Deep-sea gator falls covered in isopods, more struggles for the Ocean Cleanup, a robot lost in the cold (but not the one you’re thinking of), and more! Monday Morning Salvage: February 18, 2019

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

What do you do if you find yourself at the helm of a major Louisiana marine science institution? If you’re Dr. Craig McClain, you plant the first experimental Alligator falls in the deep Gulf of Mexico!

Photos courtesy Dr. Craig McClain via Deep Sea News.

On the other hand, if you find yourself at the helm of a US Navy destroyer, you might want to review this incredible and exhaustive accounting of the USS Fitzgerald disaster and how training deficits, exhaustion, and poor decision making compounded to create a deadly situation.

USS Fitzgerald. Public domain photo.
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Remembering Walter Munk, a photo on a flash drive in a pile of poo from a seal at the bottom of the sea, lucky vikings, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: February 11, 2019

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Carsten Egevang goes looking for seals in Greenland and finds a photogenic guillemot instead.
This photo of a sealion on a Southland beach was found on a USB stick swallowed by a leopard seal. Credit: unknown
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5000 dives under the sea, plastic nomming fungi, scanning Belize’s Blue Hole, the thawing Northwest Passage, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: December 3, 2018.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

Ignacio R. "Nash" Camacho, a Traditions About Seafaring Islands member, and codesigner of the Chamoru Sakman outrigger replica canoe "Tasi," talks about his creation during a ceremony at the Guam Museum on June 29, 2017.

Ignacio R. “Nash” Camacho, a Traditions About Seafaring Islands member, and codesigner of the Chamoru Sakman outrigger replica canoe “Tasi,” talks about his creation during a ceremony at the Guam Museum on June 29, 2017.

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#JacquesWeek, Lionfish tax, coral that glows, accelerating climate change, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: July 10, 2017

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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#IAmSeaGrant, Octopus Beats Dolphins, Deep-sea Mining, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 29, 2017

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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Parasitic barnacles, a code of conduct for marine conservation, #BillMeetScienceTwitter, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: May 22, 2017.

Fog Horn (A Call to Action)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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

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Debunking Fukushima: Your Radiation Roundup

Fukushima continues to dominate the ocean news cycle, and while no one is denying that it is a real and ongoing tragedy, the woo is strong in the Fukushima fear-mongering community. Fortunately, the scientists are out in force, debunking the bunk and cutting through the crap to keep you informed. Here is a handy collection of detailed links, from trusted source, tackling some of the most egregious pseudoscience coming out of Fukushima.

Southern Fried Science

Deep Sea News

Skeptoid

If you know of any other good articles debunking Fukushima fear-mongering, please leave them in the comments below.

If you feel the need to accuse any of the authors above of being shills for Big Nuclear, The Government, any Secret Board of Shadowy Figures, Tepco, or any combination thereof, I have an experiment for you: This website is ad free and run entirely by volunteers. Head on over the our “Support Southern Fried Science Page” and make a donation help to keep us running. Maybe, if you donate enough, we’ll start shilling for you (disclaimer: we won’t, but we will continue to produce high quality marine science and conservation articles from a diversity of voices).

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Conservation and the Concept of Species in a Biodiversity Crisis (Part 1)

In The Mass Extinction of Scientists Who Study Species, Dr. Craig McClain argues that we are loosing a fundamental unit of biological science – the Taxonomist. He’s right, of course. Taxonomy is a shrinking field. Entire phyla sit, unstudied, as the expertise necessary to understand them retires and expires. With few to train the next generation of taxonomists, the field could slowly vanish. Molecular tools are supplanting traditional taxonomy (once described to me as “the ability to identify hundreds of species of centimeter-long worms by counting ass-hairs under a microscope”) as the de rigueur method for identifying organisms.

I do not disagree with Craig. Losing skilled taxonomists is tragic for the biological sciences. Unlike many leading the charge in support of taxonomy, I did not benefit from a rigorous taxonomic study in my early career. I fall into the same camp as Dr. Holly Bik, relying primarily on molecules, not morphology, to draw the distinctions between my samples. I never identified species by counting the ass-hairs on a worm, and my education is poorer for it.

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