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Charlie 1.0 also senses the presence of a powerful mind nearby. Could it be… strangely buff Einstein?
Science
During the Cretaceous, the oceans were ruled not by sharks or aquatic mammals, but by large, predatory marine reptiles. Among these, the dominant ocean predator was the Mosasaur. Mosasaurs emerged in the Early Cretaceous from a lizard-like ancestral squamate. They thrived in warm, shallow seas. Some species could reach up to 17 meters in length. Like modern marine mammals, they breathed air yet had an entirely aquatic life history. Unlike sea turtles and other modern marine reptiles, they gave birth to live young in the water, instead of building nests on land.
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Charlie 2.0 senses a great disturbance in the force. It’s something he hasn’t felt since…
Popular Culture, Science
Disclaimer: Both the Southern Fried Scientist and I received a media care package from the Discovery Channel containing a t-shirt, an adopt-a-shark packet, and DVDs of two of the premieres. While I still have some criticisms, I wanted to start this review by saying that this year’s Shark Week was a lot better than any from the past few years. Before I review each premiere I need to acknowledge that I watched all of them at their later air times, not when they originally aired. The content of each premiere is the same, but I did not see the same commercials as everyone else, I never saw the Oceana PSA, I saw very few Craig Ferguson interludes, and I don’t know if there were any pop-up ads during the shows. This was an unavoidable inconvenience and hopefully doesn’t bias my review too much.
Read More “Shark Week 2010: A big step in the right direction!” »
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Charlie, WhySharksMatter, and BlueGrassBlueCrab watch Shark Week and are amazed to see how high those Great Whites can jump
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Earlier this year, Andrew, Amy and I wrote a series of posts called “get to know your fry-entist” which expressed our views on science and advocacy. I was happy to see that last week’s Ecological Society of America meeting had an entire symposium dedicated to this important topic. It was entitled “above the din but … Read More “WhySharksMatter interviews Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Should scientists be advocates?” »
Conservation, Science
The problem
Sharks consistently rank near the top of lists of American’s greatest fears. In reality, they have much more to fear from us than we do from them. Because of our actions, many species of sharks are on the verge of extinction. A recent International Union for the Conservation of Nature Shark Specialist Group report shows that fully 1/3 of open-ocean species of sharks are in danger of extinction in the next few decades. Many shark species have had population declines of over 90% in the last few decades.
Read More “Shark Conservation: The problem, the goal, and how to get there” »
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Handy Stand complete, Charlie can now comfortably read Steve Gould’s Magnum Opus – The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.
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Charlie pokes his head through the Handy Stand Standy Hand.