Fog Horn (A Call to Action)
- We Should All Care About Sea Grant. Despite being one of the most bipartisan research programs in the United States, with a huge return on investment for coastal communities and businesses, Sea Grant is under attack from the current administration. Read the latest at Deep Sea News: Pam DiBona: #IAmSeaGrant.
- 27 National Monuments are under review by the Department of the Interior. Our Nation Monuments are our National Treasures. Don’t let them be sold to the highest bidder! Submit formal public comments on the DOI Monument Review and make your voice heard.
Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- Seasteading. Ok, we’re not actually obsessed with Seasteading. What we are obsessed with are the increasingly convoluted proposals to create floating nations at sea (heck, I even wrote a novel or two about that). Fresh from the New Republic: Libertarians Seek a Home on the High Seas.
- Ocean/Policy superstar Miriam Goldstein reminded me that China Mieville wrote an absolutely brutal takedown of the degraded imagination of the libertarian seasteaders several years back.
Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)
- It’s beginning to look a lot like climate change. Record breaking tides overwhelm Hawaii in The Ghost of Climate-Change Future.
- The President of the United States has left the Paris Climate Agreement (but, to be clear, not the US, since states and cities are rallying behind the accords). How are scientists reacting?
- This story about ivory divers searching for ancient tusks is exceptional: Ivory diver of the Bering Sea finds peace, ancient tusks in his underwater workplace.
- The ocean sustains humanity. Humanity treats it with contempt. How to improve the health of the ocean from the Economist.
- New Map Reveals Ships Buried Below San Francisco. There’s something magical about centuries-old shipwrecks. Even mundane ones.
- Danielle Lee named National Geographic Emerging Explorer! Awesome and well-deserved. Congratulations to Dr. Lee!
- How much work is enough work for an early-career scientists with an actual life? Pro-tip: Full time is full enough.
- Seabed mining has no place in a future shaped by the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. A statement from Seas at Risk.
Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)
- Welsh and friends (2017) Alien vs. predator: bacterial challenge alters coral microbiomes unless controlled by Halobacteriovorax predators. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3315.
- Lagos and friends (2017) Do invasive species live faster? Mass-specific metabolic rate depends on growth form and invasion status. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.12913.
- Uyeda and friends (2017) The Evolution of Energetic Scaling across the Vertebrate Tree of Life. DOI: 10.1086/692326.
- Rodgers and friends (2017) Patterns of bleaching and mortality following widespread warming events in 2014 and 2015 at the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, Hawai‘i. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3355.
- Crespo and friends (2017) A review of the impacts of fisheries on open-ocean ecosystems. DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsx084.
- Veríssimo and friends (2017) World without borders—genetic population structure of a highly migratory marine predator, the blue shark (Prionace glauca). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.2987.
Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)
- Might as well do some more reading on seasteading, though always take with a grain of salt and a nod to Mieville. Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians by Joe Quirk.
- Why not grab one of my science fiction books about life on the open ocean after catastrophic climate change? Fleet: An adventure in seasteading and climate change and Prepared: A novella from the end of the world.
Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)
Some of our past writing on seasteading, for your enjoyment.
- When we ate the rich (from our #SciFi month).
- Rockall.
Feel free to share your own Foghorns, Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. And, of as always, if you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to my Patreon campaign to help us keep the servers humming.
