Bering Sea | Southern Fried Science

The hunt for Soviet submarines, a 5-foot-long shipworm, the impossibilities of deep-sea mining, and more! Massive Monday Morning Salvage: March 5, 2018.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Subscribe to the Chesapeake Bay Journal (it’s free)! The venerable grey lady of the Bay survived the EPA’s attempt to defund them. Consider sending a few dollars to the journal, too. If you’re filing MD taxes this year, you can earmark some of you return to Chesapeake Bay programs.

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The secret on the ocean floor: the wild, weird origin of the modern deep-sea mining industry, complete with spies, Soviet submarines, and Howard Hughes. How much is real? How much is emergent from this first fake venture? If you only read one thing about deep-sea mining, read this.

We really misled a lot of people and it’s surprising that the story held together for so long”

source.

As biodiversity declines, so does public attention. We need to push back against this trend.
After Centuries of Searching, Scientists Finally Find the Mysterious Giant Shipworm Alive!

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Public Lab was born from the desperate need for unconflicted data during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Since then, they’ve grown into a global movement for citizen science. They just relaunched their world-changing balloon mapping kit on Kickstarter. Get yours now!

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.

Courtesy of Seasteading Institute

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.