Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

• Trump moves toward offshore oil testing in Atlantic and while almost every elected representative up and down the Atlantic seaboard is opposed to allowing offshore oil exploration in our waters, Andy Harris, who represents the Maryland eastern shore from his home in Cockeysville, far from any fisheries (not a lot of crabs on Loch Raven, FYI), still thinks it would be a grand idea to trash Maryland’s coastal economy. 
• Residents of MD 1, call your representative and remind him that he actually represents someone.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

• Start with some optimism: 5 Awe-Inspiring Ocean Discoveries of 2018. 

Jetsam (what we’re reading from around the web)

• This story is frankly delightful. US governmental conservationists really hope that young endangered seals will stop getting eels stuck in their nostrils.

• The skeletons of giant sharks are ridiculous. Full megamouth shark skeleton display in Chiba a world-first. 
• Hydrothermal vents spew out tasty morsels for local marine consumers.
• This week in everything is just eating plastic all the damn time:
  • Deep sea starfish have been eating microplastics for 40 years.
  • New Study Finds Microplastics in Every Species of Sea Turtle on Earth.
• The Riddle of the Roaming Plastics. It is one of the modern world’s biggest mysteries—99 percent of the plastics that enter the ocean are missing.
• Reevaluating the Ocean Conveyer Belt.
• Secretary Zinke is a Monumental Disaster at the Department of the Interior. 
• U.S. Yet to Finalize National Maritime Strategy Addressing Challenges to U.S.-Flag Fleet, GAO Says.
• Bulldozers to soon plow through National Butterfly Center for Trump’s border wall. Pointless destruction from a failing administration. 

Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)

• Adler and friends (2018) The dilemma of pest suppression in the conservation of endangered species. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13262.
• Donohue (2018) The Snail’s Charm. DOI: 10.1086/700960.

Shipping News (academic and ocean policy wonkery)

• Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Neil deGrasse Tyson Reveal the Complexity of Academic Inequality.

“I will also feel angry at Neil. It’s true that some details of these allegations have yet to be corroborated, and both Fox News and National Geographic have launched investigations. But in my view, I believe the claims are credible, which means he directly harmed multiple women, most egregiously by allegedly raping a member of his own already marginalized community. Tchiya Amet is a Black woman who will never join me on the list of African-American Women with PhDs in Physics. She deserved better. Our whole community did.”

 

Prescod-Weinstein (2018) Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Neil deGrasse Tyson Reveal the Complexity of Academic Inequality. Scientific American. December 7, 2018. 

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