Over 15 years of ocean science and conservation online
Since the first Challenger Expedition, deep-sea explorers have recovered shark teeth from the bottom of the ocean. Sharks shed their teeth almost as much as Twitter sheds users after changing its name to the symbol synonymous with closing your browser. Shark teeth crop up in deepwater trawls, geologic samples, and even embedded in the core … Read More “Finding Megalodon at the bottom of the sea” »
Below is a transcript and slides from the above talk, delivered at the October 19, 2023 GOSH Community Call. Good afternoon, good evening, and good morning, and thank you for inviting me. Access to the tools of science is rarely equitable, and nowhere is this inequality of access more pronounced than in the ocean sciences, … Read More “The OpenCTD: Open-source Oceanography for Everyone” »
A new Broadway show based on the making of Jaws, co-written by and starring Robert Shaw’s son, is some of the most fun I’ve had at the theater in years. Wearing my finest elasmo-swag to the theater “Jaws” changed the world, with scientific, cultural, and political impacts that continue to this day. Jaws made the … Read More ““The Shark is Broken” is a Broadway-loving shark scientist’s dream come true” »
The following is the transcript of a talk I gave at DC Nerd Nite on September 16, 2023. Enjoy! I need to begin with a disclaimer: It is impossible to talk about Project Azorian and the Glomar Explorer without sounding like you’ve gone deep into Dale Gribble territory. Azorian has everything a conspiracy theorist could … Read More “The Glomar Explorer: what we can confirm and deny about “vast government conspiracies” from Project Azorian. “ »
Summer 2023 marks an important cultural milestone. That’s right, it has now been ten years since the release of SharkNado, which became a full-blown franchise with six movies, tens of millions in ad revenue and merchandise sales, real-world references in the floor of Congress, and near-universal awareness- all things that are otherwise unheard of for … Read More “Oh Hell No: Ten Years of SharkNado” »
Following a growing problem of mishandling of species of conservation concern, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing some new shark fishing regulations. Here is the text of the letter I sent them supporting some of those proposed regulations, and proposing additional regulations. A dead sand tiger shark washed up on a New York … Read More “My comments on New York’s proposed new shark fishing regulations” »
I created my Twitter account in the spring of 2009. Back then, science blogging was new and we all though that using pseudonyms for anonymity was the pragmatic and cool thing to do. Southern Fried Science had been cooking for over a year at that point, and we were excited about the near-limitless potential of … Read More “An oral history of Ocean Science Twitter” »
OpenCTD and Oceanography for Everyone Ten years ago, Kersey, Russell, and I set of on a quixotic quest to make the tools of ocean science more accessible to more knowledge seekers at a price the reflects the reality of research budgets. The OpenCTD, a low-cost, open-source, oceanographic instrument was born. Since that first ambitious announcement, … Read More “The research rundown: an abbreviated list of my current ocean science, policy, education, and conservation technology efforts.” »
The International Seabed Authority is once again gathered in Kingston, Jamaica to continue negotiations on a set of rules and regulations to govern seafloor mining in the high seas, beyond any nation’s borders. At stake is access to vast fields of polymetallic nodules spread across the abyssal plains. These nodules are rich in nickel and … Read More “One Mining Code to Rule Them All: The poison pill at the heart of the Deep-Sea Mining negotiations.” »
In 2011, the world’s first fishery for sharks was certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council*. The British Columbia spiny dogfish fishery made major news in fisheries management and ocean conservation world, where the possible existence of sustainable shark fisheries has been debated intensely. A few years later, the fishery voluntarily withdrew their certification, and never publicly said why.
I wanted to know what happened with this scientific mystery. So, with the help of Chuck Bangley and Catherine Macdonald and funding support from the Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellowship program, I organized a research expedition to find out. The results of our expedition can be found in our new paper (LINK,) (OPEN ACCESS AUTHOR COPY) but in this blog post, I’d like to explain what we did, what we found, and why we think it’s important.
Read More “New paper: What happened to the world’s first certified sustainable shark fishery?” »
