the influx of tourists that increases the population of your island by an order of magnitude in the summer? Ever stop to look at the metal pipes on your island’s beach to see what was coming out? More than likely, there’s an ocean outfall involved in your island’s wastewater treatment plan. It may only be for overflow, but it’s an option.
What does “ocean outfall” really mean? Well, often it means raw sewage is dumped into the coastal environment that we all love to swim in.
Chapter 15 of Herman Melville’s classic – Moby Dick. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Chowder Cod or clam chowder, these were the choices at the Try Pots, the inn recommended by Peter Coffin at the Spouter-Inn. So Ishmael and Queequeg ordered chowder. First … Read More “Finding Melville’s Whale: Chapter 15 – Chowder” »
Charlie gets inspired to learn himself some music.
This post is a slightly modified transcript of a talk I gave on celestial navigation. As some of you know, I like to build things, and I recently decided to build some classic navigational tools. Of course, in the process of building these instruments, I had to learn how they work. The history of celestial navigation is fascinating and deeply connected to the history of astronomy and mathematics. The original slide show can be found at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!
I’m going to begin with a seemingly simple question, then hopefully give you some basic tools to answer that question. Where are you?
Read More “Sailing by Starlight: the lost art of celestial navigation” »
I apologize for the delay, but due to weekend-long computer trouble and a research trip all day Monday and Tuesday, this week’s Shark Science Monday will have to wait until later in the week.
Charlie sights Polaris through his Latitude Hook
Chapter 14 of Herman Melville’s classic – Moby Dick. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Nantucket At last the two arrive in Nantucket. Nothing but sand and the whalers’ resolve. No timber nor weeds, everything that built this island was brought by men that … Read More “Finding Melville’s Whale: Chapter 14 – Nantucket” »
Latitude Hook complete, Charlie gets ready to test it out.
We recieved several responses to Dave’s post this week on the bizarre “Save the Light Bulb” movement. A movement that seeks to ban energy efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFL) and return to the old, energy expensive, incandescent bulbs. The primary critique is that CFL’s contain mercury, and thus, any environmental benefit is negated by mercury exposure when the bulbs break or are thrown out.
Read More “Compact Fluorescent Lights, Energy, and Mercury” »
