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Charlie squares off against the mighty Kraken!
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Below are the blogs that have joined in on our week long adventure into an Ocean of Pseudoscience, today. Don’t worry, at the end of the week we’ll have an aggregate post linking to everyone who’s participated. There have been tons of great posts from within the Southern Fried Science Network: Bomai Cruz – Cryptic … Read More “Ocean of Pseudoscience Linkfest, Round 5” »
Science
One of the many frequent claims that crop up in both popular and scientific reports about deep-sea hydrothermal vents is that chemosynthetic ecosystems are independent of photosynthetic ecosystems. Even high quality scientific reporting have been guilty of making this claim: “These animals live completely independent of sunlight” (NOAA Ocean Explorer). But are chemosynthetic systems totally … Read More “Ocean of Pseudoscience Shorty – Chemosynthetic ecosystems and independence from the sun” »
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The headlines read: “Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk” So what exactly was this crazy dead thing? Some call it a marketing scheme and no one can deny that it brought attention to the town of Montauk. Others say it might have been a prank by a local filmmaker to bring attention to his movie. … Read More “Ocean of Pseudoscience Shorty – The Montauk Monster” »
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Science can often be complicated, which makes a simple explanation extremely appealing. Sometimes, these simple explanations are correct. Sometimes they are spectacularly wrong.
One of the most complicated areas of science is evolutionary biology. Describing the origin of current species is a lot like putting together an enormous puzzle when most of the pieces are missing. A simple explanation for an evolutionary problem would be very, very appealing. Some people believe they have found one for human evolution, and they call it the “Aquatic Ape Hypothesis”.
Popular Culture
Scylla and Charybdis team up to make passing through the Straight of Messina impossible – to be a safe distance from one meant being too close to the other. They were one of Odysseus’ many challenges during his epic journey. Scylla is a six-headed monster storied to have become that way after poisoning by the jealous wife of Poseidon who captured sailors off their boats and ate them. Charybdis is best described as a whirlpool bringing ships to the bottom of the sea. She was the daughter of Poseidon and converted by Zeus.
Read More “Our favorite sea monsters – Scylla and Charybdis (#2)” »
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There is a place in the Atlantic where ships vanish, where planes fall from the sky, where vast, inexplicable mysteries haunt the sea. The Bermuda Triangle, darling of mysterious disappearance buffs. What causes all these weird disappearances? Numerous hypotheses have been put forward, from aliens to methane bubbles, to magnetic anomalies. Unfortunately, the real answer … Read More “Ocean of Pseudoscience Shorty – The Bermuda Triangle” »
Science
Last weekend, longtime SFS reader Suzy sent me an interesting question. Suzy is Asian, and though she is a committed conservationist, several members of her family regularly eat shark fin soup. One relative just sent her a copy of a news article entitled “Shark Fin Soup: Eat it without guilt” (available here). Suzy asked me if the information in this article is correct, and how she should respond to her family members.
Though it is a few years old, I had never seen this article, and it’s a little shocking. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better example of distorting or ignoring science to promote a political agenda outside of Fox News. In short, Suzy, most of the information in here is either false or intentionally misleading.
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More people have joined in on the Ocean of Pseudoscience week. First, Shark Diver from Underwater Thrills throws down with Shark Pseudoscience – Juicing Tweaked Bulls. Something tells me Bull Shark Testosterone isn’t going to make you cool, but let’s see if our readers can come up with an explanation why. Sheril, from the intersection … Read More “Ocean of Pseudoscience Linkfest, Round 4 and reader challenges” »